You think blockchain is a scam simply because your bank card still works.
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You think blockchain is a scam simply because your bank card still works.
I’m asking you to do something simpler—and harder: update your cognitive model.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy Vitto Rivabella, AI Engineer at the Ethereum Foundation
Translated by Chopper, Foresight News
I’ve worked in the blockchain industry for many years—and there’s something I need to confess: Every time someone at a dinner in Milan or Berlin says, “Cryptocurrency is just a casino,” I politely nod, change the subject, and carry on with my meal.
I stopped arguing long ago.
Not because they’re right—but because making my case would require them to imagine a life they’ve never lived, and that’s hard to do over wine and appetizers.
But I’m tired of this polite fiction. The gap between what the smartest people I know in Europe say—and what I see on the ground in Lagos, Buenos Aires, and Nairobi—has grown so wide that staying silent now feels irresponsible.
So here’s what I’ve kept bottled up. Not marketing copy. Not a whitepaper summary. Just what goes through my mind when you tell me, “Blockchain is just a solution looking for a problem.”
You’re right that you don’t need it. But you’re wrong if you claim nobody needs it.
One Dinner Changed How I Talk About This
About three years ago, I attended a conference in Lisbon—the kind where people from forty countries sit in the same room pretending they’re all talking about the same thing. One of my colleagues—I’ll call him Emeka—worked at a cryptocurrency exchange operating across twenty African countries. He’s Nigerian, based in Lagos, and among the most grounded people I’ve met in this hyperactive industry.
After a panel discussion, we joined a group for dinner. A fintech founder from Amsterdam repeated the usual line: “I just don’t see what problems crypto solves that banks can’t.”
Emeka put down his fork.
He wasn’t angry. Didn’t roll his eyes. Just said calmly: “Last year, my cousin in Port Harcourt wanted to send money to our aunt in Cameroon. It took six days. Fees were nearly 10%. His bank froze the transfer twice for compliance checks. My aunt is 73. She has no bank account. She walks 40 minutes to the nearest Western Union agent. By the time the money arrived, she’d already borrowed from neighbors to buy medicine.”
He paused.
“She doesn’t know what blockchain is—and she doesn’t care. But that system you say works fine? It doesn’t work for her at all.”
The table went quiet—not because Emeka was dramatic, but because he wasn’t dramatic at all.
This is a point I keep returning to: Those who loudly declare crypto a scam almost always benefit from a system that works well for them—their banks function, their currency is stable, governments don’t freeze accounts arbitrarily, salaries arrive on time, and next month’s groceries cost about the same as this month’s.
But most people on this planet don’t live like that. Unless you grasp that, you’ll never understand blockchain’s real significance.
The Privilege You Can’t See
There’s one number that should completely reframe how you think about this conversation.
Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s highest remittance costs. The average fee to send $200 is nearly 8%. That means a family receiving $200 from overseas relatives loses roughly $16 before the money even arrives. On some corridors, fees exceed 10%, and transfers take several days.
Think about it: Nigeria alone received around $19.5 billion in remittances in 2023—8% of which flowed straight into intermediaries’ pockets. This isn’t rounding error. It’s a system extracting billions annually from some of the world’s poorest families. And most Europeans consider that system to be “working fine”—because it works for them.
When you transfer money from your German bank account to an Italian one, it arrives the same day, nearly free of charge—and you barely think about it. That experience isn’t universal. It’s a geographic and infrastructural accident. It’s an invisible privilege so deeply embedded that you mistake it for how the world works.
But that’s not how the world works.
In 2021, Nigeria’s Central Bank banned commercial banks from processing any cryptocurrency transactions. They froze accounts, cut off exchange channels, tried to kill it outright.
It didn’t work.
Nigerians didn’t stop. They moved to Telegram, conducted peer-to-peer trades over WhatsApp groups, met local agents in person, and exchanged cash for USDT—the dollar-pegged stablecoin. Demand was so urgent, so tied to daily survival, that government bans couldn’t even slow it down. Students, freelancers, small merchants—they built an underground stablecoin economy because not doing so meant watching their savings evaporate.
By 2024, Nigeria had become the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency economy by trading volume—85% of which involved transactions under $1 million. That means ordinary people—not Wall Street speculators—are driving crypto adoption.
The government eventually lifted the ban—not because its ideology changed, but because it realized it could no longer monitor or control a permissionless financial system citizens had built themselves.
Now I want you to try something: Go to a dinner in Lagos and tell someone crypto is a casino. See what happens.
The Side You’ve Never Considered
When people in Europe or North America hear “cryptocurrency,” they picture Bitcoin price charts, someone spamming rocket emojis in a Discord group to pump meme coins, the FTX collapse, speculation.
They’re not entirely wrong. Speculation exists. Scams exist. Many people lost money investing in things they didn’t understand.
But reducing blockchain to speculation is like reducing the internet to spam. It’s partly true—and it misses everything that actually matters.
Here are things most people in wealthy nations have never needed to consider.
What Happens When Your Currency Collapses
In April 2024, when Javier Milei assumed Argentina’s presidency, annual inflation stood at roughly 200%. Imagine your grocery budget doubling in a year. Imagine your savings halving while you sleep.
Argentinians didn’t sit down to debate the philosophical merits of decentralization. They bought stablecoins. According to Chainalysis, Argentina is Latin America’s second-largest crypto market, with ~$94 billion in trading volume. Over half of all purchases made with Argentine pesos on exchanges went to stablecoins—not Bitcoin, not Ethereum, but digital dollars. Because what they need isn’t a speculative asset. They need money that will still be money tomorrow.
Three-quarters of Argentinian workers paid in crypto choose stablecoins—not because they’re crypto enthusiasts, but because they need to eat next month.
In Venezuela, it’s even more extreme. As reported by The New York Times, President Nicolás Maduro has effectively shifted the national economy onto stablecoins. Venezuelans even gave them a name: “Binance Dollars.” When your national currency loses 80% of its value in a year and inflation nears 500%, you don’t need a whitepaper to explain why a digital token pegged to the U.S. dollar makes sense. You just need a smartphone and five minutes.
Small merchants accept stablecoin payments for goods and services. Freelancers receive international client payments via blockchain. Families use stablecoins to receive remittances from overseas relatives. In some communities, stablecoins function as a parallel financial system—rent, groceries, transport—all settled through digital wallets.
This isn’t hype-driven adoption. It’s survival-driven adoption.
What Happens When Your Government Freezes Your Funds
Remember Emeka’s story about the bank freezing his cousin’s transfer? That’s not an outlier. In Nigeria, roughly one-third of adults—33 million people—have zero access to formal financial services: no bank accounts, no credit cards, no savings instruments that preserve value.
And for those who *do* have bank accounts, capital controls make accessing dollars through official channels nearly impossible. The gap between official and black-market exchange rates can be enormous. Early in 2024, as the naira hit historic lows, Nigeria’s quarterly stablecoin trading volume approached $3 billion. People weren’t gambling. They were fleeing a burning building.
Mercy Corps Ventures ran a simple pilot in Kenya: paying freelancers in stablecoins instead of traditional remittance channels. Fees dropped from 29% to 2%. Freelancers saved more—and got paid faster—even without bank accounts.
I hope that number lands with you. 29% to 2% isn’t incremental improvement. It’s the difference between a system designed to extract value from those least able to afford loss—and a system that actually works.
What Scale Looks Like
Stablecoins currently represent ~43% of all cryptocurrency transaction volume in sub-Saharan Africa. In Nigeria specifically, on Yellow Card—one of Africa’s largest crypto exchanges—USDT accounts for nearly 89% of trading activity. Seventy percent of users hold stablecoins for personal needs: remittances and savings—not trading.
In Latin America, 61% of crypto users are under 34, and their primary uses are identical: preserving value, cross-border transfers, survival.
In 2024, global stablecoin transfer volume reached $27.6 trillion—exceeding the combined transaction volumes of Visa and Mastercard. Not because of speculation. Because of utility.
When someone in Amsterdam tells me blockchain doesn’t solve real problems, I think of these numbers—and one thought fills my head: You simply don’t know, because you’ve never needed to.
Two Worlds
I’ve seen this pattern again and again in this industry—and once you notice it, it’s deeply ironic.
In wealthy nations, blockchain discussions are philosophical: Is it decentralized enough? Is the tech elegant? Has it received regulatory approval? Is it a security or a commodity? People write long-form essays, debate on panels, adopt a vaguely evidence-based skepticism—and feel intellectually sophisticated for it.
In developing countries, blockchain discussions are pragmatic: How do I convert my pesos before they depreciate further? Which platform lets me send money to my mom for the lowest fee? Can I pay my supplier in USDT to avoid losing profit to exchange-rate volatility?
Do you see the difference?
In one world, blockchain is a topic. In another, it’s a tool.
And those using it as a tool—the Lagos shop owner holding working capital in digital dollars as the naira plummets; the Nairobi freelancer receiving USDC and converting it to M-Pesa within minutes; the Caracas family receiving remittances that would otherwise lose 25% to traditional channels—these people don’t doubt whether blockchain has value.
They know it does—because they use it every day.
Emeka said one more thing at that Lisbon dinner that’s stayed with me: “In Nigeria, people don’t care about cryptocurrency. They care about what cryptocurrency *does*.”
That distinction is everything.
People in Lagos, Buenos Aires, and Nairobi aren’t believers in some technology. They’re not picking teams or joining circles. They found something that solves problems governments and banks either can’t—or won’t—solve. And they used it. Not because someone convinced them—but because they needed to survive.
And for wealthy-nation skeptics who believe they’ve seen through the hype, here’s the uncomfortable truth: The behavior you dismiss as speculation is, in fact, the most rational economic act on the planet. When your currency is collapsing, swapping into a dollar-pegged digital asset isn’t gambling—it’s the only rational choice.
The Objection You’re About to Raise
I know what you’re thinking—because I’ve heard it a hundred times.
“Okay, but what about scams? Rug pulls? People losing their life savings to meme coins promoted by influencers?”
Absolutely true. All real. All terrible.
But here’s the issue: Bad actors exploiting a technology isn’t a reason to reject the technology itself. It’s a reason to support better regulation, better education, better infrastructure. People commit email fraud—but no one proposes abolishing email. People get robbed at ATMs—but no one proposes abolishing banks.
The existence of scams in crypto is real—and important. The industry must take it far more seriously. But using scams as grounds to dismiss the entire technology is intellectual laziness. It’s a way to feel clever without doing the work.
And who pays the highest price for that laziness? Not you—you live in a stable country with functioning banks. The ones paying the price are people in Lagos, Caracas, and Buenos Aires—people who could benefit from better infrastructure, smarter regulation, and greater institutional support for tools they’re already using—but who are dismissed by those who shape global policy.
Your skepticism has a cost—and others are paying it.
What You Can Actually Do
I’m not asking you to buy crypto. Not asking you to become a blockchain evangelist. Not asking you to change your investment strategy—or replace your profile picture with laser eyes.
I’m asking you to do something simpler—and harder: Update your mental model.
Stop conflating speculation with utility. When you hear “cryptocurrency,” stop automatically picturing candlestick charts. The most important thing happening in blockchain today isn’t Bitcoin’s price—it’s the Nairobi freelancer receiving wages in seconds instead of weeks; it’s the Nigerian family preserving savings in digital dollars while the naira loses a third of its value; it’s the Venezuelan shopkeeper accepting stablecoins because their national currency has failed. Yes, the speculative layer exists—it’s loud, it dominates headlines—but beneath it lies an infrastructure layer quietly becoming an essential financial pipe for billions.
Talk to people who actually use it—not New York crypto traders, not people trying to sell you tokens. Talk to people from Nigeria, Argentina, Kenya, or Venezuela. Ask them what stablecoins mean to them. Ask how they lived before. You’ll hear stories that make your “crypto is a scam” stance look narrow—and awkward. If you don’t know anyone from those countries, read Chainalysis’ Geography of Crypto report. It will change how you see this.
Acknowledge your privilege. Next time you open your banking app and complete a free, three-second transfer—notice it. Recognize you live in a world where this is possible—and that for one-third of humanity, it isn’t. Then ask yourself: Is your view of blockchain shaped more by lives you’ve never had to live than by things you truly understand?
Push for better regulation—not dismissal. If you genuinely care about scams, rug pulls, and harmed people, the answer isn’t “ban it” or “ignore it.” It’s intelligent, proportionate regulation that makes the technology safer for those who need it most. Europe’s MiCA framework is a start—but regulation written by people who think blockchain is a scam will protect incumbents, not users.
A Window
Let me tell you what happened after that Lisbon dinner.
Emeka and I talked for two more hours in the hotel bar. He told me about his mother in Abuja. She’s 67. Doesn’t know what blockchain is—but receives money from her son in USDT, exchanging it via a mobile app taught to her by people at her church.
She used to receive money via Western Union—waiting days, paying nearly 10% in fees. Now it arrives in minutes, nearly free. She has no idea she’s using blockchain—she just knows the money arrives faster and she keeps more of it.
Then Emeka said something that stuck with me.
“You know what she calls it? She calls it ‘the new way.’ That’s it—not crypto, not blockchain—just ‘the new way.’ Because for her, the old way didn’t work. Now there’s this.”
I keep coming back to that phrase: “the new way.” No ideology. No tribal affiliation. No portfolio. Just something that didn’t work before—and now does.
What I need you to understand is: We’re in a window—a moment when people still remember what the old way tasted like. People like Emeka’s mother spent decades in a financial system that charged exorbitant fees and delivered poor service; Argentinians remember that 200% inflation isn’t a textbook figure—it’s why their children couldn’t afford tuition; Venezuelans watched their life savings vanish, repeatedly, generation after generation.
These people found a useful tool—not perfect, not risk-free—but one that did something no other tool ever did for them: gave them access to stable money, borderless transfers, and participation in finance without being exploited.
And when they build full lives on this technology—paying rent, saving for children, sending money to aging parents—you’re calling it a casino at a dinner in Berlin.
I get it. Truly. From your vantage point, it looks like noise.
But from theirs? It looks like the first fair deal they’ve ever gotten.
The question was never whether blockchain works—billions have already answered that. The real question is: Will those with the most influence, the most wealth, and the loudest voices help make it better—or continue ignoring a revolution they’ve never needed, simply because they were born with too much privilege?
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