“There’s no shortage of reasons to hate cryptocurrencies,” James said this week.

“The combination of rapid price swings, inexcusable energy consumption, and rampant fraud give skeptics plenty of reason to mock the technology.”

Many people are wondering…

Is crypto dead? Is it 100% a fraud? Will there never be another crypto bull market… ever?

James shares his take below.

First things first.

We’re getting close to one of our biggest events of the year. And we want to make sure you don’t miss it.

REMINDER: TOMORROW @ 7:00pm EST

For the first time ever…Jim Rickards, James Altucher, and Ray Blanco are joining forces and inviting readers to leverage their experience… connections… networks…

AND invest alongside them.

This is a brand new opportunity that NONE of our readers have ever seen in the history of our company.

(It’s not stocks, bonds, crypto, or commodities.)

But it’s one that Rickards, Altucher, and Blanco ALL agree is the right move in this economy.

On Thursday, Dec. 1, 7PM EST -- yep, tomorrow -- they’ll reveal everything you need to know.

Grab your free seat right here at this link.

And read on.

The Great DeFi Shakeout of 2022

James Altucher

Unfortunately, with the collapse of FTX earlier this month, skeptics got to take a very public victory lap, at the expense of crypto investors.

These individuals were all-too-happy to get on Twitter, cable news, and print publications with messages that basically amounted to “I told you so.”

I’ve written and spoken a great deal about FTX already…

So I won’t get into detail again here.

In short, if you’re not already familiar, FTX was one of the world's largest crypto exchanges that collapsed this month when it was revealed that they were apparently (and illegally) embezzling funds from customer accounts and using that money to make large wagers in the cryptocurrency market.

For many of those already skeptical about cryptocurrency, the news was the confirmation they needed not to trust the technology.

Pro-crypto investors saw confirmation of their beliefs as well.

If FTX had been a decentralized exchange built on DeFi, the fraud could never have taken place. FTX is just further proof that centralized financial institutions cannot be trusted.

The reality is likely somewhere in the middle.

All new technologies and investment bubbles are subject to fraud and abuse.

The internet is responsible for more fraud than any other technology ever.

The internet birthed the dot-com bubble, where dozens of companies promising impossible returns failed overnight.

When railroads were built, there were plenty of fraudulent companies piggybacking on that trend as well.

So it’s a bit too simplistic to say all cryptocurrency is fraud.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology still has legitimate uses.

Helium, one of our favorite cryptocurrencies, is a perfect example…

Helium is building a next-gen 5G network using hotspots owned and operated by community members.

Anyone, anywhere, can set up a Helium hotspot to provide 5G service to users in the surrounding area.

This technology is only possible because of blockchain.

Other startups have tried and failed in the past to build wifi networks that used local community members to grow.

They failed miserably.

For one thing, community members were not incentivized to set up the hotspots.

This caused the company running it to eventually shut down, bringing the wifi network down with it.

With Helium, there is no central company that needs to exist for the network to thrive. Investors know that they can rely on other community members to carry the project into the future.

Blockchain also simplifies the accounting of the whole equation.

Cryptocurrency acts as a way of reimbursing community members for their contribution to building a network. Sure, a traditional company can issue options to individual contributors for the work that they perform. However, this is a complicated process that is limited by laws and transparency.

Even if these laws did not exist and companies could issue stock options as easily as they can issue cryptocurrency, there would still be a transparency problem.

Contributors to the project would never really know how many shares existed in total compared to what they owned.

A dishonest company could suddenly create new shares in order to reduce the ownership of old shareholders without them even knowing (by the way, this is exactly what happened with Facebook founders Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin).

Blockchain, on the other hand, provides instant transparency into the exact number of tokens.

However, Helium isn’t the only project of its kind. Other projects that allow users to rent hard drive space or graphics card processing will transform the foundations of cloud computing.

Finally, there is the opportunity of DeFi.

I expect - in the not-too-distant future - we’ll have markets that trade in real time for things like CPU processing, hard drive space, and data transmission… the way prices for electricity or commodities trade today.

DeFi has the potential to supercharge these high-potential crypto projects.

Using DeFi, investors and developers will have the opportunity to hedge investments in new data centers and technology infrastructure.

However, this type of radical innovation takes time and engineering effort.

For many people, it's far easier to deceive investors than it is to build something complex.

Which brings us to today.

We’re now at a point in crypto’s development where we are at the cusp of genuine technical innovation.

Within the next few years, we’ll begin to see real use cases enabled by the blockchain that were never possible before.

It’s no wonder that major financial institutions, like Fidelity, BNY Mellon, Blackrock, and Visa have all piled into cryptocurrency projects.

These companies make investments in 3-5 year time horizons, focusing on the long-term rather than the quick payoff.

These institutions have chosen to back cryptocurrency because they believe that as the legitimate use cases for crypto take off, they will be well-positioned to capitalize on the opportunity.

Of course, as users begin to use crypto for things other than gambling, we’ll see legitimate use cases for DeFi expand as well.

We’re focused on playing the long game and making generational wealth by waiting out the current crypto winter.

With new - legitimate - uses for crypto and DeFi fast approaching on the horizon, today’s patience will be rewarded down the line.