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Key Takeaways While the technology is clever, Web3’s culture of crime-funding rails, rule dodging and reckless leverage has eroded public trust.
Founders and institutions must reject the idea that compliance is optional and transparency is negotiable.
Institutions must also ensure people understand what’s going on — plain language summaries that clearly outline what can go wrong, how you make money, how users lose money and who gets paid first in a crisis.
Let’s be blunt: The crypto industry didn’t just “enable innovation.” It also built the fastest payment rails criminals have ever used, normalized jurisdiction‑hopping to dodge basic rules and got high on leverage like it was oxygen.
Prices are up, institutions are circling, and regulators are finally moving — but if we don’t confront the rot, this bull run will just fund the next blow‑up.
Related: The Crypto Market Is Growing, But Serious Risks Still Lie Beneath the Surface. Here’s What Investors Need to Know.
Stop gaslighting the public
Yes, the technology is clever. Yes, there are real experiments worth protecting. But the ledger doesn’t lie: Web3 has repeatedly been the easiest on‑ramp for romance scams and “pig‑butchering,” for laundering hack proceeds and for wash‑trading dressed up as “community growth.” FTX was not a “one‑off bad apple;” it was the most visible outcome of a culture comfortable with opacity, conflicts and offshore theater.
Meanwhile, the public isn’t buying the hype. Roughly 63% of U.S. adults still say using crypto isn’t reliable or safe. Sixty-four percent call investing in it “gambling,” and about half refuse to invest because they’re worried about getting scammed. That’s not a minor brand problem; that’s a mainstream indictment. If your industry can’t convince the median consumer that the product isn’t a rigged casino, adoption will stall — and politicians will run from you.
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