You're putting value in the companies dealing with crypto simply because people have put money into the operation. Anytime I see "this is going to be successful because of all this money that backers have put into it", I roll my eyes. Investors are human too. There are plenty of failed investments.

I live in the Houston area. Some heart surgeon decided to chase his childhood dream, bought a plot of land in Texas City (I-45 south of Houston) and got a couple other backers to build a mini amusement park. He bought the land for who-knows how much. He _immediately_ bought some whirly rides. ...and that was it.

It sat like that for more or less 2 years then a metal building went up alongside the rides that have been sitting idle. About a year later a metal fence went up around the property. The waist-high weeds got mowed about every 6 months and it's all sitting idle today. This guy and his marks have surely dumped no small amount of money on it. Dude is a heart surgeon so he's not a complete moron --- he's just not good at project management _at all_. So don't use investment value as a bulletproof metric - and so far almost all of it has been speculative investment. (I'm not aware of any successful cryptocurrency businesses that have turned a profit yet. [and I could be totally wrong here, so plz tell me])

I think the real money to be made in crypto is "selling the shovels". A gold miner could've struck it rich in the California gold rush, but more often than not his costs exceeded his return on investment. The shopkeepers back in town that sold the gear made all the money. I think that's where there's money to be made. Selling hardware and consulting services to miner operations, taking sizable fees for lobbying and marketing efforts, and selling posh real estate to crypto startups.

Ahh so you equate investment with success. Got it.