For more than a decade, the cryptocurrency industry has promised to reinvent money. Permissionless. Trustless. Borderless. Immune to the recurring failures of traditional finance.

Yet, commonly cited estimates of global ownership all languish below 10% — and the proportion actually using crypto for payments and other tangible uses is likely even less. After billions in venture funding, endless meme coins and nonstop media cycles, crypto remains a niche product held by a tiny fraction of the world’s population. The uncomfortable question is whether crypto has delivered anything indispensable to everyday people.

It hasn’t.

Built for speculators, not users

The largest smart-contract network in the world introduced programmable finance and…