It'll look that way
But it's mostly that the loudest voices are always the PT Barnum hucksters.
Cryptocurrencies aren't the problem so much as the people, as you point out. The easiest way to steer clear of the sharks is by sticking to the parts of the ecosystem that are entirely part of the cryptocurrencies. The problem is that isn't sexy enough for most crypto-bros and at this point is unlikely to return zillions of dollars without immensely high risk. The transaction fees in a healthy Alt-coin are pretty low, and volatility is still high, so just playing the straight market is risky, and yield is not necessarily going to match the risk or beat other financial instruments.
So why bother? Because most of us are getting screwed hard by the middle men in the financial system, who drain percentages of most transactions for doing almost nothing. The problem is that while the modern Alt-coins CAN do that job cheaper and more efficiently, the drive has been get rich quick speculation, pump and dump schemes, and rug pulls. Worse, very little effort is being spent to break into the point of sale market break the strangle hold the existing companies have on the market. So we are seeing a tiny fraction of the potential "legitimate" market.
Most of the energy of the "Web 3" set is being wasted on pipe dreams or routed into obvious fraud, because that's where they think the Lambo money is, and greed attracts suckers like flies.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
