Dave, yeah some good points you make there. I too would hate to see the space be taken over by the old financial establishment. But there probably is some validity to the argument that it might act as some reassurance to the wider public (as crazy as that is).

The speculation, and I'm as guilty of that as anybody else, has become a real problem. It not only makes currencies way to volatile, but it takes attention away from the real world utility. I run a business, and although I love cryptos, there is no way I'd want to receive payment in them, it's just too volatile. By the close of business the payments received in the morning could have fallen 30% for example, you'd only be interested if the crypto was instantly and automatically converted to fiat currency, and that begs the question (why bother with it in the first place?) Somehow that needs to be solved. I think mass global adoption for use as everyday currencies would calm down the volatility, but the volatility is what prevents that, it's a catch 22.

Not sure what you can do about the ICOs that are just in it for the money, with no real intention of producing a long lasting real product. I guess just people communicating on social media, about what are and aren't viable projects, and what are just pump coins. Maybe some kind of Crypto ethical standard amongst users to reject these things, as quick bucks aren't worth damaging the whole crypto arena. Something like making it socially unacceptable, like drink driving.

The other problem with the speculation and pumping is like when you've got meme coins getting Billion $+ valuations! When at some point in the future these things correct to fair value and a lot of people get burned, I'm worried that the publicity around that will be very damaging to crypto's reputation as a whole. Also, the same when some of the Ponzi schemes go belly up. Unfortunately, the outcry from the public would probably be that we need more government regulation to stop something like this happening again.

That was an interesting point about being at the mercy of whales and ICO hypers etc. Democratisation of projects tends to lead to inept governance, but some level of community say on projects is probably a good thing. I think free market voting with your wallet, would be a good way to go, while business driven Cryptos will be free to innovate, and incentivised to do so; to keep ahead of the game and provide the best product for the market.

I like the privacy coins for similar reasons that I like crytos per se. Though, I can see your point that this could give the persona that cryptos are something bad and nefarious to the public, and I'd say a tool for government criticism also. For me, It's two fingers to the government and the traditional financial institutions. Two entities that are far more corrupt than you or I could ever be :) But keeping their fat fingers out of the crypto pie is going to be increasingly difficult, and a real chance of decentralisation could be lost, and that would be truly sad. Not least because the public might actually call for it. So I think somehow the speculation needs to be kept in check, otherwise it might lead to the sinking of the whole original ideology of it.