So, I’m watching the cold waters of reality hit a lot of new, small investors who piled into Dogecoin at the wrong time — after they heard/read about it in the frenzy.

A couple of questions I have:

What are the ramifications of that reality setting in?

Will those folks feel disillusioned/hurt/sick/pained from their first-time experience with crypto?

If so, will they vow to not return to the space until much later? Or at all?

On the assumption that most of #1 is happening or will happen, what would it take to convince those folks to invest in something actually worthwhile in the same space that caused them pain? Immediate gratification (which is exciting)? Better understanding without overwhelming them (less exciting, but still see some results and build some confidence)?

I wonder if we can’t answer those things without understanding the exact things that spurred their interest.

My view is that it wasn’t about Doge, or a real interest in crypto at large. It was about the quick return that folks saw happening in the Reddit thread with GameStop. In a weird trust game, they paralleled a “safe” stock (in the sense they understand “stocks” and “stock market” and the traditional investing market) with crypto just because it happened to be the same group (WallStreetBets) doing both.

Crazy, I know, but I don’t know how else the general public suddenly had enough trust to invest in something it had never heard about… the player involved was the only constant element.

In any case, does any of this matter right now? Does any part of the public still in have any appetite for really diving into crypto if they just lost big parts of their investment in this drive-by pump experiment?

I suppose we find out soon enough. I”m hopeful … and I suspect … legitimate crypto and blockchain projects understand and are happy knowing they avoided a no-strings-attached one-night stand and can continue on their own long-term success paths with little or no interruption.