So many cryptocurrency critics giving us the "I told you so" as if bad actors and their centralized entities conducting fraud is somehow the fault of the decentralized Bitcoin protocol.

I keep seeing comments along the lines of "told you crypto is a scam" or "it's time to admit you were wrong about cryptocurrencies," particularly from users with "Buttcoin" in their flairs.

Recent events have nothing to do with the Bitcoin protocol. I mean the whole reason behind Bitcoin's existence is to self-custody and avoid storing funds on a centralized entity. It's not Bitcoin's fault that it was used in a ponzi scheme. Bitconnect used Bitcoin for its own ponzi scheme. Fiat has been used in ponzi schemes God knows how many times throughout its history.

Additionally, Bitcoin got to 20k and ETH to 1.4k in 2017 without any of this whole layers upon layers of leverage and over-collateralized ponzi crap.

An unregulated market attracted bad actors. Takes nothing away from Bitcoin fundamentally.