The banks are in on it this time. You can buy crypto on Fidelity, starting with as little as $1. Whether that's better or worse than buying SP500 or QQQ or Tbills on their platform is for you to decide. So pay your taxes on $10 million, you'll still have 5 left.
So, the question one has to ask is, why aren't banks and "serious" institutions now behind bitcoin? If it is a scam/fad/etc?
The story of Cryptocurrencies reminds me a bit of Linux: "it was a cancer to society" until it was not. And now everyone is adopting it and corps have fucked it with their "open core" offerings.
I myself think that the use case of "trustless store and transfer of value" has a LOT of more attraction to what detractors see.
BTC was "advertised" as either the money of the future, which it is not, or an investment instrument that allows you to bypass government restrictions, which again, it is not, at least not for the common folks.
At this point, it's just a very volatile investment/speculation instrument.
> BTC was "advertised" as either the money of the future, which it is not
You keep casually dismissing it as money. Give it about 2 years and you’ll realize you were incredibly wrong about this take. Between country adoption, lightning, infrastructure, integrations - bitcoin is already there now but it will become undeniable in roughly 2 years time.