[iKevinShah]

> the in-crowd seem to get it, seem to understand it.

absolutely not speaking of anyone on HN (where people seem more learned and aware) but most of those who 'seem to understand it' on Twitter / Reddit etc. are just folks who have put in their money after reading fancy terms and want to 'pump' a given coin. So that they can validate their investments to themselves.

This is just my personal opinion so there's that. I have been wrong about lots of things, could be about this as well :)

[jmathai]

I have some rudimentary knowledge of crypto. I think better than most.

I don't understand some of the more complicated concepts like DeFi and flash loans. I mean I could explain some of it but I didn't actually understand it.

That being said, I decided to learn more and got some of that knowledge from Twitter. It's a terrible place to learn because the education is laced with propaganda and it's very difficult to tease out. Something about it makes you put down guards that you otherwise have.

I stopped using Twitter for other reasons and something really interesting happened. It felt like I was coming out of hypnosis. My optimism towards crypto began to fade - probably because outside of crypto circles the general sentiment is that it's a scam.

A broken clock is right 2x a day and it's important to remember you're likely no smarter or dumber because you bought or avoided crypto.