> Perhaps Bitcoin as proof-of-work productization was not inevitable (for a while), but once we got there, a lot of things were very much inevitable. Explosion of alternatives like with Litecoin, explosion of expressive features, reaching Turing-completeness with Ethereum, "tokens" once we got to Turing-completeness, and then "unique tokens" aka NFTs (but also colored coins in Bitcoin parlance before that). The cultural influence was less inevitable, massive scam and hype was also not inevitable... but to be fair, likely.
The only way I can get to the "crypto is inevitable" take relies on the scams and fraud as the fundamental drivers. These things don't have any utility otherwise and no reason to exist outside of those.
Scams and fraud are such potent drivers that perhaps it was inevitable, but one could imagine a more competent regulatory regime that nipped this stuff in the bud.
nb: avoiding financial regulations and money laundering are forms of fraud
The only way I can get to the "crypto is inevitable" take relies on the scams and fraud as the fundamental drivers. These things don't have any utility otherwise and no reason to exist outside of those.
Scams and fraud are such potent drivers that perhaps it was inevitable, but one could imagine a more competent regulatory regime that nipped this stuff in the bud.
nb: avoiding financial regulations and money laundering are forms of fraud