I just read Jill Carlson's piece titled Cryptocurrency Is Most Useful for Breaking Laws and Social Constructs in which she makes the case that mainstream adoption is a false measure of success for the cryptocurrency space. That's because the main value proposition of cryptocurrency is censorship resistance and that the slow speed, non-scalability, high cost of use etc. are intentionally sacrificed in exchange for censorship resistance. In a nutshell, cryptocurrency was never intended to go mainstream.
Censorship resistance is something that only the censored who will always be a minority will ever need. There will always be some demand for censorship resistance, which may have to do with vice, criminal activity, circumventing sanctions, escaping humanitarian disasters, online money transfers by the unbanked, or avoiding being censored by criminal government.
Carlson goes even further and says she wouldn't want to live in a world where cryptocurrency has gone mainstream.
That was a very interesting opinion piece. In my opinion, the most important aspect of blockchain is not censorship resistance but trustlessness. I don't trust humans put in charge of other humans, or worse, those who've clawed their way into being in charge of other humans. I want the sacks of shit (=humans) as far as possible from the levers of power. Most politicians or other groups of powerful individuals tend to invoke a feeling of disgust in me that varies from mild to severe. (Epstein was just the tip of the iceberg.)
Instead, I want protocols in charge. The separation of powers, the rule of law, transparency and accountability and rules to prevent conflict of interest are primitive protocols invented to decentralize power. Their execution in the legacy system is, however, fully the responsibility of weak, puny, stupid, short-sighted, fearful, greedy and/or aggressive bags of meat who are slaves to their animal instincts despite all their so-called intelligence and sophistication. The long-term goal should be to replace humans altogether.
(To those who say small "organic" communities where everybody knows everybody are the answer I say that isolated communities like that from Pitcairn to Greenland tend to be those where pedophiles tend to have a field day all day, every day.[1][2])
[1] Long History Of Child Abuse Haunts Island 'Paradise'
[2] Greenland Calls On Denmark to Help Fight Child Sexual Abuse