They Killed Napster. Now They are Coming For Crypto
You Don't Fight This Hard Against Something That Doesn't Work
It was the year 2000. I was 16, and my friend Sam and I were sitting in his parents’ basement drinking Coke, eating candy, farting, and downloading music on Napster. Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, anything two 16-year-old boys could think of. We didn’t need the CD, and we didn’t need FM radio. We just listened. Napster had it, and we loved it.
Everyone loved it. Except for Metallica. And the record industry. They really hated Napster. It was great for users and helped small bands gain fame, but it made the record industry bleed money, and large established bands lost record sales.
So the record industry sued Napster and killed the platform. That’s how it goes when you’re centralized.
Is Blockchain the New Napster?
Many people claim blockchain is a solution looking for a problem. Don’t get me wrong, not every crypto project that launched in 2021 had a useful solution. But when there are well over 700 million users, it’s hard to take that claim seriously.
Nobody uses something unless it does something. And if you have doubts, here’s a short list of solutions blockchain has given us that work today.
Bitcoin. A digital bearer asset worth $1.25 trillion. 1
Stablecoins. Send dollars over the blockchain instantly to anyone in the world.
Decentralized Finance. Earn yield on dollars without a bank or money market account.
Blockchain is a solution for millions of people, and this is why the incumbents hate it. Just like they hated Napster.
Why the FUD?
FUD stands for fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Crypto has more than its fair share. Some of it is legitimate, and some of it isn’t.
Let me start with the legitimate reasons first.
Bitcoin and other crypto tokens are notoriously volatile. A 3% dip in one day means absolutely nothing in the crypto world but will rattle the bones of a stock trader. 50% dips and 100% gains, all within a couple of months, happen in crypto.
It makes a lot of people crazy.
Scammers. Blockchain is set up so that once you send your crypto to an address, you can’t take it back. Naturally, scammers love this. You can’t call your bank and get the money back.
This is a legitimate problem the crypto industry hasn’t figured out how to deal with. The problem is not unique to crypto, and the internet as a whole has a problem with it. But crypto attracts it, especially since poor people in third-world countries can easily download a wallet, get on their smartphones, and start messaging people.
Hacks. Hacks do happen. And people have lost their money in these hacks. Groups like North Korea’s Lazarus hackers notoriously target crypto in an attempt to fund their poorly run country.
Finally, there have been many crypto custodians that poorly ran their businesses. FTX famously lost billions of dollars worth of crypto by using its users’ funds to prop up its hedge fund.
But I want to point out that the volatility is also the upside. Bitcoin may dip 50%, but it can also 10x. And there are plenty of legitimate crypto custodians that run their businesses reasonably well, like Coinbase.
But there is a second class of FUD. And I think it’s the one we should pay attention to today.
Manufactured FUD
Remember Napster? They had 80 million users and were the best way to download music. 2 But the music industry killed them because Napster attacked their bottom line.
Did the music industry care that Napster was serving 80 million people with a product they wanted? Not at all.
The music industry ran a piracy panic campaign against them, sued them in court, and got them shut down in 2001. It wasn’t until 2011 that Americans got Spotify. 3
Sure, you could listen to music on iTunes, but you had to use the correct software and do it the way Apple wanted you to. Most of you paid for every single song instead of using a clean subscription service.
So it took over ten years for internet users to get back a comparable service to what Napster offered in 1999.
The same sort of fear campaign is being run by the banks, big finance, and senators like Elizabeth Warren. Yes, crypto has real problems. But the incumbents have done everything they can to kill it.
The SEC tried to sue Ripple for nearly $2 billion and walked away with $50 million. 4
Operation Choke Point 2.0 had banks close the accounts of crypto business owners, businesses, and even buyers for operating in the industry. 5
The SEC accepted Coinbase going public as a company and then, shortly afterward, sued it for selling unregistered securities. 6
Even when the government and financial incumbents don’t try to actively kill it, they just refuse to do their jobs. For crying out loud, we didn’t have stablecoin regulation, the GENIUS Act, until 2025, and Tether came out in 2014. 7
Quite simply, the big players refuse to do their jobs when it comes to crypto because they want to keep it unregulated and scary. Once a financial product is regulated, you can no longer say it’s illegitimate.
Most of all, mainstream financial news publications have constantly villainized it. And the way they do it is by pointing at the problems I listed above. It’s a similar playbook to the one the record industry used on Napster.
Fortunately, crypto is decentralized. The most they can do is slow it down. They can’t kill it.
The next time you hear crypto FUD, do a little digging. Is this authentic FUD? Or did it come from someone who likely received a bailout in 2008?
Final Word
Don’t blindly trust crypto FUD. Most of it is manufactured.
Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. - Victor Hugo
Disclaimer:
The information in this publication is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Always do your own research before making any financial decisions. Cryptocurrency investments carry risk, and past performance is not indicative of future results. I actively invest and trade in the crypto markets, and my personal portfolio and holdings change frequently. Nothing I share should be interpreted as a guarantee of performance or a recommendation to buy or sell any asset.
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/31/napster-twenty-years-music-revolution
https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2011/07/14/137842612/spotify-has-arrived-stateside-heres-what-you-need-to-know
https://www.americanbanker.com/news/sec-ripple-settlement-agreement-drops-fine-to-50-million
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2025/12/02/how-operation-choke-point-20-quietly-debanked-crypto-in-america/
https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023-102
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1582