I think there are a few common misconceptions that make people not understand the real value crypto is bringing to the table.

Many in tech look at crypto, and blockchain specifically as if it is another technicalogical capability they can integrate into their enterprise architecture. From that perspective blockchain in general doesn't really make sense. As cool as the composability of tokens and smart contracts are, that's not a capability only blockchain can deliver (in fact that's not the blockchain at all... that's the standards that have been built on top of it).

Others in tech look at blockchain as a currency to replace traditional currencies issued by governments. A reasonable world view, as that's kind of how it's been sold for a very long time, but it's pretty clear to me at least, that's not really possible. The US Gov is always going to require taxes to be paid for in dollars. The US, EU, China... everyone, they're not going to give up monetary sovereignty.

So what does crypto provide then? In my opinion, the sole thing the blockchain provides, when sufficiently decentralized is digital sovereignty... but more importantly an unlimited amount of digital sovereignties. Opt-in self governing communities that can decide for themselves what's fair. An enforcable user bill of rights that's global in nature. This doesn't replace the real-world sovereign nations, it's like a new layer in the digital world for digital applications. I've personally come to realization that Crypto doesn't really work well in the physical world. But in the digital world, it's proving quite adept...

Technology is still evolving, ETH2 is a huge leap forward... and glad to see it. Personally, I'm still attached to the Avalanche community because I personally think the technology is still superior. But the technology is kind of not the important part. It kind of just needs a minimunm spec, and then it's not important. It's how you treat the users who are using the stuff built on top of the technology. Libertarians were the first to understand that (though i'd argue they fail to understand that need to have a foreign policy, and real world governments are legitimate trading partners that you need to negotiate with. Their insistence on idelogical purity will be their undoing) But crypto is big enough for all kind of communities to crop up, and you can choose to join or not.

That's ultimately the thing, any app you can build in Web 3, you can replicate in Web 2 with a single server. But in Web3, the users can own it, and they can decide for themselves how to govern themselves. That's the value. We live in feudal system, a world dominated by Web 2 companies. Web3 in my opinion is the way we can build a diverse economic ecosystem of free (as in speech, not beer) digital services.

One thing I Think a lot about... today, all people in crypto are dual citizens. They have citizenship in their geogrpahic world, and in the digital world. But there's a future where AI can be pure digital citizens (citizens who have needs, such as compute, and they will trade their AI skills for that compute). I view a lot of the debate around crypto as a debate about foreign policy, and that gets really interesting when it's AI on the other end.... maybe a free AI :D