>Challenge: explain to a normie that their life savings is gone forever because of a zero initialization vector.
You mistook a currency for an investment opportunity, and gambled your life savings on one thing. Currencies have always and will always fluctuate against each other. Diversify your investments.
I don't think that helps. Saying "5% of your money is gone because a developer fucked up, and you have no recourse." isn't going to go down well with anyone.
I mean, saying "5% of your money is gone because a company in your index fund went bankrupt, and you have no recourse" is no different. And things happen like that all the time. It's why all normal financial investments come with very explicit upfront warnings that they're not guaranteed.
The issue is treating a currency as an investment is just...foolhardy from the get got. Just don't do that. It's silly. People saw the value of it go up - or start to have any in the first place really - and saw a "get rich quick scheme" where there wasn't one. It was the brith of a digital currency, nothing more.
If a currency crashes, not only does that 'really matter' for most regular people who will have some material savings in that currency, it also creates really terrible problems for everyone using the currency.
The value of a currency is in it's integrity over time.
It doesn't have to maintain perfect pricing parity etc. however, it must not just vanish and fall apart.
We can see this with USD and Seigneurage with the Petrollar.
People hold USDs not because they think 'it'll be worth more' but rather, they'll be valuable in the future, because USA won't crash and fall apart.
This crypto stuff is mostly stupidity with bad economics all the way down.
You mistook a currency for an investment opportunity, and gambled your life savings on one thing. Currencies have always and will always fluctuate against each other. Diversify your investments.