What happened to all those finance bros talking about a revolutionary new currency, free from the restrictions of big daddy government? Or that monkey dude, with his invaluable artistic contributions? Or how it could be a career changer for artists, for reasons or whatever...? (Idk I knew this whole thing was stupid from the start.)
Well, they're still out there. I can tell you from my personal experience that people are still trading crypto. (I have yet to see NFTs come up in my field of work though.) So it's not like it's gone. But it did just kinda stop getting talked about suddenly. What gives?
There was a lot of fraud surrounding cryptocurrency and NFTs that was highly publicized at the end of its run in popular media. But I highly, highly suspect, that there was another large financial reason why the craze suddenly died out that the powers that be don't want to talk about.
In short, a Biden Administration law in November 2021 made it so you have to report cryptocurrency/NFT trades, and get taxed on them.
Then it wasn't cool anymore.
Regulators and lawmakers caught their finance laws up to the craze by creating a broad definition of what is called a digital asset and lumping cryptocurrency and NFTs under the description.
Here's the definition of a digital asset from the IRS website:
For U.S. tax purposes, digital assets are considered property, not currency.
A digital asset is stored electronically and can be bought, sold, owned, transferred or traded.
The tax definition of a digital asset is any digital representation of value recorded on a cryptographically secured, distributed ledger (blockchain) or similar technology (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act).
Cryptocurrencies and NFTs are now treated similarly to stocks for tax purposes and in trade. You buy them low, you sell them high. The difference between the price you bought at and the price you sold at is how much you get taxed on.
And the finance bros didn't like that. I present my evidence:
The date the regulations were introduced. (Note the description, "and for other purposes". Lol)
Compare to the Google Trends graph of the search terms "cryptocurrency" and "NFT":
I rest my case.