To view cryptocurrency as a mere get-rich-quick scheme is to watch a tidal wave approach and only notice the foam on its crest. The real phenomenon is not the speculative frenzy, which is merely the chaotic price discovery of a revolutionary idea. The true, underlying shift is the formal codification of trust and the invention of verifiable digital scarcity in a world previously defined by infinite duplication. It's a fundamental challenge to the very idea that value must be issued and guaranteed by a central authority, proposing instead that enduring worth can emerge from a consensus of strangers, anchored by nothing more—and nothing less—than immutable mathematics.