For example, the beginning of 2024 was marked in the United States by the SEC's** authorization of several major fund managers, including Blackrock, to create ETFs*** linked to cryptos, including a Bitcoin ETF and more recently an Ethereum ETF.

Another reason for the appeal of cryptos is perhaps the abundance of money the world experienced between 2008 and 2022; following the financial crisis of 2008, all the world's central banks injected staggering amounts of money into the economy, in various forms, the best known of which were called QE (for quantitative easing). The ECB's balance sheet quadrupled between 2008 and 2022, while that of the FED increased eightfold! This easily accessible and cheap money has certainly helped speculators to enter the crypto market more easily.

The generational aspect is not to be overlooked either; the under-40 generation is more inclined to buy crypto-intruments, as their way of obtaining information as well as buying and selling financial intruments is very much digital, which fits with the DNA of crypto-assets, where everything is just a click away. Above all, crypto-assets are highly “marketable” assets; their names are often amusing and creative, digital advertising is abundant, countless trading platforms partner with numerous influencers who extol their merits (without complying with regulations on advertising financial products) and many sportsmen and -women, clubs and celebrities launch crypto-intrumens in their name, in order to collect additional licensing revenues.

Finally, one of the key reasons for the success of crypto-assets is that they are independent of governments and banks. Indeed, the bitcoin pioneers and a large proportion of investors in the 2010s were motivated by a distrust of banks, a logical consequence of the 2008 banking crisis in the USA. This libertarian philosophy was combined with a desire to remain independent of governments, with the reasoning “my money belongs to me, and its value should not depend on central bank money printing or government budget shortfalls”. And it is indisputable that a true “fiat” currency is intimately linked to the power of the State, for it is the State which demands that taxes be collected in the currency of its choice, it is the State that prohibits the use of currencies other than its own on its territory through its monopoly of power, and it is the State that re-injects money in the currency of its choice into the economy through its fiscal and monetary policies. There is no currency without power.