Just based on my feeling of all of this, 2017-18 is sort of the analog to the early days of the decentralized tech boom when Apple and IBM/Microsoft started out bringing PCs to market and shunning the mainframe computer model. It was filled with techno-nerds and people who were maybe not-so-technical, but who saw the potential of the tech on a layperson level. Like crypto now, the ups and downs of the companies in this world didn't have much of an effect on the broader markets because it was just too small of a market at that point and the tech wasn't really accessible to the general public yet (even if many could afford it, they didn't have a reason to own one often times).

You didn't really see this blow up until the 90s when the internet came on line and all the dot coms started to pop up. Then everyone suddenly had use-cases for a PC beyond having them be a very expensive typewriter. Even though we've seen a little bit of that dot-com-esque mania in crypto, again, it's been so small that the broader markets have been unfazed by its ups and downs, and other than Steemit IMO, there hasn't been many use-cases for it for the general public other than speculation. It's still only filled with techno-nerds and laypeople like myself who see the potential. In my opinion, the next wave of crypto will likely echo that of the dot com era and it will begin to play a big part in the broader economy at that point. It'll probably crash pretty hard too at some point as people tend to get overly-exhuberent about these things, but that's just part of the game. Who knows? Maybe Steem will be the blockchain that ushers in that era and BTC will be the digital gold that prevents the next crash from hurting too much.