Preface

At the dawn of cryptocurrencies we had the original Cypherpunk organization consisting of just about 10 members, including Satoshi Nakamoto himself and Hal Finney who received the first transaction.
Once the blockchain and concept of Bitcoin were invented it became open-source and available to everybody. Software scientists could review the code and everybody that wanted could -in theory- interact with the blockchain and participate in it's decentralized, immutable and secure network. Granted, you might have needed some knowhow.
Non the less, the value of cryptocurrencies increased at a certain rate until it became to large to ignore by the mainstream media.

Hypothesis

There is a fundamental difference regarding trust in cryptocurrencies between an early adopter and the general public.

Reasoning

For a very long time cryptocurrencies were living in the shadows of society. From January third 2009 (Bitcoin's Genesis block) till around march 2017 the vast mayority of the world's population had barely heard about it.
The small number of people who did come into contact with it approached the idea with an open mind. Mainly because previous information simply didn't exist for them.
This forced the early adopters to look to themselves to discover the underlying properties of the blockchain behind Bitcoin.To any rational individual many different questions had to be answered regarding security, benefits, merits, the way it works, etc. to come to a conclusion.
They had a strong incentive to research the phenomenon and it's many aspects because it involved making an investment into something one had never heard about before.
The general consensus reached by these groups of people was that the technology and it's principles had merit. This can be measured in the ever-increasing market capitalization bestowed upon Bitcoin. The marketcap on may first 2013 for cryptocurrencies was 1.344.530.000 $. This was when Bitcoin had already seen a massive rise in value. By may first 2016 that became 8.418.000.000 $.

After this period of early adopters we've seen tremendous gains but also giant losses.
An immense number of people came into contact with the phenomenon through the mainstream media and decided to view this as something new with immense potential.
Most of them took just one piece of information with them: the headlines of a few people who became billionaires i.e. the immense increase in valuation over time.
Fueled by a period of ever-increasing volume and marketcap the FOMO (fear-of-missing-out) set in. As a consequence blinded investors decided to jump into the pool.
Until the bubble bursted during January 2018, from which, it still needs to recover to date.
Bubbles pop when the underlying trust within a market reaches a breaking point with respect to the valuation of the asset. It can only tell us one thing: that the general consensus of people was that 20.000 $ or even less then 15.000 $ now, was and is simply to high.

This also makes a lot of sense when you consider that the vast mayority of investors who jumped into the pool failed to understand the underlying merits of their investments.
Early adopters however can STILL fall back onto their own reasoning. They still retain the knowledge and insights that their own independent research produced.
Research which led them to conclude that others would see the benefits and merits of Bitcoin later on, pushing the price higher.The mainstream-media investors however lack this aspect and only jumped on board in the hopes of making quick and considerable returns. The vision of never resorting back to fiat-currency has never crossed their minds. Rendering the entire concept obsolete.

Conclusion

I have observed a massive disconnect between the reasoning of an early adopter and a mainstream-media-investor. They have incredibly different points of view. To this day I have friends coming up to me and saying they bought a cryptocurrency. But when I ask them WHY they bought it, they don't give me a reasonable answer. Basic concepts such as POW, consensus, decentralization are but a minor notion and barely understood once you start hearing them out. One simply NEEDS to understand these principles, otherwise the merits cannot possibly be evaluated. It's rather funny how easy it is to debunk an average person's motivation for investing into cryptocurrencies. I still uphold that it's my duty to remember friends, family, that it is absurd to invest into something that you have no insight or knowledge off. Because eventually, that's what it ALL comes down to! Without people realizing the core merits of a decentralized currency it can never ever be adopted. Besides, a person in such a position cannot possibly withstand the pressure this volatile market puts on them. Leaving him to panic and sell-off.

It's also worth noting that the negative media coverage seems to be extremely persistent in people's minds. Where an early adopter would have considered the positives and the negatives. A large portion of people seems to have already made up their minds, signing crypto off as nothing more then drug-money. Maybe as a result of banks propagating the toxicity of the concept. Even though, it offers the entire continent of Africa an entirely trustworthy payment-system.

What do you think about this theory regarding the psychology of the masses? How much were mainstream-media-investors influenced by the -often not fair- representation of cryptocurrencies?
And how likely is it for a human who has made up his mind to change their attitude towards something?

Let me know what you think, what your insights are!