You are right, crypto has nothing to do with currency printing. And yes, the environmental side too is a problem (unless it is produced inline with recycled energy) But governments issuing currency is a relatively recent phenomenon. Historically, people traded de facto currencies and IOUs amongst themselves.
Bitcoin was conceived out of the 2008 financial crisis, as a direct response to big banks being bailed out. It’s literally written in Bitcoin’s Genesis block. The point of Bitcoin has always been to free people from the tyranny of big government AND big capital.
Crypto isn’t that popular in developed countries with functioning monetary systems… untill of course those big institutions fail. I am still quite surprised, this side of Bitcoin is rarely discussed on Lemmy, given how anticapitalist it is.
I get it libertarian, bad. And to some degree, there are a lot of problems there. But the extreme opposite ain’t that rosy either.