I loathe crypto because it tried to argue it was the next great thing in tech without any actual use, and has now backtracked at best to accepting that its a pure electronic creation to be traded for the sake of trading. The pattern of moving goalposts around its existence is unsettling at best and when you uncover the older hacks to manipulate the blockchain part itself? So far hiding assets is the only understandable problem I've seen it solve, and if that's your problem well I'm not terribly sympathetic.

I would actually be really interested if homer wanted to expand on what a smart contract was.
A link outlining a hack related to crypto
Chu, Dennis. “BROKER-DEALERS FOR VIRTUAL CURRENCY: REGULATING CRYPTOCURRENCY WALLETS AND EXCHANGES.” Columbia Law Review, vol. 118, no. 8, 2018, pp. 2323–2360. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26542511 p.(16)

and another
"One of the main flaws with cryptocurrencies can be attributed to the “blockchains” that they are built on. Whenever a new coin is “mined” or sold, it is subject to a review by the community of miners. In other words, whenever a transaction occurs, the other people involved with mining the currency are notified and decide whether the transaction was legitimate or not. This sort of community verification requires 51% of the community to approve a transaction for it to occur" quoted from "51% Attack Explained." Mycryptopedia. January 08, 2019. Accessed March 20, 2019. https://www.mycryptopedia.com/51-percen ... explained/.

and a 3rd one for good measure "Bitcoin Gold Hacked for $18 Million." Bitcoin News. May 24, 2018. Accessed March 20, 2019. https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-gold-h ... 8-million/

For some additional background I have both a low tolerance for risk, and a high threshold (generally) of evidence. On the investing side this usually means sticking to traditional investing principles (low fees and index funds go back to at least the mid 90's). I recognize that this particular combination has certain downsides, but given I don't have stacks of capital to be an angel investor I can live with that. My sentiments against cryptocurrencies though were rooted in the clear pattern of mid 2010's articles hyping in a very standard 'it will revolutionize', but not following through with a clear explanation of what was going to be solved. For some reference this was overlapping with the era when we were being told that Silicon Valley was also going to revolutionize education with MOOCs. We've all seen how well people actually like online education. At least those articles though were clear what was being proposed and sold. As a science generalist I read a wide diversity of secondary and primary sources across many disciplines (math, physics, chem, biology, and economics mostly), and I do not recall any of my range of sources ever jumping in and walking through how the blockchain was an important technology. That isn't 'proof' but it is enough for me to not want to waste time fully researching the topic myself. Particularly after one of my students (who was a huge crypto believer) did his thesis project a couple of years ago (those are his references above). From his abstract
"Then the history of cryptocurrencies’ rise from 2008-2018 is analyzed. This analysis explains why the cryptocurrency market came into being, rose, and fell in such short succession. It describes how the market was exploited through fraudulent practices such as “pump and dump schemes”, hacks, and faulty brokers. These problems with the market are then compared to problems that the U.S. stock market experienced in the 1970’s."

If the blockchain itself is going to be a significant technology going forward that would be interesting and as far as I can tell at the moment it would end up being a rather unique path for a legitimate technology to rise to utility.

Last thought the economics side of crypto are somewhat analogous to gold, which I also loathe as an investment. It is way too useful as a material to use purely as a trade device.