Nodes verify what wallets spend,
Every transaction, tracked to end.
Consensus reached by machines alone,
On blocks that hold what others own.

Bitcoin's fixed at twenty-one,
Ethereum bends where contracts run.
Stablecoins pegged to dollars tight,
Yet depeg when panic sets tonight.

Miners burned out in China's ban,
Hashrate shifted westward ran.
Now miners depend on renewable power,
Or close their facilities hour by hour.

Mempools swell during congestion days,
Priority goes to whoever pays.
Forked chains create confusion deep,
Reorgs erase what transactions keep.

Cold storage keeps keys offline safe,
Paper burns, hardware grows stale.
Seed phrases lost mean funds disappear,
No customer service brings them near.

NFT markets crashed in '23,
Profile pictures priced wildly high, then free.
Smart contracts execute without appeal,
Once deployed, they cannot heal.

Regulation looms across the globe,
SEC and MiCA make waves roll.
CBDCs threaten decentralization,
While privacy coins face investigation.

Still, the tech remains intact,
Trustless transfers, contracts exact.
Not perfect, not yet mainstream either,
Just evolving past the hype, however.