When The New York Times ran what amounted to a "crypto is useless" narrative, Ripple's Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty responded publicly, calling out what he characterized as a misleading portrayal of the entire crypto industry.
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His response has reignited a broader conversation about how legacy media covers digital assets — and whether that coverage reflects the current state of adoption.
Legacy Media's Crypto Blind Spot
The "crypto is useless" framing requires overlooking a significant amount of real-world activity. Cross-border payments now settle in seconds instead of days. Stablecoins move billions in value daily across borders that traditional banking struggles to serve. Onchain identity systems and tokenized treasuries continue to expand. The list of functional use cases grows every quarter.
Critics like Alderoty argue that the NYT's framing isn't really a technical argument — it's a cultural one. Decentralized systems operate without the gatekeepers that institutions like the Times have historically served as. Users participate with their wallets, their code, and their onchain activity, rather than waiting for legacy validation. That dynamic creates tension with organizations whose business models depend on being arbiters of what matters.
The question isn't whether crypto is useful. It's whether legacy institutions are willing to acknowledge utility that doesn't flow through their preferred channels.
Why the CLO, Not the CEO?
It's notable that Ripple's legal chief led this response rather than a marketing executive. Stuart Alderoty has spent years navigating the SEC's prolonged legal battle against Ripple — a fight that itself highlighted how regulatory narratives can shape public perception of innovation. He has firsthand experience with how media framing and regulatory posturing can work in tandem.
When a major newspaper characterizes an entire technology sector as useless, it can create political cover for restrictive policy.
This pattern has historical precedent. Similar dynamics played out with the early internet, file sharing, and encrypted messaging — technologies that were initially dismissed or vilified before achieving mainstream acceptance. The difference now is that crypto builders can respond in real time, on platforms outside legacy media's control.
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The Adoption Data Speaks Louder
Institutional adoption of blockchain technology has accelerated even as mainstream media skepticism persists. Major asset managers are tokenizing funds. Central banks are actively studying distributed ledger technology for their own purposes. Stablecoin transaction volumes now rival some traditional payment networks. By the numbers, "useless" is increasingly difficult to defend as a characterization.
The story the NYT arguably missed is that the most significant crypto developments in 2026 aren't happening on exchanges — they're happening in infrastructure, in onchain governance experiments, and in permissionless financial rails serving populations that traditional banking has left behind. These aren't speculative pitches; they're observable, measurable trends.
Alderoty's public correction serves as a reminder that the gap between the "crypto is useless" narrative and the reality of onchain adoption continues to widen. As that gap grows, maintaining the fiction becomes harder — and the data becomes increasingly difficult for any publication to ignore.
