I do think you see what you want to see and the more you know the more you can see. This may be an obvious statement to make, but it is relevant to crypto as it is viewed in many different ways. Most have no clue besides looking to make quick profit, but there is far more going on long term.
When I first got involved in Crypto I realised that certain projects represented certain parts of the industry like Waltonchain (basically dead now) being logistics. Names like Neo, Verge or Tron on the other hand I had no clue how they fitted in and were just names of various projects. To be honest I still don't really know what their specialty is and if they even have any. There are too many crypto projects to know what each one does so you have to specialise and know exactly what each project is doing which is like a full time job if you are involved in too many. The saying less is more and more is less comes to mind with regard to knowledge of each project. Having 10 or more would only mean you know far less than you should by only having 5 or 6.
Today which is nearly 5 years later I see Crypto projects as fledgling businesses still in their building phase. This in many ways are the new Apples or Amazons being created ,but still early days. Blockchain is disruptive technology that is only going to get bigger and bigger out of necessity.
Each Crypto project has a core team plus a development team behind them (Hive is different as it is decentralised) which means there are salaries that need to be paid. If a token has no or little value then money has to come from somewhere as you cannot keep selling tokens to cover your running costs. These are businesses and don't run on thin air. The sooner they have adoptions the better as this needs to generate much needed income which also turns into value for the eco system and token price.
As I mentioned a proper use case like COTI has with it's payment processing using crypto. The service generates income to cover the teams expenses plus adopting the token for payment.
Every business in the world will be using blockchain at some point whether they like the idea or not as that is where the future is heading. This is different however to other businesses as if you want to use the facilities you will need to purchase stake as in the tokens of that particular blockchain/business.
If we look at a blockchain like Hive you need Resource Credits in order to use the facilities. This will require some form of investment and the size of that investment will be determined on what you need to do on the blockchain.
Every single Crypto has to be seen as it's own business having it's own identity offering a different type of service or having a niche others don't. This is how they are going to get the bigger corporations investing wanting to use what they have on offer. This is where adoption happens and why it is important to choose your crypto projects you invest in wisely.
My way of thinking has lead me to believe that those crypto blockchains offering a service are the ones that are going to be in demand. This tells me we are nowhere near the adoption phase yet and possibly only in the next crypto cycle after this one will this start being more obvious.
Crypto is hard enough working out what the use cases are let alone seeing where the crypto project is heading through development. Adoptions are the only real indicators we have right now with businesses teaming up with certain projects due to the service they offer. This is why paying attention and researching is becoming more paramount than ever as the value of some of these projects will sky rocket and they will not be pumps either.