Elegant post, alanshore. I'm very sympathetic to the spirit of it.

I have long assumed that some of the more toxic trolls are not agents of the coin they purport to represent but rather are agents of other entities, presumably one or more of the entrenched systems you refer to. If they can divide or distract the crypto community they would score it as a win, I imagine. I think that most of the key crypto developers remember the Big Picture issues, no matter how noisy things get from moment to moment.

Crypto is about making a quick buck for some. For others it is a threat to the status quo, a target to be eliminated by any means. It's a jungle, both out there and in here.
At some level I don't care if the eventual winner is Dash (although I'm rooting strongly for it), but I'm sure the eventual winner will be crypto.

Sigh - my first home computer was an Apple II, back when they were the underdog against the monolithic Big Blue. I haven't owned an Apple product since. Power corrupts.