I sort of disagree with you that cryptocurrency makes people smarter. I think the more appropriate term is that crypto makes forces people to read carefully and understand how it works or you will lose hard earned money and savings you cannot afford to lose. Just like investing in any other things, you also have to be smart (smarter even) when you get into crypto or you will just be handing over your investments to hackers and scammers.
Exactly it forces you to live life in a life or death kind of situation.