Nothing stops the industry from being utility based and at the same time a speculative one. In fact, from all indications this industry has been more of a speculative one than utilitarian if we must follow facts as they're. Investors are coming into this space because of what ROI their capital will afford them within a specified or expected time range. Anyone who tells you they're only in this industry purely for its utility and not for the profit isn't being truthful.
And developers seem to be "going on with the flow". They aren't focused on the quality aspect of their project as they've used to do in the past. I remember the early days was all about innovation mainly in the privacy and smart contracts area. Nowadays, it's all about worthless "meme" coins and NFTs with no purpose in life. The vast majority of these coins live within existing Blockchain networks. It's even worse these days because anyone can create a token without any coding knowledge whatsoever. This added convenience is what has made a lot of scams possible.
I sure hope we get to see independent Blockchains focused on utility and quality than anything else. Maybe with "Wall Street" joining the game, developers will start taking things more seriously? It's a crazy world we're living these days, so expect the unexpected.
