How should cryptocurrency be regulated?

Does Facebook know something about blockchain that we don’t?

Probably. If there’s one thing we can all agree on about blockchain tech and cryptocurrency, it’s that most people don’t understand them. Facebook, which recently re-organized itself to make blockchain one of its major focuses, clearly has something up its sleeve with regard to crypto. But even if Facebook revealed what it is, users would likely react with a head scratch.

The financial world is already a mystery to many. Add to that a layer of novel technology involving a digital “immutable ledger” that runs on a peer-to-peer network, decoupling the currency from any central authority, and even an interested person will start to resemble the Confused Lady meme.

To those folks, this week must have been especially troubling. It was Blockchain Week in New York City, headlined by CoinDesk’s Consensus Conference. Besides the Lamborghinis on display and the bizarre crypto-inspired stunts, there was clear progress in bridging the world of cryptocurrency with that of real-world finance, including a new suite of investor tools and a new “stablecoin” for jittery crypto investors. HTC even debuted a blockchain-based phone.

But does any of that matter in light of crypto’s Wild West reputation, with shady startups and scams dominating most of the headlines? How should the field be regulated? And what is Facebook’s crypto team up to anyway?

On this week’s MashTalk podcast, Mashable Senior Editor Stan Schroeder and Tech Correspondent Jack Morse give a status report on the state of cryptocurrency and answer some of the fundamental questions around the space around regulation, energy consumption around “mining,” and whether or not all these tokens will be worthless in the end.

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