Though in the spirit of accuracy, not like cryptocurrency either.
There was a nearly 20 year period, from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s, where 8-track tapes were an option, and for much of that, the option for portable recorded music in automobiles, until displaced first by the compact cassette tape (introduced at about the same time, but lagging 8-track through the early-to-mid 1980s), and later the CDROM. The lifespan of 8-track in automobile sound systems isn't much different from that of the CDROM, roughly 1990--2010, when it was in turn supersceded by iPod and iPhone connections.
Similarly, LaserDisc (not LaserDisk or Laser Disk as we've both been writing) afforded tremendously superior video and audio quality as compared with VHS or BetaMax video tape. It also had a considerable lifetime, from its introduction in 1978 through the mid-1990s, ultimately being replaced by the DVD after its introduction in 1995.
Again: both formats provided useful function at the time and were not simply vehicles for fraud and crime as cryptocurrency overwhelmingly seems to be. Yes, both suffered from technical and/or market limitations, but that doesn't negate the actual utility delivered.
I've used all the technologies listed save cryptocurrencies.
Incidentally, is there any ranking, ordering, or classification of technologies you'd apply or derive from this? E.g., what unites and/or divides trains, 8-track, LaserDisc, and/or cryptocurrencies, or other technologies you'd care to add?
(Something of a side interest, but you're getting close to it.)
On survivorship: technology often functions as Wittgenstein's Ladder. Even failed branches are often critical in arriving at successful ones.
Magnetic tape and LaserDisc both informed subsequent / parallel storage technologies: digital tape, spinning rust, and optical storage (CD, DVD, BluRay, etc.), as well as they hybrid magneto-optical format (somewhat dead now, but significant at the time).
