Why was there so much of an appetite for altcoins in 2017 and 2021?

I was a Bitcoin maxi during those years so I never got into altcoins

The question is why is the interest gone?

Shit I even remember altcoins having lots of interest in 2014, 2015, etc

>>60626378 (OP)
Because there were more retail buyers, and they're retarded. They'll be back. You can already seem them creeping back into biz

Normies got into crypto searching for quick bucks and never cared about "the tech." So memecoins and other BS became the dominant type of alt (they all heard about SHIB and wanted that). To satisfy this demand, endless memecoins were produced. Normie money got divided between all of those and was lost, or just went into Bitcoin.

It seemed like normies were buying Ethereum and other meaningful alts because the tech would take off and be important, but it was always just about quick gains. People were buying the good coins back in 2021 and 2017 just because the number of alts to choose from was smaller, and there was some belief that fundamentals meant something could be "the next bitcoin." Now with millions of tokens, you can't corral enough people to pump the good alts - even though there's still <1000 good alts to pick from. Because they're happily throw money at memecoins again as soon as the market shows any strength.

Seriously, every normie I've talked to talks about SHIB and memes and usually nothing else.