No intermediaries. Unlike fiat, virtual currency transactions are conducted directly between two parties, on a peer-to-peer basis, using a decentralized computer network that involves no banks or other intermediaries. Trust in the system is based on digital proof, or the ability of users to access a permanent record of all of the transactions that have taken place.
Table 2. T-test p-values (for each period band of each cryptocurrency / metric pair).

But to understand the dynamic that led to this year’s depressing year for crypto, we actually should start a few years before 2018. In bitcoin’s early days, Mt. Gox was the go-to service for handling transactions. Then, in 2014, it halted transactions and slowly copped to a crypto-hack to the tune of $473 million, the biggest hack of its kind at the time, and it gave many people pause. But it was still early enough for people to believe that the blockchain system was still getting all the technical kinks out.
Although it’s theoretically possible for a new blockchain copy’s previously unverified transactions to be entirely fee-free, this almost never happens in practice.