The wiki entry covers some disparate topics but serves as a broad brush pointer to the massively growing gdp share of the financial industry. It is a proxy for the number of redundant financial transactions (where bits are simply shifted around in zero sum re-allocation games for which intermediaries get a cut) to actual economic transactions where something "real" happens.

There is obviously a bit of subjectivity in defining "real" and "useful". There is also an intermediate gray area of so-called risk management (derivatives, securitisation etc) which can easily mutate from useful to disastrous depending on the quality of regulation.

But when I look at the crypto universe (from the ICO era till today) I have no doubt what it resembles...