The biggest ships cost thousands of dollars' worth of in-game currency. Currency aside, they also took massive amounts of effort and coordination from many players to even build them. Trading or buying one was its own metagame, with its own power players and politics.
Large battles could easily destroy five figures' worth of USD, and kill leaderboards would track the dollar values for destroyed ships. Ridiculous amounts of money, really, for a space spreadsheet game - but hey, it's all in-game currency so it's not real, right? With some hustling, some scamming, and some influx of real USD you could always get more and keep the drama going. The investment of time and real money was really to participate in the story and events unfolding.
Anyway, the only way I can make sense of crypto is it's basically the biggest live-action MMO the world has ever seen (and I'd throw NFTs and GME in that category too).
"Welcome to Whose Line Is It Anyway, where everything is made up and the points don't matter!"