Crypto to me reads increasingly like classical finance as time goes by. The parallel here is that banks lobby against new regulation, then once the regulation exists as a moat, they lobby to keep the regulation.

I'm sure the 100M fine didn't feel great but unless it bankrupts the company I doubt that BlockFi would want to go backwards now. For the low price of 100M they now have a map of how to legally do business in the space, in a way that is now much scarier to any would be new entrants.

At its most optimistic I think crypto is trying to avoid some of these regulatory rube goldberg value extraction machines. Maybe it will in some spots, but you can see too where it may also just reinvent them.