I have no real philosophical or financial -besides a few BTC bought years ago- stake in crypto's success or demise, but it seems that there is an unsolvable marketing problem in this space: how to nudge considerable behavioral changes needed to move a critical mass of retail investors/users from traditional banking/finance to "defi".

This kind of shift is more like a social movement but VCs don't fund education and organizing (hallmarks of societal shifts), they fund growth (if not for a single company then for a sector).

So crypto should really be more hobbyist than mainstream right now (which is what I think I hear crypto enthusiasts screaming about amidst all the fallout).

But the current reality shows us that crypto-as-a-hobby market would not be big enough to realize the crypto-as-a-new-paradigm vision, hence the celeb endorsements and positioning value propositions against centralized banking features to raise the money/interest needed to build out the vision.

It's the standard startup journey, except that marketing for growth/adoption naturally places the business at odds with the ideals of the technology.

Just my two cents!