I first learned about blockchain years ago talking to some middle eastern clients who had implemented something with it. After looking at the technology from a data & software engineering pov, I thought it was basically useless and incredibly niche. I said as much, but they didnt believe me; they also thought ML was where you "fed data to a machine and it did everything" because that's what some lecturer had told them.

For years I was mostly just confused that "crypto" was anything at all, and latterly it seemed pretty clearly insane. The pitch to replace governement-back currencies with deflationary tokens clearly a fever dream of some political moron. Then it became very clear that it was just a scam: the dream was the hook. And "tokens" fit the collectables mould, in which assets with only ephemeral value to collectors boom in speculative bubbles.

Two years ago a friend wanted to get into the industry, and I said that soon it'll be a black mark on a CV and everyone will be hiding it.

What is interesting is that amongst professional finance much of this has been apparent the whole time. I've spoken to senior people in UK banking and they've confirmed as much. And as much is clear by reading the FT.

What is interesting is how much "elite tech" has captured the elite and silenced professional finance. The Economist article cited above, for example (and on HN the other day), was absurdly pro-crypto giving the scam-sales-pitch verbatim.

Some documentary is no doubt in the works on this, and I can see an Adam-Curtis style one on "how silicon valley beat the financial elites and captured the political imagination of a generation"