(I hate to defend the crypto space. I don't want the crypto bros to win. I really hope it doesn't come that far and it's the only option left...)
But you're right about the outcome from this. Most people don't know the difference, were only exposed to the post-2015 scams, and just assume all cryptocurrency is a scam.
So why didn't crypto block or ban them from doing these scams using their technology?
Unless you're saying crypto created the problem at this scale and can do nothing to stop the problem it created...?
I think you have a misunderstanding of the technology.
Bitcoin code is open-source. How do you prevent someone from using open-source?
And here we have a neat example of how this site, called "hacker news" of all things, can sometimes take on a absurdly idiotic hive-mind approach to some technology X where brainless hostility combines with laughable ignorance to reject something without knowing the first thing about it, even when the thing is emphatically a practical solution to a widely discussed problem.