I like hearing takes on this, its a pretty fascinating topic, as is anything that causes people to suspend reason when greed and all those other base emotions and drives come into play.

My thoughts haven't really changed. I have worked in an area that could be called financial regulation. A constant arms-race type deal, the people with the algo-creating skills trying to write checks to catch all the crooks who have their own algos doing fraud and front-running and all the known manipulations. That despite the best efforts of the 'cops', still has uncountable billions of dollars in crime happening. Probably with payoffs to the cops to look the other way, human nature being what it is. Alright.. so thats the regulated financial industry.

So take crypto, that 'dream' of unregulated free-for-all. Any financial industry thats unregulated will have every criminal dominate it immediately, using the same skills they have honed for years in the regulated industry. Because nothing and no-one is going to stop them, because they have practice, and because they can deploy the hundreds of scams and run them all in parallel, all at once.

For the idealists jumping in this new ocean and swimming around like its the promised land are surrounded by a little bubble of clear water, with a billion sharks watching their every move just beyond their field of vision. Or more aptly, a small number of sea monsters who are essentially the size of the ocean if you combine their respective masses.

Those horror leviathans will be the deep staters mentioned in the article, 100%. Which is a great and autisticly-researched piece by the way, thanks for posting it.