> The public's trust in markets is finite. Every dollar lost on a self-referential game labeled a market consumes a small piece of that finite trust, and the consumption over fifteen years has been considerable

Yes, and not just in crypto. People have started to view a high-trust society like a rainforest: a natural resource that has lots of life-sustaining positive externalities, but you can just burn it down to make a quick buck instead. This has been bad since the GFC, and accelerated by the modern rightwing influence sphere.

There's a very real tendency to people to go "I don't trust mainstream source <X> for <slightly valid reason in one case>", and then immediately jump to totally trusting some random youtube or tiktok conspiracy theorist.