Calling it exactly like it is: people have just spent $800 million, on a product they did not understand, which is – in all likelihood – now totally out of date:
The tl;dr is that there are multiple unseen cost centers that have likely absorbed capital that would have otherwise been more productively deployed elsewhere. Some of these costs were related to compliance — which many startups assumed would not exist or could be ignored. Others included denial of service (DOS) and ransomeware which no one besides Bruce Schneier could have predicted or thought of years ago.
In addition, consumer behavior — or as Buck Turgidson would label “the human element” — is not behaving based on the initial assumptions of many entrepreneurs, enthusiasts and VCs. Whereas 18-24 months ago cryptocurrency-based payment processors proclaimed that consumers would flock to Bitcoin and other altcoins as a payment rail, this has not occurred (yet). (The fact of) (s)tagnant tokens left in cold storage therefore impacts multiple verticals, especially those relying on large aggregates of transaction fees to fund growth as they scale up.
