Too often, the finance bros bet big, using the same kind of fragile, nested and interlocking leverage that led to the 2008 financial crisis. Other times they used outright fraud – and they did it off-chain, playing by no rules, with no transparency. They were mistaken for part of the cryptocurrency industry, but it would have been more accurate to think of them as hangers-on and freeloaders, redirecting genuine public interest in crypto to their various unsustainable games.