The advantage of ASICs is that a design implemented in an ASIC is likely going to run faster than the same design implemented in an FPGA - usually significantly

The advantage of ASICs is that a design implemented in an ASIC is likely going to run faster than the same design implemented in an FPGA - usually significantly faster. FGPAs are flexible, but as such you trade performance for that flexibility. Developing an ASIC design is very expensive. There's usually many thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of dollars of NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering expenses). Whereas you could put your design into an FPGA for the cost of an FPGA board (typically a few hundred dollars to a few thousand - but you'll be able to use the same FPGA board for many different designs as the FPGA is reprogrammable) and the FPGA design software (which is often given away for free or deeply discounted by the FPGA vendors). So ASICs are for organizations with lots of money. FPGAs are accessible for hobbyists. FPGAs are also often used to test out a design that is eventually implemented in an ASIC. The crypto folks have mostly moved to ASICs for the higher performance.