They are describing this from the perspective of an exchange however. Also most of the initial guys came from Jane Street which is a market maker. While I haven

They are describing this from the perspective of an exchange however. Also most of the initial guys came from Jane Street which is a market maker. While I haven't personally worked at a market maker before, I suspect these guys are less fascinated by crytpocurrencies themselves but by how there is suddenly a whole new class of assets that is ballooning and ripe for market makers. As market makers, they are also understandably less concerned about what an underlying asset itself really is worth, or what it even is, but more about facilitating transactions and arbitraging away inefficiencies. (for example, in the podcast he repeats a few times, "who are we to question what it's worth if the markets have spoken"). So from that perspective I can sort of understand why he described it that way.