Sure, regulators could have moved faster, but the crypto community was pushing out so much bullshit so quickly that even excellent regulators would be overwhelm

Sure, regulators could have moved faster, but the crypto community was pushing out so much bullshit so quickly that even excellent regulators would be overwhelmed short of an all-out ban which would require enforcement to have any teeth anyway. And as we are seeing with all the FTX fallout, of course they were giving money to all sides of politicians along the way. Yes good regulations are needed to prevent this sort of garbage, and I fully support that, but there is still some amount of responsibility on people to distrust "too good to be true" scams especially on new complicated "just trust me bro" schemes. There were tons of people warning against this all along.