Seeing Circle go public reminds me of the once-popular Digital Research Institute of the People's Bank of China

Having started researching blockchain early on, former leading figure Yao Qian is now behind bars, while Zhou Xiaochuan argues that blockchain cannot support large-scale transactions (which, in hindsight, is obviously wrong). The digital yuan is hardly used today and has basically been abandoned, while Hong Kong's stablecoin has to start all over again with an unpromising outlook.

One could say they got up early but arrived late, which is both sad and lamentable.