Seeing Circle go public reminds me of the Chinese central bank's once-popular Digital Research Institute

Having started researching blockchain early on, the former leading figure Yao Qian is now in prison, while Zhou Xiaochuan argues that blockchain cannot support large-scale transactions (which, of course, is wrong in hindsight). The digital yuan is hardly used and has essentially been abandoned, while Hong Kong's stablecoin has to start from scratch with an unclear future.

One could say it started early but arrived late, which is both sad and lamentable.