> One reason I am so intrigued by crypto is that for the first time engineers can hack on finance without any permission, licenses, approvals, regulations, borders, etc.

False. Anyone has always been allowed to issue their own magic beans, crypto has nothing to do with this.

1989 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigiCash

1996 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold

The real difference is that now a lot more gullible people have computers.