Financialization is not necessarily about useless finance taking bigger and bigger roles in the economy. Finance can be useful, and can get very complex, and so it could make sense that it became a big part of the economy. Now, I cannot say for sure that the finance industry is useful enough for it to be that big a part of the economy as it is, but I'm open to the idea (also open to the opposite idea). My point is that what you portray as a "matter of record" is a biased interpretation of what financialization is, not consensus (though may still be true).
There is obviously a bit of subjectivity in defining "real" and "useful". There is also an intermediate gray area of so-called risk management (derivatives, securitisation etc) which can easily mutate from useful to disastrous depending on the quality of regulation.
But when I look at the crypto universe (from the ICO era till today) I have no doubt what it resembles...
Obviously there are lots of ways this pretty story breaks down, but I think the "just moving bits" reason isn't that strong a criticism.
If intermediaries get a cut, wouldn't that make the games negative-sum?
That large part of the financial system is glorified and useless gambling designed to extract rents by intermediaries is a matter of record [0]. Regulators have no problem with that, provided their rather arbitrary and self-servingly generous red lines are respected.
So what is happening now is that new information technology (faulty and immature at best) is being used by cunning operators to tap into that ingrained behavioral pattern outside their purview.
Yet what spoils the fun is the sense that (somewhere in a parallel universe) all the new digital gadgetry could somehow be used to make our economies more robust, more functional, more equitable, more sustainable,... more real and less financialised.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization