LoRA as a method to implement serial bridges over very narrow channels and low RSL/CINR rates in radio is fine. LoRAWAN and similar are fine. Lots of possible applications. The crypto part is what's truly bizarre.

I don't know how anyone who has spent any time researching bulk-data-service plans for embedded multi-band cat1 LTE radios (a few bucks a month from Verizon or Tmobile per radio) would think that a less reliable, vastly less-covered-area "helium" thing would be something you could rely on for actual traffic to/from your equipment.

They looked at The Things Network and figured that they could do better by paying node operators in their own funbux as an incentive to host nodes. It worked, just that the customers did not materialize.