Crypto prices really took off when speculation went thru the roof due to govt "stimmies". Look at the increase in $ nominal pricing of non-standard crypto (everything not BTC, ETH, xmr), the largest upward move recorded in history will be the period 20-22 in the aggregate

NFTs at 100K , etc.

Thats the "craze"

Before that it was still a speculative play, but hardly pervasive and available to so many.