I used to fly through the interviews. I ace all the interviews I'm given. Never had issues before. My interview approach didn't change at all, I just know more now. Last time I got to final stage of interviews at a major tech company a few years ago, I aced all the interviews and tech tests but for some reason, apparently at the last minute, the head of engineering didn't show up to the final interview which was supposed to be a 'just a formality'. My problems started happening in 2019, quite suddenly so the contrast was noticeable.

When I talk to recruiters, initially, they sound excited but for some reason ghost me or they invent new job tech requirements which were not listed on the advert (and which are trivial and I could easily catch up on). I've heard stuff like "Although this position is for a Node.js role, the head of engineering is particular and likes candidates who have some past experience with C#..." WTF!!

I think my problems may be related to my involvement in crypto. I tried to actually improve things there. Feels like what happens to heads of state in foreign countries who try to improve their people's lives to the detriment of foreign investors... But weird because I'm literally a nobody! I didn't get much exposure outside of my immediate community.

If the problem is crypto, leave crypto out of the resume and say that you became a monk or took up sailing or volunteered overseas or something during that time and see if it helps.

My advice: if you're not applying for a crypto job, scrub all crypto terms from your resume. Most people aren't going to understand what it is beyond criminal activity (scams, drugs, money laundering), HR might think you're a liability. People who don't assume it's criminal activity will most likely be confused about why you applied to a non-crypto job and find it an irrelevant useless skill they don't want to pay a premium for. In the last year, public opinion on crypto has tanked, so there is incentive to pretend you were actually doing AI or anything else the whole time. Having a hole in your resume is a bad idea though. Most likely you can describe crypto work in non-crypto terms.

You should try telling all of this to a therapist and see what they have to say.

I forgot to mention that, at one point, my boss, who now controls almost 100 million dollars of crypto threatened to hire people sabotage my open source project. I thought he was joking at the time but now I'm not so sure.

The therapist would think I'm being reasonable if they heard the full story. My ex-colleagues would back me up on that.

I think it's still worth exploring your options and taking some mock interviews, just so that you have some data to calibrate on.

> I think my problems may be related to my involvement in crypto. I tried to actually improve things there. Feels like what happens to heads of state in foreign countries...

To be completely frank, this sounds like a paranoid delusion. But, I don't know you and I keep out of cryptocurrency drama, so I'll withhold judgement. Have you looked into work outside of that niche?

I worked directly in crypto for several years and still interface with crypto projects and that has never affected my employment as far as I'm aware. I doubt it's the reason for OP's struggles.