Wind it back even further and there is BFL and all the hinky stuff around the early FPGA BTC miners, back when you could still mine BTC with GPUs.

Yes, I got sucked into the SQRL fiasco, but I went in with open eyes and figured I give it a go. I lost, but had paid with value inflated crypto, so maybe not so bad. 🤷‍♂️

At least I didn't get involved with the CVP board mess.