Crypto Exchange?

I'm trying to understand this whole FTX meltdown, how it can be that people sunk billions into this thing that did what? They trusted some young guru because why? Crypto exists because it can do what? The NY Times warns that "contagion" can spread through the financial markets. Because some casually frumpy, millenial geek charmed people? This is the essence of our age of anxiety. Not only don't I know what a crypto echange does, I don't know what crypto does. I don't understand how a blockchain works or why anyone would sink their hard earned money into NFTs. I assume the exchange made profit by taking a cut on every transaction but why did people use it as a bank? Did it pay high interest? How did the geek earn multiple billions of dollars? If average people can't understand these huge forces operating in our society, affecting our economy and culture, there is going to be anxiety and it will manifest in different ways. Some of the anxiety will be subconscious, a vague disquiet that dark forces are at work manipulating you in unknowable ways. Which they are. But the real force is operating in plain sight. It's not a "new world order". It's the old world order using new technology. The tech industry is booming one minute and laying people off the next. But what do they do? What do they make? What did all those people do that is now suddenly unneeded? How can these people get so insanely rich so fast? What the fuck is happening? Long, long ago I knew two guys, sons of wealthy people, who gambled on everything. Not just cards and sports, but the most obscure events or arguments, these guys would put money on the outcome. They loved and were addicted to gambling. Maybe that's whats happening.