I dislike crypto as much as the next guy but, the normal currencies are not very different.

It depends on how much you want the LLM to do. I personally work on function level and can easily verify if it works with a look and few tests.

The whole field of metaheuristic algorithms rests on a similar idea. a lot of stupid "agents" finding a good solution. by metaheuristics i mean genetic algorithms, PSO, ACO etc.

They signed a contract with IBM to manufacture their chips at 7nm (and reneged).

Yeah and IBM had to move their designs in the last minute from GF to Samsung. I have heard that the Samsung process was much better and the tech transfer was easier than expected.