Respectfully disagree. The defining property of blockchain is digital ownership which makes it possible to own your digital assets, create new forms of digital art and human expression, scale IP formation and protection (NFTs), self-sovereign IDs, governance systems (eg. voting), Supply chain traceability or even @dominic_w reply on on-chain cloud, the initial vision of the world computer etc. the list goes on.
Blockchain allows for digital ownership through which financialization is possible but it is not its core purpose. Its core purpose is the evolution of a sovereign truly decentralized internet in which all of us can own a stake in it. While that has the clear potential for financial value it is not its core purpose because it would imply that the core human purpose is finance. It is not, and if we keep framing it that way, we will continue to struggle on our path to mass-adoption, because people are complex and finance for most of us is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
When you scale tech and innovate there are no misadventures, there are lessons and continued experimentation. Gaming and NFTs are far from dead but there are lessons there that have evolved since, same is true for Meme coins, DAOs and many other experiments that will continue to evolve and grow.
As always things are never one size fits all especially because we're Human. Capitalism is only possible with property rights and blockchains enable digital property rights so there is no doubt that finance is a key powerful reasons but it is so much more than that.
George Washington put it best; Freedom and Property Rights are inseparable. You can’t have one without the other.
To us that’s the core purpose of a decentralized, blockchain-powered internet: to secure our digital property rights and the freedoms that flow from them, with financialization as one critically important expression of that.