Bitcoin’s anti-fiat, anti-bank, anti-establishment ideology was, by nature, antagonistic and anti-authoritarian. Crypto art reflected that. Our entire ecosystem was extremist, and so were its ideas and contributions. Crypto art attracted fringe creatives with fringe beliefs.
There was no punishment for extreme or controversial artwork because the very existence of crypto art was extreme and controversial. Perhaps the end of that era, and the rise of a sterilized crypto art, was foreshadowed when SuperRare, fearing a copyright lawsuit, infamously removed ROBNESS from their platform for minting his plagiarized-and-remixed NFT of a garbage can, 64-Gallon Toter (2020).
Perhaps that was when economic necessity first outweighed free expression.