No, but if crypto was generally legit, one might expect the people working on Ethereum cryptography to know their area of specialisation...

Two of the authors of the paper listed their affiliation as the Ethereum foundation.

It seems more like the project was doing due diligence?

How about Silvio Micali in the Algorand world? How does ethereum make Algorand not legit?

Again, you mean "if Ethereum was". You're conflating things.

not really. Ethereum is pretty big and sometimes central to other crypto projects.

you're right. "all of crypto is fraud" and the Ethereum cryptographers not knowing about this important detail are two statements that are true separately.

Made me laugh, then chuckle. Both funny and logic joke funny.