EDIT: I wasn't willing to listen to 2 hours hoping to encounter the Swan content, but they've helpfully added timestamps at the link. Now I've listened to it, and it's interesting. Worth listening to. Here's the relevant bit:

(original post)

Yeah, that stuff sucks for sure. Cory has talked about the rationale for not doing custody in-house before that I found pretty compelling, but my understanding is that they're biting the bullet in 2024 and building their own thing, in partnership with somebody or other.

That's my impression, too, from a purely "btc exchange" pov. However, I think "btc-only exchange" is too narrow a lens with which to evaluate Swan -- their presence in the ecosystem is massively valuable in a way that River isn't.

Their playbook isn't what I would do myself, but I feel confident that they've minted more bitcoiners through their efforts than just about anyone besides Coinbase. At this stage of the game, a marketing company going full multi-media blitzkrieg in service of btc adoption is desperately needed.

Assuming all this is more or less right, the amount of shit they get seems vastly out of proportion to the "crimes" discussed here.