Rust in Cryptocurrency is mostly a marketing play (and I say this as someone who does a lot of Rust).

Are there even any cryptocurrencies that allowed less-safe languages like C in the first place?

In my opinion (as a Rust dev), Rust is weirdly over complicated for what they’re trying to do. Common types scripting languages are basically more than sufficient (and safe)for these applications.

It’s only a matter of time before a crypto project overplays the safety of Rust and them has a huge heist due to a logic bug, which will further contribute to jokes about Rust programmers. Most of the Rust devs I know are wary of Rust crypto projects.