I don't buy the "the rise of ad-blockers led to the rise of (whatever bad thing is being discussed)" theories. They are almost always false.

Ad-blocking didn't cause pop-ups and interstitials. Those things predated ad-blockers, and were caused by the abysmally low response rates (click-through) of online ads.

Ad-blocking didn't cause the ads that expand to cover the content of a page or the dashed green underlines within a page's text that pop up small ads when you mouseover them. They are merely a continuation of the trend that started with pop-ups.

Ad-blocking didn't cause tracking. Tracking was caused by the idea that "making ads relevant" would improve click-through rates. It happened independently of ad-blocking.

Now, ad-blocking supposedly caused the rise of surreptitious #JavaScript cryptocoin miners? Does that also explain the existenence of mobile (and desktop) software that contains hidden cryptocurrency miners? Because the two are likely closely related.