You're talking about billions of... dollars. Sounds to me like more scams exist because of fiat. Are you implying that scams don't exist with dollars, and it's the crypto alone which makes for fraud? Or is it that, if it's abused for corrupption and fraud, then it's hurting people so we should do away with it, like fiat?
Of course scams exist with dollars. Scams exist wherever people hold things of value that others want.
People want the USD. I'd argue that crypto is mainly a dollar/fiat scam, as getting their hands on fiat seems to be the point of it. "I'll trade you magic beans for those USD" isn't about the beans, its about the USD.
People are free to trade BTC on the blockchain no matter what the US government says. It's anonymously cashing out to dollars that seems to be their main goal, and the source of all the ecosystem's trouble and reputation problems.
It seem clear to me that almost all of the utility in the crypto space revolves around fraud and criminal behavior. There is little intrinsic "value" in a crypto token, it seems to be nothing more than an unit of account for a large extra-governmental online casino. It empowers and amplifies criminals who do more collective damage than the few "unbanked" that are helped.
And so my argument is that because of the above, crypto is not The Future of Finance by a long shot. And my original point was that there are a surprising number of people here that still believe it is in spite of the evidence.
> It seem clear to me that almost all of the utility in the crypto space revolves around fraud and criminal behavior.
You are along the right path. Now take it one step further - what if "fraud and criminal behavior" is against despotic regimes like Taliban or Putin or dictators around the world? See my examples here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32406095
