Cryptocurreny crime is way ahead of regulators and law enforcement
The crypto world is rife with scams and thieves, but so too are the traditional financial systems.  There are two key differences, however:<p>1. The scale of wrongdoing in the crypto world is insignificant compared to in traditional systems.<p>2. Some of what is deemed &quot;criminal&quot; in crypto systems is only criminal because it bypasses traditional controls.<p>In the first case, small investors and taxpayers have been on the losing end of many financial disasters which were not of their own making.  But as evidenced by the multiple bailouts in the US, those negligent or intentionally malfeasant rarely suffer the consequences of their actions; on the contrary, they often profit from it.<p>To be sure, there are plenty of really lame scams in the crypto world - either outright frauds or ponzi schemes.  And the losses to customers and clients is significant.  However, if the losses in traditional system failures and thefts were calculated, we would be much better served by focusing on the traditional system problems.<p>In the second case, some of the criminal crypto activities (such as the transparent lotteries and ponzis operating in the Ethereum network) are arguably less risky than legal gambling or equities and futures trading.  Small investors in traditional markets get cheated in invisible ways that would not be possible on a system with blockchain-published smart contracts.  (That&#x27;s not to imply that many people can truly grasp exactly how a given smart contract works, edge cases and all - but at least it is visible.)<p>I personally dislike the crypto world.  In the very early days, it was a place of hope and possibility.  But that was quickly buried by the waves of unethical people who were fixated on quick riches.  And unfortunately, little of the potential or promises of cryptocurrencies have panned out.  Meanwhile, at least in some places (Europe for example), financial transaction speed and associated costs have been reduced to well below what even crypto can offer.  For example, I can move money from a Dutch account to a German account in one second, at no cost.  There is no room for improvement there - ignoring the concept of anonymity of course... but that isn&#x27;t really something crypto actually offers.<p>In the places where the banks themselves have not improved, new players have stepped in.  Transferwise has saved me thousands per year for several years compared to international bank wires.  Crypto can do that as well, but both endpoints then have to manage the fiat to crypto exchange.<p>To be fair to cryptocurrency in this regard, there has been intentional pressure from traditional financial systems to create laws that make it more difficult to exchange fiat and crypto, and that has greatly hindered some of the potential uses.  Even that is evidence of how much more corrupt traditional systems are compared to cryptocurrencies.