The temptation and money (1/5)

Let’s face it: there’s a lot of money in crypto. If we know anything from history it is that power and wealth are often correlated. Lobbyists put money into the hands of politicians which in turn makes the lobbyists more money through the corporate profits. Our political system may be systemically corrupt, but at least we have laws designed to mitigate some of it.

Many people refer to cryptocurrency as the ‘wild west’ of the investing world. Unlike stocks, bonds, and etf’s, there are minimal restrictions placed on who can buy cryptocurrency and very few laws governing rates, fees, and use cases.

With a lot of money and a lack of regulation comes a whole lot of scams and opportunists trying to exploit the opportunity. It’s often said that scammers come out during the most extreme economic conditions. We saw during the pandemic the rise of fraud related to counterfeit vaccines as well as bogus tests. During the ICO bubble of 2017, many cryptocurrency scams were launched. Amidst the mania of the speculative bubble, the excess money flowing into legitimate projects also ended up in the pockets of scammers and financial con artists.