This response is not helpful and I know of honest people who have been cheated. Basically, the response boils down to “if you got cheated, you are dishonest and deserved it”. Bullshit.
In this case, it’s somewhat more fair: everyone involved was trying to find much higher returns than they could get in regulated financial markets so while it’s sad that they were defrauded it’s also part of the risk they voluntarily took on by using cryptocurrency.
A lot of folks keep making that argument. What it sounds like you're saying is that Average Joe should really understand that crypto implicitly carries a risk of fraud and you are likely to lose your money. We should shout that from the rooftops. If you deposit BTC/whatever with someone, they are probably going to steal it. When they do, we will remind you that this was a foreseeable outcome.
I'm starting to think that these organizations need to be regulated as banks, stat.
Any institution where you invest or deposit money carries a risk of fraud.
Banks have steadily become less and less fraudulent over the last century.
Crypto exchanges have also steadily become less fraudulent, but still carry a much larger risk than the financial institutions to which people have become accustomed.
> What it sounds like you're saying is that Average Joe should really understand that crypto implicitly carries a risk of fraud and you are likely to lose your money
That is what a lot of people have been saying for a very long time now!
I don't mean this in a way to blame the victims of the crypto fraudsters, merely to explain the somewhat exasperated responses by people who feel like they've been trying to warn people who have been ignoring them.
> I'm starting to think that these organizations need to be regulated as banks, stat.
I mean, why do you think they don't want to be regulated and brag that they aren't? To make you more money?
Not literally true - completely innocent people do get victimized - but there’s certainly a reason for the expression.