[Sangermaine]

>They talked to me about it and I made them promise not to do so, and to always check with me before investing in any cryptocurrency. That's a bottom up adaptation that makes a couple individuals safer. Sure the government could have just banned them from investing in Ripple, but that's a crude (and Big-Brother-ish) solution that's going to have untold numbers of unintended consequences.

Your example is actually a perfect demonstration of how regulation could help. What if, instead of these older people having to happen to personally know someone knowledgeable about crypto like yourself, or knowing how to find one and not get duped in some forum, there were regulations requiring public disclosure of various information regarding cryptocurrencies and their backers? You know, like we already have for securities? Then these older people could research this information and decide for themselves what to do, which seems to be what you advocate.

This is the problem with ideological zealotry: it renders you unable to conceive of anyone as not being an ideological zealot. "Allow everything" or "ban everything" aren't the only options, never have been, and in the real world aren't. It's frustrating to discuss these issue with True Believers because the response is inevitably "Oh, so we should just ban everything then?"