[alehul]

While you're being downvoted, I wouldn't necessarily disagree.

On the stock market (which we consider a more legitimate investment), share price is entirely driven by perception and the amount of buyers vs sellers. This resembles cryptocurrencies as well.

The difference, however, is that there is an underlying company you're betting on with a stock, and buyers often believe that a company will have more buyers in the future due to the company's performance and its actual returns.

Cryptocurrencies are a much more volatile, short-term investment with virtually no regulations, and there's very rarely an underlying bet aside from "this sounds good and will sound good to other people too."

[wuliwong]

There maybe little in the way of special regulations for cryptocurrencies but certainly fraud is still illegal, no matter the specific industry or asset.

I think when people say there are 'no regulations' it communicates an idea that theft, fraud and/or violating contracts are not prosecutable. Maybe that's my own flawed interpretation but I believe that's how it comes across to the average person.