[notpachet]

That's a rather heartless take. You could make the same argument regarding the need to protect any vulnerable members of society. Say, people who are immunocompromised during a global pandemic. Oh wait...

It's never just pure mathematics. You always have a human layer on top, and that means that there is an attack surface for self-interested people to take advantage of others. The purpose of regulation is to minimize the damage those people can do.

I suppose in a future where all the humans are extinct, and monolithic AI's rule the planet, your comment would hold more water.

[realce]

It's odd that people don't conceive of the health of their neighbor's investments as a support for their own.

Lots of people losing lots of money in your neighborhood is bad. A good number of people winning the lottery by defrauding others is bad, they make for shitty neighbors.

[throwvirtever]

Ideally cryptocurrencies will disappear on their own before lots of people have lots of money tied up in them. Regulating them makes them appear safer than they actually are.