[giaour]

Do you feel the same way about violent crime? I.e., if a person through their own stupidity or naivete puts themselves in a position where they become a victim of armed robbery/assault/murder/rape, did they get what they deserved?

[cowtools]

only to the extent that the violent crime is preventable. Ultimately, the victim bears the risk and the rest of society will do what they must (policing, self-defense, investigation, justice, compensation) after the fact to prevent future victimization themselves.

In the case of crypto/investment fraud, you have to take into account that all investments and transactions bear a certain amount of risk and reward. It's not fair to expect the public to bail you out for risks that you knowingly accepted when they wouldn't get a slice of the reward. In the conventional financial system, the public sees a slice of that reward through taxation. The same is not true of cryptocurrency, so why use everyone else's tax dollars to regulate it?

The only reason authorities like the SEC exist is to reduce risk, thus increasing the amount that ordinary people can safely invest. It's not a matter of ethics, it's a matter of economics.

[giaour]

> In the conventional financial system, the public sees a slice of that reward through taxation. The same is not true of cryptocurrency, so why use everyone else's tax dollars to regulate it?

You should maybe run that past a tax attorney just to make sure. I'm in the US, where capital gains from cryptocurrency are taxed just like capital gains from stocks, but of course this may not be true in your jurisdiction.

> The only reason authorities like the SEC exist is to reduce risk, thus increasing the amount that ordinary people can safely invest. It's not a matter of ethics, it's a matter of economics.

I don't think that's correct, but if it is, yeesh! What a bleak hellscape we live in, where the only reason to add safety to anything is to prevent the plebs from getting too scared to spend money.

I take it from your responses that you're one of the "hardcore believers in the 'code is law' dark forest" mentioned in an earlier comment, so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.