[JohnFen]

> Does it follow that tulips, railroad companies, and baby plushies are scams and criminal in nature?

At the time that those things were happening? Definitely scams. Not necessarily criminal, though.

> It doesn't care if grifters hype, pump, and dump its tokens.

True. But, as I think you've noticed, a whole lot of people do care, and don't want to have anything to do with the whole idea. Maybe even most people.

It doesn't help that pro-cryptocurrency people cannot articulate a real, practical use case (outside of one or two niche things, like moving money across contested national borders) that isn't already done at least as well by the existing monetary system and also isn't scammy.