[zahlman]

>If we had social consensus that crypto, or at least these sorts of crypto schemes, are a scam, sure. We don't.

Per the description in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41920331, "these sorts of crypto schemes" are nakedly fraudulent. We're not talking about a pump-and-dump being achieved by vague allusions. We're talking about too-good-to-be-true representations of arbitrage (i.e. essentially risk-free return resulting from a market inefficiency, which naturally disappears from any market as it's exploited) that are a cover for unauthorized transfer of funds caused by deceptive computer code. I'm pretty sure there's more than enough legal precedent to cover every aspect of that and make an open-and-shut case. (This is not legal advice, of course.)