A poor person could've invested $50 in Bitcoin when it was priced at $1. That poor person would now be a millionaire if they would've held on to that since. I

A poor person could've invested $50 in Bitcoin when it was priced at $1. That poor person would now be a millionaire if they would've held on to that since. It is not all rich people marketing to poor people, or at least it didn't start that way. I don't disagree in terms of rich people controlling the crypto ecosystem now. That is one aspect I'm not liking about crypto right now. Too much manipulation, although I think that's at least partly coming from the traditional institutions jumping in and playing the games they do with traditional markets. Plenty goes on behind the scenes in traditional markets, even though they are regulated, and yes, crypto has less regulation, so they probably can get away with more. I love crypto technology but I think there's stuff going on behind the scenes that regular folk have no idea, and I'm starting to wonder if the grand ideas crypto people have are incorrect. I think the way it will succeed is when big institutions accumulate enough and then it's in their interest to manipulate the crypto market up. I.e. see banks in the Big Short accumulating enough of what Michael Burry was betting on all along, and at that point they revised the indices that track the housing markets, since it was in their interest to at that point. In the end I don't think crypto is much different than what goes on in equity markets now. Rich people and big institutions control that market too. Meme stocks are essentially also lottery tickets. Way out of balance P/E ratios mean traditional fundamentals are out the window. It's all about momentum and trends now. The one difference, and a benefit I see for traditional markets, is the government will bail them out. The government would be fine if crypto crashes. I think that's the scary part about investing in crypto, but there is also higher potential for upside in crypto markets.