The measure of "is it a scam" is simple - How well does reality match up with your description, with regard to the people buying and selling things? Just watch

The measure of "is it a scam" is simple - How well does reality match up with your description, with regard to the people buying and selling things? Just watch the question of: when the little guy buys something (e.g. a stock or some other security) is the story that is told around "what it is" reasonably close to the truth? Pro-tip, if you're framing this as a hard binary, you're probably either the scammer or the sucker.