It's actually stranger than that. The legal cryptocurrencies are often worse than the ones that lack respectability. Take for example, Greyscale's Chainlink Tru

It's actually stranger than that. The legal cryptocurrencies are often worse than the ones that lack respectability. Take for example, Greyscale's Chainlink Trust. It would be hard to find a more respectable cryptocurrency investment, yet I did some analysis of it about a year ago, and concluded they were selling Chainlink to their customers at approximately 8x the price on Coinbase[1]. Chainlink isn't likely to pull an 8x an time soon, and even if it does, trust investors wouldn't see the benefit, because Greyscale can simply seize those gains. There are two one could think of this in traditional market terms: 1. You can think of Greyscale as an arbitrageur between on-chain Chainlink and trust shares, where they'll be trying to purchase Chainlink at times when the difference between on-chain Chainlink and trust Chainlink is maximized. 2. You could also think of Greyscale as being able to print "shares". They can't print shares for free (i.e. they are legally obligated to purchase on-chain Chainlink) but they control the supply part of the supply:demand ratio. They can simply purchase on-chain Chainlink when the supply:demand ratio for trust Chainlink is higher than on-chain Chainlink, which takes money from trust Chainlink investors by diluting their shares. In theory the market will trend toward rational (i.e. eventually on-chain and trust Chainlink will trend toward a value that is equal, adjusted for the value of legal integration) but until that happens Greyscale is positioned as the only player that can take advantage of that temporary irrationality. Cryptocurrency has always been an application of caveat emptor where the caveats can be hidden in the code or the economics, or both, but with the integration into the legal system, it's now possible for cryptocurrencies with solid code and economics to scam the public with legal caveats. The average person was always at a disadvantage with cryptocurrencies, but I fear with the addition of legal respectability, even someone like myself who can read the code and has a solid understanding of economics can no longer be sure of my crypto investments. I'm finding lately that options trading has the same high variance (high upside potential is why I wanted into crypto investing), without a lot of the parts I don't like. Particularly, I'm doing it with my Roth IRA money so even taxes are easy. [1] These numbers have almost certainly changed since I did this analysis--I know HNers like to correct people, but consider that before you correct me here.