I don't think that's what they're claiming at all. The "no different than" is doing the work here but I don't think it's warranted.
An investor in that situation has to (presumably, and I'm ignorant so maybe not) do work in doing research, having enough domain and industry knowledge to evaluate what a "winner" looks like in a given industry, understand how valuations are formed and what can make them wrong, etc etc.
Some of that is done by crypto people sure, but the difference between a big success and losing your money there seems a lot more luck-based than in normal investing.
People have been making the argument that investing is gambling for decades at this point, and I don't think that's completely wrong but it is very hard to draw the line. I am comfortable putting crypto trading on the gambling side of that line, and most forms of professional investing probably on the non-gambling side.
They are possibly a lot closer than I think they are, but I don't think that speaks well for either activity!
An investor in that situation has to (presumably, and I'm ignorant so maybe not) do work in doing research, having enough domain and industry knowledge to evaluate what a "winner" looks like in a given industry, understand how valuations are formed and what can make them wrong, etc etc.
Some of that is done by crypto people sure, but the difference between a big success and losing your money there seems a lot more luck-based than in normal investing.
People have been making the argument that investing is gambling for decades at this point, and I don't think that's completely wrong but it is very hard to draw the line. I am comfortable putting crypto trading on the gambling side of that line, and most forms of professional investing probably on the non-gambling side.
They are possibly a lot closer than I think they are, but I don't think that speaks well for either activity!