First, I agree with you. Dealing in nearly all crypto-currencies is financially irresponsible whether it's your own money or other people's.
That said, perhaps Hanes would have been duped by an similar non-crypto scam. It seems that all he needed was some online contacts and a fake web page with numbers on it.
Ultimately, it wasn't the crypto that was the problem. The problem was that he stole other people's money. He didn't mismanage it; he stole it.
But if it wasn't crypto, it's much more likely they would have been able to track down and prosecute the scammers, and claw the money back.
so true.
which is why crypto increases the lucrativeness of scammers.
Fun fact: north korea is dabbling very much in crypto hacks , north korea is possible for so many of crypto hacks. (not scams though , but who knows ? )