Magic.
This is about the dynamics between a set of entities, being mischaracterized as a fundamental property of one of these entities. (Here: migration of a pool of bad actors from traditional finance to cryptocurrency).
Like saying Iraq is an evil country by design because it harbors terrorist groups. Most people would agree by now that the emergence of these groups isn't directly caused by the nature of the country's culture or religion. For good reasons we have enough respect for these things to dig deeper in our understanding than a superficial glance. You're free to not do this with cryptocurrency, but then you probably shouldn't hold your opinions about it too strongly.
Comparing Bitcoin with a country like Iraq is pointlessly simplistic. Countries are complex social entities that aggregate behaviors through a large number of mechanisms. Bitcoin is a single mechanism whose characteristics have entirely predictable consequences.
Any sympathy for the University of California? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53214783
Bitcoin doesn't kill people. People kill people...right?
Cash is a single mechanism, that also predictably allows robbers to more easily offload their loot than if it was livestock, jewels or silverware. Are cash and other fungible assets automatically evil once they're on the internet?
You can cite random examples of crimes committed using Bitcoin, but that still doesn't begin to address the initial argument to which I replied: is cryptocurrency inherently evil? Will it cause more good in the world than bad once it is widely adopted?
They attract different animals for this reason.
The bitcoin ico scams attracts many predators.
Crypto scammers, overwhelmingly, simply fool people chasing easy profits. Hacks and actual offensive behaviors are uncommon, you're safe from predators in your den and you don't need to leave it.
Wait until smart contracts have been live for a certain amount of time before interacting with them. You won't fall prey to predatory behavior if you mint DAI with Maker or trade well known tokens on Uniswap for instance. The danger comes when sending money with no guarantees of getting anything back, in the hope of multiplying your money.
The abundance of scams in ICOs (and the cryptocurrency ecosystem in general for that matter) has more to do with the heavily regulated nature of the mainstream financial space, than the design of the cryptocurrency space itself. Because most of the world is regulated, fraudsters are now funneled to cryptocurrency. They come where they are the most free, but there is nothing in the structure of cryptocurrencies that encourages scams over legitimate enterprises. Honesty and hard work is still most rewarding. The absence of barriers to prevent scams other than regular social signals and the user's own vigilance, is the natural state of the world.
This same type of argument is repeatedly employed against free-speech platforms, that keep ending-up hosting the neo-nazis and other undesirable groups that were ousted from Facebook and co.
Shared reputation systems layered over a free platform like Matrix announced[1] a couple days ago should provide relief, but simple increase in adoption will also tilt the ratio back to the average.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24836987