Crypto sure has a vested intrerest in making it seem that way: https://www.investopedia.com/news/are-cryptos-high-trading-v...

> But there's a problem here: Some cryptocurrency exchanges have been faking their volume numbers in order to raise the visibility of their businesses and bring in more customers. That's easy to do in the less-than-transparent world of global crypto trading.

> Now, an effort is underway to force the exchanges to report real numbers.

I can’t believe this isn’t fraud of some sort already

It is fraud, it is called wash trading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wash_trade

And anti-virus and VPN industry problems don't pose a systemic risk to the Western economy (I say Western because China etc. have cracked down on cryptocurrency schemes).

Neither does crypto.