Crypto is more like handing money out to joe random on the street corner because he promises he’ll be there again next Friday with a 10% interest rate.

I mean yes, of course it is.

But there is still a difference between risk and fraud.

Risk would be if joe random tells you he'll "invest" your money in lottery tickets and then give you a 10% return if he wins or nothing if the "investment" goes bad.

Fraud is when he tells you that, but takes your money and buys himself some stuff.

Either way you lost all your money but in the second case you can sue the guy for fraud. In the first case he did as promised and lost the money but you only have yourself to blame for doing a dumb investment.