Yet, if you had invested in bitcoin 5 years ago you would have outperformed Berkshire Hathaway's lifetime performance. In my opinion if you are young, it makes sense to make these kind of bets, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you are misinformed. Cryptocurrencies are certainly onto something, and it's still not clear which one(s) is(are) going to win, so by buying them you are not only making an investment but also voting with your money. I do believe that the DAO will crash and burn, but the truth is that among the people that bought DAO tokens, I don't know anybody that invested a significant amount of their savings. Furthermore most of the people used the Ether they bought at 100th the current price when it first launched. Last but not least, as an economist, the DAO is a fascinating experiment, but I do hope that nobody loses their life savings because of it, which brings me back to your initial comment that raises a good point.