Are the gambling regulations actually there to protect consumers? The largest form of gambling in the us is probably lottery, which is exclusively controlled by state and local governments. The regulations don't prevent extremely poor odds (much worse than private gambling) and marketing targeted to low income Americans. At least ICOs require some sophistication

I'd like to read your arguments on that.

> I'd argue that most of our current economy is gambling (stock markets).

I think you're confusing economy with speculative investment. Most of the US economy consists of manufacturing and service industry output, not the stray under or over valuation of the stock market (which is derived from non-gambling output in the first place). Since when is $6.3 trillion in gross manufacturing output considered gambling? If there is a major economy anywhere on earth that has been a more sure thing (aka the exact opposite of gambling) on average over the last ~140 years than the US, please point it out.

Whether you value Apple at $500 billion or $800 billion right now, has no substantial impact on their sales or net contribution to the US economy / GDP. The same is true for Facebook, Microsoft, or 3M, Delta Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, GE, Berkshire Hathaway etc. Whether the S&P 500 has a PE ratio of 25 (2017) or 18 (2013), does not dramatically alter the US economy.

There's also nothing "current" about it. The stock market has been important for the US economy for more than a century. It's increasingly less important, not more. The private non-bank market for business capital has expanded dramatically while the public market is contracting - and likely to continue contracting - as fewer companies go public.

You'd be wrong.

For those who abhor levity and reading between the lines the lesson is this;

Risk is a spectrum; p < 1 is gambling for small n. So where does sure thing become risky become gambling become plain stupid? And one thing society as a whole will agree on is that p = 1 is not morally wrong. Therefore, "Gambling is not a sin / Provided that you always win" is true regardless of your sense of humour. The grey areas are less well defined, just like people's sense of humour.

What’s a truly risk-free alternative though?

That's a rather ridiculous reductio ad absurdum.

The euro/USD exchange rate has varied between roughly 1 and 1.6 over the past 10 years. That's including the 2008 crisis.

Meanwhile over the last year alone the BTC/USD exchange rate varied between about 500 to 3400.

My 10 euro bill is extremely unlikely to suddenly massively increase or lose in value. That's the difference.

It is when the investors throw money at it in the hope they'll get a return on investment. You don't need $250 million to build a distributed Dropbox clone.

But is this really an investment in a company? It looks like they're just buying tokens in the hope that when people start using FileCoin there will be more demand for it.