That's the truly educational take.
Many will jump the crypto hate wagon. I hate fraud and fraudsters. But the reality is crypto is just another excuse for the to defraud people.
Interestingly, the same BBC article features links to other two frauds in contexts totally unrelated to crypto:
Romance scam: NI woman swindled out of £112,000 life savings [1]
International students in NI scammed out of £105,000 [2]
Firstly, 'Reality TV' has become influencer culture. A lot of social media is you being bombarded with "look how great my life is" pictures. The newest sneakers, handbags, fancy cars, fancy watches. Young people with possessions. "This is what a good life is, this is what you could have." We spend a lot more time on social media than we did watching the TV.
Secondly, we keep being told that 9-5 jobs are for suckers. That's what your parents did. Why work in an office for peanuts when those people you follow on Instagram get paid to dress up and take photos and go on fancy holidays? Every week there's an article about someone making 500k a month on OnlyFans, etc etc.
Thirdly, a bunch of people have got wildly rich from cryptocurrency by being in the right place at the right time. Almost zero effort. You read about these people, and then you talk to your friends. Some of your friends tell you they've made 5 or 6k from a $500 investment in a coin with a dog's head on it and how easy it was.
So now you have a large group of people who spent a long time on social media, don't want to work a 'proper' job but want to be rich and have the life that goes with it. They hear the stories about people who have actually got rich from crypto, quickly get caught up in Cryptotwitter (with the I've got $500 in bitcoin "have fun staying poor" folks telling them to get on the rocketship or miss out) and are now absolutely primed for the 'next Dogecoin' so they can get money for nothing.
Of course the romance or student scams can happen, people will always fall for scams. But right now the crypto scam space has got to be like shooting fish in a barrel. It's like the get-rich-quick schemes we've alway had but on steroids.
I was traveling long before the pandemic and there's a lot of energy that comes with this kind of freedom. It struck me so hard the first time I experienced it. The ability to buy a plane ticket and change your surroundings. I didn't inform my employer. I just did it.
To your point, I think it's easier to compare how good other people have it compared to you. Now I know some people claim it's all fake and not the life one would really want. I agree with that. Traveling can be isolating and depressing. You're away from your family and friends and the local expat population leaves a lot to be desired. But you're still living an exciting life and exploring the world. That's worth something.
Is this actually true? When I was a kid, the amount of TV time was something of a moral panic; I'd have a hard time believing there were many more hours in the day left to consume. What I would believe is that social media's use of intermittent rewards makes people obsess about it even when they aren't actively using it.
The rewards are the icing on an all-inclusive cake.
What you need is widespread magical thinking combined with greed, corruption and an economic shock.
"Albania became one of the most enthusiastic implementers of shock therapy, a set of policies that included the liberalization of markets, strict monetary policy, and privatization of public services and infrastructure."
"Factory closures and unemployment soon followed. Inflation and currency devaluations wiped out savings and welfare entitlements."
"Politically connected businessmen appropriated the profitable parts of state assets in an upward redistribution of wealth of world-historic proportions. Food subsidies were slashed; hunger rose."
Citizens regarded capitalism "with childlike naivete—and grown-up greed"
Albania "became a playground for Moonies, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses."
In Albania a vicious civil war followed the collapse of the pyramids.
Many parallels to the United States in 2022 (and this is far bigger than just crypto).
Source: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/pyramids-eve...
Modern consumers tend to use some other screen at least part of the time they're watching television.
Before, TV used to be dependent on the content being broadcast, and so there was something of a hard constraint upon the amount of TV time - especially for children. This has gone completely out the window in recent years.
They could have been doing research into all the actual non-stranger cases of abuse that were going on but secret, but no, that doesn't sell as well.
Now? We're all playing Eve Online IRL: https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Scams_in_EVE_Online
https://www.pcmag.com/news/ftc-sues-dating-site-over-fake-pr...
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2019/09/...