> the problem of fraudulent business practices isn't specific to crypto at all.

The problem with crypto is that the bulk of the value is created through seigniorage of the tokens required to make it work, not actual utility derived from its technical features, for example better privacy or enabling new transactions.

So in reality the pump & dump, rugpull and speculative bubble dynamics are characteristic to crypto because there is very limited actual wealth created and a massive conflict of interest from the players to cash in on the juice flowing though their systems, which are nothing else than unregulated and inferior copycats of existing financial institutions, state issued currencies, banks etc.