But this is true of all groups. All groups offer identity and possibility of growth. What makes cults special is the element of faith. This is the difference between an investor and a speculator, an engineer and a magician, and real currencies that can be used to pay taxes and exchange tokens like gold/bitcoin/beanie babies. Cryptocurrencies are inviting their members to take a leap of faith on a mechanism that is not subject to rational analysis and be rewarded with riches beyond their wildest dreams. The beauty here is that there's social proof -- in the form of actual crypto millionaires and lots of fancy whitepapers from smart people and open-source code that anybody can download and review. This attracts irrational players into the game (which in turns attracts more predators since irrational players are easy money). There's a vicious cycle at work and eventually the whole game is dominated by irrationality and delusion.