My opinion is based on it being completely insane to stake multiple years of your life on starting a cryptocurrency exchange in 2012 unless you had a sincere belief in the promise of blockchain technology. Crypto circa 2012 didn't look anything like what it is now.
Agree with the sibling that people make insane gambles all the time.
But beyond that, I don't think your premise holds true. People do often start companies because they believe in (or even have a passion for) the thing their company will be doing. But people often just start companies because they believe those companies can make them money. That doesn't mean that the thing the company does is going to be good and sustainable over the longer term. Just that there's some money to be made, even if it's on the backs of speculators and gamblers that don't provide much value to the ecosystem.
People make insane gambles all the time? Some of the most neurotic people find success.
Imagine you could peer into all the class A gamblers, there'll always be a subset who get lucky and convince themselves they "worked harder' or whatever.
Point is, without proper interrogation, it looks like a gamble and crypto looks like a scam. There's always tops of pyramid schemes.
