The co-founder of a major crypto wallet says 'putting your money in cryptocurrencies is gambling

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© Provided by Business InsiderPeople stand by a Metamask billboard in Times Square during an NFT conference in New York City. Noam Galai/Getty Images

Aaron Davis, co-founder of a popular crypto wallet, says investing in crypto is "gambling."
It's a rare remark from a founder of a major crypto player — MetaMask boasts 30 million users.
The co-founder said it's "extremely dangerous" to say today's crypto is the future of finance.

A co-founder of a popular crypto wallet said investing in digital assets amounts to gambling.

In an interview with Vice, Aaron Davis of MetaMask — which has allowed crypto users a place to store their holdings for six years now — warned people against staking their life savings in cryptocurrency, especially as the industry faces a months-long selloff that's showing few signs of stopping.

"It feels too little too late, but putting your money in cryptocurrencies is gambling," Davis told Vice. "I'm not saying what we have right now is the future of finance and [you should] move your life savings over. A lot of people are advocating that and I think that is extremely dangerous behavior."

It's a rare admission from someone who has founded or leads a major crypto company.

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Crypto critics have long likened crypto investing to gambling, dubbing the market an unregulated casino. Others have labeled it a Ponzi scheme, arguing it relies on recruiting new investors to repay early ones that already coughed up the cash.


A former employee at the now-bankrupt crypto lending platform Celsius is suing his former employer, similarly calling it a "Ponzi scheme." The lawsuit alleges Celsius failed to hedge against risk, resulting in a liquidity crisis and a suspension of withdrawals that trapped its users' holdings.

Davis's fellow MetaMask co-founder David Finlay said there may be bad actors in the crypto world, but there is only so much MetaMask can do about it.

"We can't stop people from making Ponzis on blockchains," Finlay told Vice. "It's by definition impossible for us to wrap the whole thing into one unified bow and enforce it in a direction."

"One of the ways that we help the ecosystem keep momentum towards better uses is to make the information they're exposed to increasingly consensual," he continued, "so that as there are better, more credible use cases, people have an opportunity to be exposed more exclusively to those. We can't ban ponzis but we can deprive them of the precious oxygen of exposure."

Davis and Finlay also discussed with Vice their company turning six and boasting 30 million monthly active users, the ongoing storm raging in the crypto market and its many failures, and the hope that despite that fact, it may have a bright future.

"We will know that maybe we or somebody else did something right, when we have addressed climate change or there's better social equality," Finlay said. "Those are my two longest term hopes for the ecosystem."