I was kinda surprised when I read the news from Financial Times that the cross-section of the UK's MPs that seems to see it as needless to regulate cryptocurrency suggested that it should be viewed as "a form of gambling" and be regulated as such.
Without relying on my own understanding of "gambling," I quickly used the help of the Oxford Dictionary through Google, and it states;
1. Play games of chance for money; bet.
2. Take risky action in the hope of a desired result.
The second one seems to fit crypto best, so it's clear they know what they are saying.
Now, do you agree that crypto should be seen as a form of gambling? And if this eventually comes through, what should we expect as the constraints it might still bring to the crypto space?
No it is not a form of gambling and to compare cryptocurrency to gambling is a very short-sided view (not surprising at all from some dim-witted "elite" from the UK).
The only similarity between cryptocurrency and gambling is
risk. If you are day-trading cryptocurrency, you are participating in an activity that is as high-risk as gambling. The better you are, the less your actions are down to chance and the more you know your odds, therefore it is just a high risk action. If you don't know what you are doing, then you are gambling.
The same goes for buying and selling. If you don't know what you are doing, then you are gambling...as you do not know the risk : reward of your actions, you have not measured your potential for gains against losses, etc.
If you are someone who understands cryptocurrency, you understand market volatility, you use technical analysis to buy/sell when you can see overselling/overbuying, and fundamentally research to reason your trades and measure your odds....you aren't gambling. You are participating in an investment that is "risk-on" but you are not throwing your money down to chance.
TLDR:
Noob - puts money into cryptocurrency with no reason or research and leave success completely down to chance. - Yes, that's gambling.
Wise - does their due diligence, assesses/measures the risk/reward of their actions, reasons their actions before taking them.
Are we really creating laws to cater for noobs now? Are we really going to classify cryptocurrency as gambling because noobs won't better themselves?
Ridiculous.