Crypto will not win public trust until users and platforms take security as seriously as banks do, says Navin Gupta.
Scams have become one of the biggest stains on the reputation of the crypto market. For Navin Gupta, CEO of Crystal Intelligence, that is a problem that the industry itself must fix. He believes that until users feel their funds are as secure as they are in banks, mass adoption will remain a distant goal.
“We always blame banks,” he said in an interview with TheStreet Roundtable’s Jackson Hinkle. “Banks are slow, they are stodgy, but you have to give it to the banks that generally people do not complain about banks stealing their money.” By contrast, he said, if you ask a hall full of crypto users whether they have seen a scam attempt, “every single person has been scammed in crypto” or has at least been targeted.
Why scams keep happening
Gupta breaks the problem into two sides. On the user side, he says the classic rule “If it is too good to be true, it is not true,” has not changed.
“Somebody who is saying, I am going to double your money in two days, be suspicious. There are no free lunches in the world.” He added that sometimes users must admit their own role in losses. “We were greedy when these things were happening,” he said.
But Gupta does not put the entire burden on users. He says service providers and projects must step up. He gave the example of his group’s website scam-alert.io.
“Every single victim who reports a scammer address will have (the scammers) wallet addresses listed there. You can, on a free basis, check, is my customer sending money to the same scammer?” he explained. “If it is, you can stop the transaction and tell the customer this particular wallet has been reported.” In his view, this is a simple tool that wallets, exchanges, and crypto projects should already be using to protect clients.
He warns that decentralized finance (DeFi), remains the most exposed corner of the market. “Large exchanges that are public or regulated have stronger security and often insurance,” he said. “DeFi needs to do a better job, because when users lose money there, they never come back.”
Still, Gupta sees progress. Many exchanges already carry private insurance, and he expects public coverage, similar to FDIC insurance in the U.S., once banks move into products like stablecoins. “Governments do not want to spend taxpayer money on people they told not to use crypto,” he said, “but that will change when banks are fully involved.”
“Crypto must earn trust,” Gupta added. “Users must be careful, platforms must protect them, and regulators must set clear rules. Only then will digital assets stand beside traditional finance.”
