Yes, and: it's not completely exclusive to crypto. The UK FCA had to ban "binary options", a financial instrument using traditional money, due to the high volume of scams. https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/binary-options-scams

While true about that 'hero' marketing, you can claim the same about literally any marketing campaign, or things like American Dream (TM).

How many teenagers looked with starry eyes into US military recruiting PR campaigns, then get send to Iraq / Afghanistan, and instead of glory and cool adventures that were promised they saw death of peers and civilians on massive scale, they became invaders for at best questionable causes, experienced huge human suffering and destruction... which at the end didn't achieve anything positive at all, neither for US nor for locals, massively in contrary. Heroes look very differently in hindsight.

It's gambling, and it's gambling in dodgy unregulated casinos.

"This guy won big!" is absolutely a part of the marketing that pulls in the other suckers. It's not a counter-example, it's part of the scheme.

I know people who really enjoy a night out losing a 3-digit sum of money in a casino. Somehow they get sufficient reward from that to make the expense worthwhile for them.

The difference is, that unlike the Crypto enthusiasts, they don't afterwards try to convince me at length that gambling can and should replace money transfers, foreign exchange, banks in general, pension funds, the governmental exchequer etc. That would be cultish lunacy.