First of all, a market cap of $300 billion could not be spoofed. The trading volume is enormous, and far beyond what any conspiracy of price pumpers could fabricate, and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of significant fiat investments being made into cryptocurrency all the time.
Second, me saying people are not underestimating it is not an endorsement of it as an investment. If I were endorsing it, I would say the opposite; that people are underestimating it.
Trading volume can easily be faked in unregulated exchanges. These exchanges aren't exactly trying to ensure people aren't trading out of multiple accounts against themselves.
Trading volume across a diverse range of exchanges cannot be easily faked. Large exchanges with institutional investors, like Coinbase, are not going to fake their volume.
>>These exchanges aren't exactly trying to ensure people aren't trading out of multiple accounts against themselves.
Many of them verify ID and don't allow people to have multiple accounts.
Also, people pay fees on every trade. All of this volume being a conspiracy by people, working on a dozen exchanges, and willing to pay millions in fees to each exchange just to pump up its volume, is highly unrealistic.
It's not how conspiracies work. There needs to be a way to enforce a pact for a pact to be successful. No such method exists for the thousands of traders across the world.
Market cap in the crypto space is a joke. It is super easy to manipulate and poeple (like you) fall for it.