The lottery is irrational yes because of the near impossible odds of winning. Investing in stocks is actually rational because every decade stocks have been up. People who lose in stocks tend to invest when prices are high and then sell during the crash. While I'm not giving anyone investment advice, what I would do to win at stocks is invest during the depression or recession when prices are low and then wait for the next mania phase.

The same cyclical nature we see in stocks we also see in crypto. FUD articles like to be released and get promoted when prices are depleting. Suddenly when Bitcoin is going down people want to talk about what a bad investment it was?

If people would have bough Bitcoin in 2013 and simply held it until now they'd be far better off. The same with Ethereum, the same with Steem. Based on statistics and data the best strategy appears to be "buy and hold" and the time period appears to be 3 years.