You could say it is a lottery, but the same thing you can say about Forex or Stocks (Penny stocks). You can play it like a lottery, but it is exactly the same in terms of investing or trading - if you know your money management you can play it smart and not risk losing everything.

This is why many people will lose their money in the long term. The people that got in early on Bitcoin won the lottery, but the people who know what they are risking and put money into crypto responsibly will not lose the money, while the early adopters who got lucky will most likely not succeed in the long term.

You might say it may not be true as people will just simply cash out and be done with it. But would you really do it if for the past years you got 100x ROI making a million dollars? Why not shoot for a billion then eh? If you made a million you must know what you are doing.