I see it the other way. From the comfort of my home computer I can speculate on the value of U.S. corporations, the future value of U.S. corporations, the value of shiny yellow metal, the exchange rate between the dollar and the turkish lira, the exchange rate between the dollar and the euro 12 months from now, the price of cattle, the price of corn, the interest rate on 30 year treasury bonds 6 months from now. The list goes on and on. I can do all of that legally. We have all the necessary legal and regulatory framework to support it. So to say, "yes you can make risky speculative bets on the price of gold but not on the price of bitcoin" doesn't really make sense to me as an American.