Not backed by any revenue, assets, or business model - Almost all publicly traded stocks are backed by companies that generate some revenue and assets. The same cannot be said about all cryptocurrencies since most of them have been created out of thin air. The exceptions are coins that are created by cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance coin, Kucoin or Huobi Token.
Those exchanges make profits, so it is a real investment. For example, Binance created their own coin called Binance coin and clients can only buy it at their exchange. This coin made a return since its initial coin offering almost 25 000% within a half year. Normally, some cryptocurrencies can do such returns too, but this growth is backed by growing profits of its exchange.
Binance made in 1 quarter profit of $200 000 000, which is approximately 33% more than Deutsche Bank and Binance has 200 employees, whereas Deutsche Bank has 100 000. So, most of the coins are pure speculation, but some of them are real businesses with real profits and business plans.
