da-kuk/E+ via Getty Images Jordan Belfort, a former stock trader and the inspiration for the movie Wolf of Wall Street, pegged Tether (USDT-USD) as a "scam" and called for "massive regulation" of the cryptocurrency market, saying the sooner authorities establish oversight of the asset class, the better it will be for legitimate products like Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and stablecoins. "I think people are scared of regulation. They shouldn't be," Belfort said Wednesday in an interview with Coindesk. Belfort, who calls himself a "crypto bull," pointed to historical precedent to make his case, arguing that the junk bond market of the 1980s got bigger once it received a predictable regulatory regime. He contended that stable regulation would prevent pump-and-dump scams and head off issues like the current controversy surrounding tether. Asked about scams in the crypto world, Belfort responded: "There's so many. It's really sad." "The sooner [regulation] happens, legitimate crypto --
