Five-minute Bitcoin bets, the new craze sweeping crypto, is more akin to gambling not investing, and could damage the reputation of a serious financial asset.

This is the warning from the CEO of one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organizations as ultra-short-term cryptocurrency wagers surge in popularity, pulling in retail traders chasing fast gains while exposing themselves to sharp, asymmetric risks.

Trading tied to binary-style crypto bets lasting minutes has climbed rapidly, with tens of millions of dollars now being placed daily on whether digital assets will rise or fall over five- or fifteen-minute windows.

These contracts have quickly become a dominant slice of activity on prediction-style platforms,…