Wow, $900k is a hefty sum, hopefully it was money your friend was ready to lose.
Agree with you that most people get easily tricked by the market because of their lack of technical knowledge and also because greed coupled with fear of missing out the next "BItcoin killer" or whatnot. That's the reason why I have started this blog, I want to give people objective, technical information to educate the many without trading experience so they don't get preyed upon :)