I have not seen one positive reception to their ratings. There's been nothing but universal flabbergastiness. There no doubt is the desire for something thorough and credible. This is not it and credible ratings would be much, much uglier than these ones.
You're only seeing the reaction from the crypto world and most people don't understand that a C rating is not bad and BTC didn't get an A because they just never give out A's. There's a ton of other people out there who had dismissed Bitcoin early on as a ponzi scam who might take a second look after seeing these ratings.
The fact is that people do pay for their research so even though you and I don't care, others do in fact value their ratings. This is meaningful as it gives credence to crypto assets for that audience regardless of what we think.
This is again not true. The "people" you're talking about aren't investors. No one with money who knows what they are doing ever pay any attention to these ratings. The worst thing you can do is to make your investment decisions based on these types of sell-side research. That's called dumb money on the street.
Not sure how you can be so confident on what is true or not in regards to how these ratings effect every single person out there haha. Wish I was omnipotent like you ;-). Don't confuse opinion for fact...
You're thinking only of crypto enthusiasts or wall street investors. I'm talking about the people that have ignored Bitcoin because it was a scam or ponzi scheme. They aren't going to invest based on these ratings. The fact that they even researched and rated them might make them take a second look. I have a friend that stayed away for years until he heard about the futures contracts. He didn't purchase any but the fact that they existed made him reconsider his understanding and he started asking me for more info which led to me selling him $3300 worth of XEM. These ratings could have the same effect.
Re: "dumb money", you don't think there's already a ton of it in these markets? You don't think these headlines could bring in more?