Looking at the coins as just "data" is ignoring a lot of what they are. Your bank account is just "data", but if I hacked into it and took the 1s and 0s making up your balance, well, there's no question that's a crime. Replace bank account with stock broker account and the same would apply. I don't see why it wouldn't be the same for cryptocurrency.
I fail to see how smart contracts is a grey area; if you're abusing a fault in the code, that's very clearly fraudulent behavior.
In short, there's a lot of "This is new! Things are different! The existing laws don't apply!" regarding some of these things, but I'm just not convinced. It may be harder to enforce or to prosecute, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't fall into existing laws.
I fail to see how smart contracts is a grey area; if you're abusing a fault in the code, that's very clearly fraudulent behavior.
In short, there's a lot of "This is new! Things are different! The existing laws don't apply!" regarding some of these things, but I'm just not convinced. It may be harder to enforce or to prosecute, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't fall into existing laws.