"Comparing Bitcoin to Ponzi Schemes is unfair...

It is not a Ponzi in the same way that a house burglary is not a shop robbery but it certainly shares many attributes.
Ok, then. Which attributes does it share exactly?



You mention "open decentralised" as if it were an Immaculate Conception incapable of being used for evil or naughty purposes.
I mention 'open decentralised' because it's a protocol. It may have been coded by a person or persons but we can all see what that code is. We can all read the whitepaper. Here is the bitcoin whitepaper ->

Please point out the offending parts that identify bitcoin as a ponzi.


I read somewhere that the criminal classes have a particular penchant for this holy of holies.
I had no idea anyone referred to cash as the 'holy of holies'...who knew.


Anyway you have made it abundantly clear that your rejection of all mainstream academic views on crypto is based on a credo that they are hopelessly compromised by the "Turkeys don't vote for Christmas" syndrome. I admit that it is a lot easier than actually challenging their reasoned and informed arguments.
If you think its unusual that incumbents in any field talk down a new innovation and claim that it wouldn't/couldn't/won't work - I'd have to ask you how many examples of that sort of behaviour have we had? The main cohort left in opposition are those connected directly with central banking and Keynesian economics.
As regards the charge that I haven't put up reasoned and informed arguments, you can review the last five years of posts. Secondly, why would we even begin when you've conveniently forgotten yourself that you don't believe that bitcoin is a ponzi! - which is this guys claim (with an added twist).
However, maybe you yourself need to search for reasoned and informed argument to formulate and support your own views. You have previously suggested that you would simply have to trust central bankers blindly. When challenged as to what it would take for you to adjust your view re. bitcoin, you said that would only change when Roubini changed his mind. I think it's a mistake to assume that these guys know best or necessarily have your interests at heart.
 
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Ok, then. Which attributes does it share exactly?

Please point out the offending parts that identify bitcoin as a ponzi, please.
Read McAuley. Last in the big losers. Okay, it is not fulfilled...yet.
If you think its unusual that incumbents in any field talk down a new innovation and claim that it wouldn't/couldn't/won't work - I'd have to ask you how many examples of that sort of behaviour have we had? The main cohort left in opposition are those connected directly with central banking and Keynesian economics.
Yep, you're consistent.
Secondly, why would we even begin when you've conveniently forgotten yourself that you don't believe that bitcoin is a ponzi! - which is this guys claim (with an added twist).
I know you have all my posts in your library so the absence of a concrete reply had me searching. This is what a search of Duke+Ponzi throws up:
DOM 5/01/21 said:
Taxpayers’ money should not be sucked into a Ponzi scheme.
DOM 5/01/21 said:
When I pass on the assertions of learned observers that crypto is a Ponzi scheme, I am not suggesting it was started by an Italian gentleman. You know what is meant - when it blows up it will be the last suckers in who will be badly burnt. Along the way the manipulating whales will have performed a spectacular fraud.

DOM 23/07/21 said:
He (Prof Roubini) describes phenomena such as pump and dump, price manipulation, whales etc. but I don't think he has called it a Ponzi scheme because it does not tick all the boxes to be so indicted. Maybe it should be called a Tulip scheme
If it is this latter reference that informs your opinion that I "don't believe that bitcoin is a ponzi", I have to ask is your real name Boris?
 
@Duke - you've stated above that bitcoin has the attributes of a ponzi scheme ( or some of the attributes). Can you please outline what those attributes are?
 
@Duke - you've stated above that bitcoin has the attributes of a ponzi scheme ( or some of the attributes). Can you please outline what those attributes are?
As per McAuley but not yet delivered, I admit. At the moment you have pole position.
The main attribute is that when it all ends in tears it will be the last in who will be the losers.
Another attribute is that the "winners" will be unscrupulous pump-and-dump merchants and whales.
 
As per McAuley but not yet delivered, I admit. At the moment you have pole position.
The main attribute is that when it all ends in tears it will be the last in who will be the losers.
Another attribute is that the "winners" will be unscrupulous pump-and-dump merchants and whales.

Ok, so you say 'pump and dump merchants', 'whales' and 'last in = losers' means bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. Lets stay with that then. Can you point out to me where I can see these elements enabled in the bitcoin whitepaper?

For convenience, here's a copy of the whitepaper -> https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
 
My own firm has been researching crypto In recent months, proper research now by people with Mscs in Finance, not someone sitting on the toilet scrolling social media.

We approached it with an open mind and i recently posted my initial thoughts on twitter and engaged in a lively discussion with the professor of finance at UCD.


But our conclusion is simply no amount of looking for reasons TO INVEST has led us to conclude that anyone should do so.

Cryptocurrency in general exhibit the characteristics of, and are therefore most likely to have the effects of a pyramid scheme is the most rational conclusion here.

Guide to be published shortly
 
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@Marc
A couple of questions...
- Is bitcoin a pyramid scheme?
- If not, but it's "likely to have the effects of a pyramid scheme", can you clarify how it would or does have the effects of a pyramid scheme?
 
It's simply a market.

This is not a Ponzi scheme (no central operator, no promised returns by said operator, and no fraud in delivering those returns).

This is not a pyramid scheme either (no central organisation at the top, no levels of hierarchy and therefore no kickbacks up the levels when people sell).

You can dislike what is being sold in the market, you can think people are stupid for buying and selling it, but it's still just a market.

Of course if the underlying item in a market fails, those holding it at the time lose out. This is as true for bitcoin as it was for the market of Anglo Irish shares or any other company that failed completely.
 
Ok, so you say 'pump and dump merchants', 'whales' and 'last in = losers' means bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. Lets stay with that then. Can you point out to me where I can see these elements enabled in the bitcoin whitepaper?

For convenience, here's a copy of the whitepaper -> https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
I am not accusing Saint Satoshi of any underhand motivation. Her main objective was to be the human race's salvation in a medium of exchange decentralised, censorship free blah blah blah.
I am sure she is absolutely scandalised by the Temple of Speculation and Manipulation it has turned into.

Getting back to Ponzi, actually OP gives the most apt reason to describe it as such:
OP said:
Investors buy in the expectation of profits. That expectation is sustained by the profits of those that cash out. But there is no external source for those profits; they come entirely from new investments.
 
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I am a confirmed crypto-skeptic but it would be interesting to read a well written defence of Bitcoin, does anyone have any good links to share? I understand the technology and I think I have a grasp of why some believe Bitcoin is not simply a speculative bubble but I have never read anything convincing.

On an optimistic day I can just about conceive of Bitcoin having some value (I don't really believe it but I've been wrong often enough to concede that I may be mistaken again) but how on earth can the vast majority of the other crap-coins ever be anything other than a total con? If you are a crypto believer how do you square this aspect of the whole crypto-mania?
 
On an optimistic day I can just about conceive of Bitcoin having some value (I don't really believe it but I've been wrong often enough to concede that I may be mistaken again) but how on earth can the vast majority of the other crap-coins ever be anything other than a total con? If you are a crypto believer how do you square this aspect of the whole crypto-mania?
I ignore the crap-coins and don't participate in them.
 
This is so general that any commodity market meets the definition.
After a brief scratch of the head I conclude that it is different
After all a share in XYZ widget manufacturer is an investment on the expectation that widgets will continue to have a utility and will therefore command a price.
An investment in a commodity is similarly an expectation that it will continue to have a utility that will command a price,
A Ponzi scheme has no intrinsic economic value or utility whatsoever, it is entirely reliant on a flow of new suckers.
Ditto bitcoin.
 
And now we're back to the intrinsic value argument of course because that's at the root of this whole thing - thinking bitcoin is a mirage and working backwards from that to crowbar it into a ponzo/pyramid scheme definition that isn't accurate. That's what I meant when I said you may not like what is being traded in the market, but it remains simply a market none-the-less.
An investment in a commodity is similarly an expectation that it will continue to have a utility that will command a price,
Bitcoin holders have that expectation/hope of bitcoin, which is why we see it as just another commodity market. I guess we'll never agree on that, and that's ok.
 
The closest parallel we found is tulip bulbs in Holland in the 17th Century.

Read

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay
 
And now we're back to the intrinsic value argument of course because that's at the root of this whole thing - thinking bitcoin is a mirage and working backwards from that to crowbar it into a ponzo/pyramid scheme definition that isn't accurate. That's what I meant when I said you may not like what is being traded in the market, but it remains simply a market none-the-less.

Bitcoin holders have that expectation/hope of bitcoin, which is why we see it as just another commodity market. I guess we'll never agree on that, and that's ok.
Yes, it comes down to has bitcoin a utility/intrinsic value?
John Kelleher of Investopedia argues that the only utility value it can ever have is as a medium of exchange. I would insert "aspire to" before "have". For me it is an aspiration that can never be fulfilled since as Satoshi said in an epistle to the Corinthians or whomever that what it missed was intrinsic value. She then went on in the spirit of the great theologians and argued that if it got adopted as a MOE then that would give it the utility to justify it as a MOE. Better than 3 persons in 1, don't you think?
Anyway, you are right, old ground being covered for the umpteenth time, let's agree to disagree once more.
 
The closest parallel we found is tulip bulbs in Holland in the 17th Century.
Ok, and was that a pyramid scheme?

It's just like DazedInPontoon has outlined above. The ponzi/pyramid claims are false. Nobody can point to design elements of the bitcoin protocol that scream ponzi. It's a protocol that doesn't proclaim to offer any return! How could it be a ponzi/pyramid scheme on that basis?

I could invest in a startup that claims X. X doesn't come to fruition and I lose all my money. That doesn't make it a ponzi/pyramid. If those attempts to develop that innovation/idea/tech were not genuine or downright false, maybe it could be deemed to be fraud (along the lines of Elizabeth Holmes / Theranos ). If bitcoin is fraudulent, then the codebase is opensource and the whitepaper has long since been published - have at it - and tell us where the ponzi/pyramid/fraud element is.

So now we've arrived at a point where pyramid/ponzi claims are once again thrown out and we're right back at intrinsic value once again.

With regard to the last in = loser claim, how is that any different to me investing in a startup offering new tech at an early stage, I sell all or some of my position as the price rises - and maybe the tech flourishes ( and the latecomer makes a stack) or the tech dies and the latecomer loses everything? This plays out all of the time.
This is what VCs do in the traditional world - and the ordinary guy is not allowed to participate in! (as they have to be accredited investors). With regard to bitcoin, ordinary people have participated. If they participated early, they have shown greater conviction and taken greater risk...so my answer to anyone with this gripe is that you had the opportunity to participate at sub $1, $10, $100, $1000, $10,000, etc. What you decided to do was your choice.

As regards comparisons with Tulipmania, there are important differences:

- Tulips are in no way scarce - bitcoin on the other hand is scarcer than gold.
- Bitcoin has inherent properties which provides it with utility in the role of money and as a store of value.
- There's never been a time when we are not reminded of bitcoin's utility - via failed currencies - the most recent example being the Turkish Lira. A coupe of months prior, it was the Lebanese pound....and on and on it goes. There is utility in a rules-based digital asset that governments and central bankers cannot tinker with.
 
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- bitcoin on the other hand is scarcer than gold.
What does that mean? There are currently c. 2,000,000,000,000,000 satoshis in existence. How many ounces of gold? Or are you referring to atoms? Be a bit more precise.
And then we have the 2,000 crypto lookalikes. Gold's lookalikes can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Admittedly the protocol limits the supply of bitcoin, but my understanding is that even this is not immutable.
 
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