Bitcoin is a Ponzi • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#141

Post by LudwigNagasena » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:31 AM UTC

sslayer wrote: post #29

sockfish wrote: post #3

"By that definition the USD is a ponzi. No, national currencies too fail to fit the definition, because people do not "invest" in them with the expectation of gain" <-- The 6.6trillion/day forex market begs to differ.

Nobody "invest" in USD. You invest in assets which you expect to appreciate. People investing in Bitcoin do so expecting to control a portion of a finite supply, which defeats its purpose of liquidity.

Lots of people invest in USD, especially in countries where local currencies are less stable.

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#142

Post by coz131 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:32 AM UTC

PanosJee wrote: post #130

amin wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many cryptocurrencies who are nearly identical to Bitcoin, except that most don't have the widespread fame and support. In 2019 alone, 90,000 new crypto-currencies were created. Yes, there will only be 21 million bitcoins, but there are already countless, nearly an infite amount of copycat coins. This is not the case with gold.

Comparing all those ERC20 tokens to Bitcoin is like comparing a Wix website to Google / Facebook

How about non ERC20 token? So a WIX website isn't as legitimate as Google/FB? Who is this arbiter of legitimacy?

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#143

Post by px43 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:32 AM UTC

sailingparrot wrote: post #52

dhsysusbsjsi wrote: post #9

I think this is simplistic. It’s viewing Bitcoin through a lens of a traditional Ponzi scheme assuming people that trade their fiat currency for Bitcoin are investing, with a view to one day take profits back into dollars. What if people are seeing discussion of minting a trillion dollar coin, trillions in QE, 25% of all dollars created in the last 12 months…and concluding that fiat currency is in an endgame and they…

> What if people are seeing [...] What if my grandmother had wheels? More seriously, how many people do you know are seeing what you are talking about? Everyone I know that invested in crypto did so hoping to trade it back later on for more fiat than they paid. Sure, maybe it's a biased sample, but it's a sizeable sample and I do not know even a single person that traded their fiat for crypto definitly.

First off, you're hand waving over every person who has ever used bitcoin to purchase anything, which is a lot of people buying a lot of stuff.

When I started mining bitcoin no one was talking about it every have a USD value. It was just silly internet points that you could pass around to friends. I also know a lot of people who hold as a store of value believing that it will easily outlast the US dollar.

Just because all your friends are clowns doesn't mean that those are the only people that exist.

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#144

Post by Eji1700 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:32 AM UTC

foolfoolz wrote: post #102

bugzz wrote: post #93

> By that definition, gold too is a ponzi. No, gold clearly fails to satisfy that definition on two counts. > First, few if any gold investors have expectations of profits. They generally invest in gold as a hedge -- a "store of value" -- that they hope will retain its value in case other assets go sour. I believe Bitcoin has potential to become the "new" gold. It's better in many ways. Does that mean I can only buy…

gold has no value to typical people. i can’t walk into a store and buy with gold. i can’t use gold for any purpose in day to day life. it’s an asset

This is arguably the same for a majority of crypto users.

I see crypto as a "digital asset". It's something you store funds in to hedge markets or get around transactional issues (either because you're doing something potentially illegal by some entities definition or because your currency is shot to shit), which basically makes it like golds or precious gems.

I'm not totally sold it'll last long term, but I don't see the comparison as a huge logic leap.

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#145

Post by baby » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:32 AM UTC

yunohn wrote: post #123

baby wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t have data and what if they convert back into fiat? Would you say that foreign workers who get paid in USD and send money back home only use USD as a ponzi?

You don’t need data to see plainly that the vast majority of goods are obtained with fiat. As such, someone selling goods for crypto has no choice but to use fiat as well.

I really don’t get your distinction between fiat and crypto

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#146

Post by analog31 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:33 AM UTC

lpa22 wrote: post #11

> They generally invest in gold as a hedge -- a "store of value" -- that they hope will retain its value in case other assets go sour. I strongly believe bitcoin will be the new gold one day, if it doesn't pan out as a currency. It sounds insane, but I actually believe the Winklevoss twins when they say Elon and SpaceX will be able to mine gold on asteroids within the next 20 years, which would crash the price of gol…

My bank account is a digital store of value, in US dollars. I never visit the bank (was impossible during the lockdown), rarely handle cash, and when I do, it's inconvenient.

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#147

Post by jliptzin » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:33 AM UTC

Bitcoin is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. The fact that it satisfies a certain set of conditions of a Ponzi scheme does not invalidate the myriad current and future applications of crypto. The social security administration could also be considered a Ponzi scheme, but it still provides tremendous value to a lot of people.

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#148

Post by hanniabu » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:34 AM UTC

amin wrote: post #137

seibelj wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is silver, and platinum, and tungsten, etc. etc. It’s the same thing just in a physical format.

There are good reasons why gold and silver became the main medium of exchange for thousands of years. Most other metals failed imported criteria to make them as useful for this purpose.

Just like Bitcoin. Your bias/ignorance is keeping you from understanding that all these things apply to BTC. I highly suggest taking a step back and reflecting on this more objectively.

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#149

Post by jschwartzi » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:34 AM UTC

dosenbrot wrote: post #122

sailingparrot wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if people are seeing [...] What if my grandmother had wheels? More seriously, how many people do you know are seeing what you are talking about? Everyone I know that invested in crypto did so hoping to trade it back later on for more fiat than they paid. Sure, maybe it's a biased sample, but it's a sizeable sample and I do not know even a single person that traded their fiat for crypto definitly.

How about the stock market? Everyone I know that invested in stocks did so hoping to trade it back later on for more fiat than they paid.

Well the idea that stocks must go up is a kind of scheme in itself. The whole financialization of our economy is based on constant growth. So you could argue that it’s a Ponzi scheme as well. Our children will likely be caught holding the bag.

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#150

Post by wpietri » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:34 AM UTC

dvt wrote: post #61

People use BTC/ETH/etc. in exchange for goods . I mean, I'm not a fan of cryptocurrency, but calling it a Ponzi scheme is just wrong. There are plenty of shitcoins out there that are purely pump and dumps, but it seems like BTC is here to stay.

People don't use cryptocurrency "in exchange for goods" to any significant extent. Major merchant adoption of Bitcoin peaked years ago. And at least in my area, the same goes for local merchants; Bitcoin here is extinct.

Bitcoin is doing what, 100m transactions per year? Most of which are not for physical goods. Venmo, which started around the same time, does over 2 billion. M-Pesa, a "digital money" solution the same age does 15 billion. US credit transactions? 45 billion. Debit? 75 billion per year. And unlike Bitcoin, most of those are what people would call real transactions. Bitcoin's real use is a rounding error.

Cryptocurrency can be here to stay and also be driven by scams. Set up a Google News alert for "Ponzi scheme". Ponzi was active 100 years ago, but his approach is more popular than ever. As they say, there's a sucker born every minute.