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There are a lot of people who are "investing" in Bitcoin right now not out of expectation of real gains, but as a way to maintain assets against an inflating dollar... nominal gains, but not real ones.
This is not true: you don't invest in something with 20% weekly swings to "maintain assets" against 1-3% inflation. You just don't.
> 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
The whole point of an economy is that something has value if it's valuable to someone, not just the person who's holding it.
I'm not going to use a chunk of gold for anything, but it has intrinsic uses that aren't tied to being an exchange of value. It can be used to make jewelry, electronics, food, and medical devices. In some of those applications, there is no substitute for gold.
Contrast that with Bitcoin, whose only value is speculative (whether people think it will increase in price). It has literally no other use or value. If the internet crashed, you couldn't sell your Bitcoin to someone to make jewelry out of it.
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.
A very very minute percentage of bitcoin is used in transactions. The vast bulk of it is seen by its users as an investment. And historically there have been Ponzi schemes that allowed people to cash out before the scheme fell apart — but it was always a small minority cashing out.
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But ETH is still tied to the dollar and that's where it gets its value, is in the comparison to the dollar. I don't accept ETH for a used car I'm going to sell. I accept dollars, though.
I'm not sure I understand. You could denominate ETH in dollars, yen, euros, gold, or any other form of money/currency. Although USD might be your preferred, many would happily sell a vehicle for compensation in BTC, ETH, silver, gold, euros, etc.
"Oh shit, the internet went out. Hope the value of my ETH doesn't crash through the floor while the internet is down...."
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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.
> This is not the case with gold. Silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, copper... Just as people have generally centered around gold, people have so far generally centered on Bitcoin. There's a great deal of other metals and a great deal of other cryptocurrencies, but if nobody really cares about them, then they are not relevant to the conversation.
Judging by the attitude on HN, cryptocurrency should be worth $0 and written off years ago. Instead it's bigger than ever and the most important people on earth are focusing on it. Somehow it's simultaneously an incredible, useless scam but is so powerful that we must ban it at all costs! HN doesn't know everything, do your own research, use your own logic.
I love HN but have watched for years as much in the community have completely missed the boat on crypto and blockchain. It's a strange disconnect...
Unless you mean specifically "missed the opportunity to make lots of money", in which case sure, that's absolutely accurate, but if I wanted to gamble I'd just go to a casino.
Is it still a Ponzi if you bought it to exit legacy finance with no view to sell back?
A lot of the "Common Objections" relate to the REASONS people choose to own Bitcoin and how those cases make it a Ponzi. There are many different reasons to own Bitcoin, however the author seems to only view it through the lens of someone living in a wealthy and developed country with financial stability. The properties of it being difficult/impossible to confiscate and its privacy make it valuable in oppressive regi…
I find it very manipulative to use people suffering as an excuse to pump speculative assets. Sure, there’s very tiny amount of people who use Bitcoin as you described. But so there’re people who get benefits from smoking.
As the article states, check your financial privilege.
And "tiny amount of people"? What's "tiny" here? Hundreds, thousands, millions? Do you know how many people use Bitcoin in this way?