Yeah... if Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, then any investment bubble where stocks etc. rise to values which have nothing to do with reality is a Ponzi scheme too. There too the inverstors who have held the stocks the longest and who sell before the bubble bursts will get the most profits, while the ones who got in late will lose money. Which is also unfair of course, but not fraudulent per se...
Bitcoin is a Ponzi
351–360 of 684 posts
Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi
#352Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi
#353Jorge Stolfi has been a bitcoin doomsayer for years. The author published these in 2014: https://ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/bitcoin-beggar-1024.pn... https://ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2014-03-02-ShortHistor... Bitcoin ended 2014 around $378. I think it's proved it's staying power. Let's move on.
That must hurt.
Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi
#354Why are such articles constantly popping up on HN? It's clear that the HN crowd does not like Bitcoin. So why keep reiterating similar arguments all over? There is zero utility in the article shared. It states some anti crypto views and that's it. Even the author concedes that this is according to his own definition and not based on real life legal tests (which have of course shown that Bitcoin is not a ponzi). Just…
By this articles definition WeWork is a Ponzi scheme, as would most startups.
Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fees for Bitcoin are way too high to make sense for citizens in poor authoritarian counties. The average transaction fee during slow periods is about $5 and it jumps to $20 whenever there is load on the network. And the lightning network is a poor solution to this because the LN requires a lot of capital to fund channels, something poor people explicitly don't have. Finally, the fact that Bitcoin proponents have…
$5-$20 for any amount is comparable or much less than almost any international transaction fee. If you're other option is transferring money out of the authoritarian country into your destination then this could be very attractive.
Keep in mind that this purely the onchain transaction fee.
You are also going to paying exchange fees each way and those fees are likely to be quite large in authoritarian countries (as any illegal activity is generally more expensive).
Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did do the reading. It's an O(n) db insert. The blockchain's the DB and the insert needs PoW. throughput of a blockchain is contingent upon tweaking but for the original bitcoin, still used, it's 6 mb/hour. electricity consumption is 14 gigawatts. if i were given 14 gigawatts of electricity i think i could do better than 6 megabytes/hour.
Do you understand the tradeoffs of why it works that way? That for an open and fully accessible, decentralised system that exists in an adversarial environment there has to be a large cost to any attacks? Of course there are much more efficient ways to store data, but those are centralised and vulnerable to the problems of centralisation. The blockchain's and proof-of-work's purpose is to be decentralised.
right. everything is a tradeoff. but in almost every other part of the tradeoff space you can do better than 6 mb/hour for 14 gigawatts.
Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi
#357A 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…
To begin with this assumes a refugee with substantial enough assets to transmit abroad. Before Bitcoin such people paid a bribe to get those assets out. Now they pay some broker a purchase fee and withstand the market volatility. A big loss either way.
Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi
#358Why are such articles constantly popping up on HN? It's clear that the HN crowd does not like Bitcoin. So why keep reiterating similar arguments all over? There is zero utility in the article shared. It states some anti crypto views and that's it. Even the author concedes that this is according to his own definition and not based on real life legal tests (which have of course shown that Bitcoin is not a ponzi). Just…
There's great reasons not to. Unless we nip this in the bud, we face a potential repeat of the 1997 Albanian Ponzi crisis that brought about the total collapse of their economy. Everyone in Albania jumped in and started participating in a number of big Ponzi schemes. Their finance minister tried to stop them, so they threw him in jail. They then had a civil war about it, and the IMF had to drop in big bags of money.…
> This is what the maxis are after.
When you find yourself saying that the people you disagree with are deliberately seeking catastrophic outcomes, it's time to take a step back and reconsider. I don't think anyone wants to destroy the global economy and cause a global war. Maybe the Bitcoin maxis are wrong about the long-term viability of Bitcoin, but I doubt very much they are some kind of nihilistic death cult bent on destroying civilization. Maybe dial it back a notch.
Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi
#359Jorge Stolfi has been a bitcoin doomsayer for years. The author published these in 2014: https://ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/bitcoin-beggar-1024.pn... https://ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2014-03-02-ShortHistor... Bitcoin ended 2014 around $378. I think it's proved it's staying power. Let's move on.
"..bitcoin may be dead by the middle of 2014.." reminds me of https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/
Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
Per any transaction, regardless of size.
What the shit? It costs $5 to spend any amount of Bitcoin? Is that for real? (I genuinely don't know, that just sounds so high)
No it's not real, the cost to do a simple transfer up until yesterday has been in the ballpark of 0.1-0.15. This very moment it's around $1. You can see the current estimated cost here: https://mempool.space
In addition to that, there's always the Lightning Network as well wherein you can transact for fractions of pennies.