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Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

garynorth.com

281–290 of 306 posts

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll always have some value and may always be traded. I'm sure people still own and trade pogs but I wouldn't call pogs a currency. When I said that it'll fade into history I meant that sites like Amazon will never accept it. By definition, currency is "the fact or quality of being generally accepted or in use". If it isn't widely accepted, it's just not currency IMO. The primary benefit seems to be anonymity and th…

I'm not so sure about this. That's like saying, "People will always have AOL accounts." Well, eventually they became irrelevant. In addition, there are other ways it could end. Perhaps a government finds a way to shut it down. Or there's some kind of fraud. Or perhaps they become a victim of their own success, and someone else creates a better version.

You're right, there are other ways it can end.

Of course I really don't know what's going to happen but my best guess with what I know is that it'll fade into obscurity within a year.

Probably my #1 reason for BTC failing is that it's not fiat. All popular currencies are fiat for good reasons.

BTC sort of reminds me of the gold standard being finite and initially "mined". Maybe it's fate is similar. People who don't trust state backed currencies will find use but it will ultimately remain on the fringe for everyday trade.

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#283
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those 'requirements' are because of powerful entities abusing the system? What are the forces that have caused those requirements to arise with traditional currencies? Did you mean inflationary spiral for Southern Europe? Or are prices for things dropping there right now? Not sure.. But again, a lot of what happens is because of constantly 'hacking' the system (raise the debt ceiling, print more money, et…

No one can realistically claim they truly understand the current system. The Austrian economists seductively claim this, but that's because they reject empiricism as a way of challenging their axioms. Keynes seems to have hit upon the most predictive model we have for how economies operate at scale with currency, especially how we can get into depression-like circumstances when internet rates are 0% like they have be…

We don't have inflation because with fractional reserve, most of the money is created by banks when they make loans. They're a lot less inclined to make loans these days, and a lot of borrowers are inclined to pay down their debt, so it's hard to actually get more money into the economy. If it weren't for all the printing we'd have a shrinking money supply as old loans got paid off.

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#285
If Bitcoin's market cap is a scheme, what is then Apple's market cap?! USD is the biggest scheme there is, when you think about it. Bitcoin was born out of demand, not as a scheme. The only negative side is the speculators who move the price up and down by tens percent daily, but when more money get into Bitcoin, their job will only get harder.

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#286

"Companies will not sell goods and services based on Bitcoins. Bitcoins have to have stable purchasing power if they are to serve as money, and they will never, ever achieve stable purchasing power." More & more companies announce that they accept Bitcoins on a daily basis, thus it has purchasing power & it creates value to the end consumer.

Yeah, it appears to me that the author sole purpose was to discredit the currency more out of bitterness more than actual valid data.

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#287
post #170
post #42

> In this sense, Bitcoins is not a Ponzi scheme. It is simply a supermoney scheme. Admits that bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme in his own article. > The money was siphoned off from the beginning. Somebody owned a good percentage of the original digits. Implies that most bitcoins are owned by satoshi nakamoto, without substantiating this claim by any number to quantify the impact. The estimated stash of satoshi is about…

there's no question that the author of this article wrote it with linkbait in mind - calling bitcoin a ponzi scheme. having thought about it - the argument that bitcoin is going to be worth a lot "because there are only 21 million" - we have to consider that bitcoin is just one of "n" virtual currencies. while bitcoin may be limited, we already have 37 alternatives (at least) and there's no reason another hundred can…

Altcoins are a pure speculators world. We've seen many "better" technologically Twitters - yet, the one with the fail whale survived as it had all the mind share. Bitcoin is technologically millennias ahead of cash, yet, cash is still the king. Same with Bitcoin vs Litecoin, let's say. Nobody cares if Litecoin is technologically a bit better - all Google searches have "Bitcoin" in them and it's here to stay unlike Quarkcoin, Junkcoin, BBQCoin, and the ten other wannabes and copycats. The world doesn't need two Bitcoins - it defeats the purpose. The world doesn't care what "cryptocurrency" is - the world knows "Bitcoin". China likes altcoins as they lead mining operations and they need to sell their mined coins expensively, but China's interest and World's interest and not always parallel.

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is maybe a stupid question but what does it mean to be Austrian in this context? Is he born in Austria or is this a reference to the Austrian School of Economics?

School of Economics

Thank you guys for the clarification.

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#289

The biggest argument for not investing in Bitcoin is that anyone who is familiar with technology history can see that it is too early to pick a winner. Bitcoin is better compared to something like TCP/IP. The winner is likely to be something derived from it, probably something that hasn't been invented yet.

A better twitter than Twitter, a better facebook than Facebook? In technology, it's not always the better technology that wins. Bitcoin is more than good enough.

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money develops out of market exchanges. Money was not used for its own sake initially, but it becomes widely used as money as a result of innumerable transactions within the economy This also doesn't appear to be true: see David Graeber's book Debt: The First Five Thousand Years for his descriptions of how money actually emerges from religious ceremonies and temples, not barter (as most econ books have it) or "market…

I wouldn't trust Graeber, as he is frequently wrong about easily verifiable facts in such a way that it supports his world view. There's no reason to trust a liar when he tries to tell you something you don't know about. My favorite Graeberism is when he describes the founding of Apple: > Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) computer engineers who broke from IBM in Silicon Valley…

Great comment! Thanks. I updated the post.
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