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The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

coppolacomment.com

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Re: The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

#11
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I don’t think that is true at all. There is economic value in a piece of equity in google. The price someone is willing to pay for it changes frequently. Crypto is closer to art than anything else. I get less value from a rothko than someone else may

Relevant Warren Buffet commentary on crypto:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVm7Pfb0ilY

Re: The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

#14
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This. Today's stock market bears little relation to "a thing where you can buy shares of a company, and if it does well you can get paid by selling it."

That is simply not true at all. Most stock prices are based upon earning or future potential earnings.

Re: The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

#16
This is a terrible argument, and clickbait. Obvious enough to anyone who actually understands how bitcoin, or eth work, it does not fit the definition of a ponzi scheme. Most tech stocks fit the definition better. Just because a few centralized banks, (FTX, centralized crypto exchanges are banks) have failed, means nothing, since the original idea of cryptocurrency was to do away with centralized institutions like this.

Re: The entire crypto ecosystem is a ponzi

#18
Cryptocurrency in its purest is money not issued or controlled by a government. Instead the supply inflation is controlled by transparent rules that are plain to see. “Protocol-based finance” vs. the existing government-based finance.

Now there are all manner of divergences from the above paragraph. Coins that are totally controlled and issued by a small group or company. Black box rules rather than transparent.

There are also huge trade offs with not having a central entity - lose your private key and lose your money for example.

Does this make the entire industry a Ponzi? No. There are legitimate uses for crypto, and even if I listed a whole bunch here the HN skeptics would disagree, but certainly buying drugs online is a real use case, which crypto excels at. You may say that’s morally wrong but it is still a use case, for better or worse.

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