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Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

garynorth.com

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Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#21

Post by mschuster91 »

The author completely omits the two main advantages of Bitcoin over traditional currencies/banking:

1) it's blazing fast. Ten minutes and someone deep in African desert can wire money to a researcher on one of those scientific outposts. Try to do that with a bank.

2) If done right, Bitcoins are anonymous like cash. In light of the recent NSA scandal, I don't believe a second that the NSA/other governments will reduce their programs. If I wire a thousand dollars to Pakistan, I bet I'll land on some no-fly list, even if the money was support for my family. With Bitcoin, this would not be possible.

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#22

Post by ashray »

gokhan wrote: post #14

The individual who sells the Ponzi scheme makes money by siphoning off a large share of the money coming in. In other words, he does not make the investment. But Bitcoins are unique. The money was siphoned off from the beginning. Only true if we see Satoshi spending his Bitcoins. We have an online store selling baby products and really want to accept Bitcoins but we can't at the moment since Bitcoin is not widespread…

Hi,

I suggest that you check out bitpay.com

They will bill your customers in bitcoin and will transfer out USD to you so that you don't have to worry about the exchange rate at all. You setup your items in USD as well and they handle the price fluctuations.

They do daily payouts to 30 countries in several currencies. I've been using them since April and it's amazing!

Sincerely, A happy bitpay customer :)

Edit: oh and I must add! They used to take 1% commission but have introduced new packages that have 0% commission from $30/month! Also, the daily bank withdrawals are free.

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#23

Post by VLM »

gokhan wrote: post #14

The individual who sells the Ponzi scheme makes money by siphoning off a large share of the money coming in. In other words, he does not make the investment. But Bitcoins are unique. The money was siphoned off from the beginning. Only true if we see Satoshi spending his Bitcoins. We have an online store selling baby products and really want to accept Bitcoins but we can't at the moment since Bitcoin is not widespread…

"price fluctuates madly"

Look at it as training if you ever branch out into selling in (hyper)inflationary markets.

For example, in the 80s, people in Argentina continued to pop out kids and would theoretically be a market for your baby product store... if you have the infrastructure to handle "difficult market conditions" then you have an inherent competitive advantage in the future over your competitors.

About the only thing that's really certain about the future of hyperinflation is it'll continue to happen, so a return on the investment seems guaranteed; although when you'll get the return and if that makes it worthwhile is unpredictable. Perhaps you'd totally own the baby products market in .mx in 2017 or .us in 2020, who knows.

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#24

Post by orenbarzilai »

Not directly related to the article, but recently I have heard few complaints about limitations of converting Bitcoins to us dollars (or any other official currency). If these complaints are true, how come these limitations exists? it affects the true value of the coin and works against logic & advantage that Bitcoins has to offer.

Anyone can share some information about the Bitcoin selling limitations?

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#25

Post by mtkd »

Whilst history is punctuated with previous ponzi schemes, it is also punctuated with periods that required a store of wealth outside of a national currency.

I shared the author's view when BTC == $30, I'm tempering that now and starting to view it as a maturing alternative wealth store.

It may always be extremely volatile. However, now it has achieved a level of confidence, it will likely become another safe harbour in times of local currency disruption.

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#27

Post by berberous »

Alex3917 wrote: post #19
CJefferson wrote: post #6

This is as good a place as any to ask this question. Do we actually know how many large mining groups we need to make up 51% of the processing power of the block chain (hopefully that make sense, from my understanding of bitcoin). There has been a number of changes to the bitcoin protocol, which have been made in a short amount of time and unanimously, from what I can see. That implies to me that bitcoin is in practi…

Right now the largest pool is 29%. And you actually only need 33% to trigger the 51% problem if the controlling pool withholds blocks for a couple seconds after solving them to give themselves a headstart on the next block. So in theory the currency is only days or weeks away from collapsing. I do think bitcoin solves a legitimate problem. But I don't think bitcoin itself will become the winner. Litecoin is vastly be…

Curious, how does Litecoin solve the 51% problem? Is this related to its 2.5 minute confirmation time, vs. Bitcoin's 10 minutes?

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#28

Post by pilker09 »

berberous wrote: post #18

This article is unfortunately mostly right. Bitcoin's are 95% a ponzi scheme investment, and will at some point crash spectacularly. The question remains, however, whether from the ashes of that crash a useful product can remain, that can still succeed as a currency, or whether the psychological damage will prove to be too much to move past. If it can survive, it may even eventually return to the same high prices, bu…

Bitcoin is only a Ponzi to those that don't actually understand Ponzis.

Which scammer is paying me for my bitcoins out of someone else's promised profits?

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#29

Post by gokhan »

ashray wrote: post #22
gokhan wrote: post #14

The individual who sells the Ponzi scheme makes money by siphoning off a large share of the money coming in. In other words, he does not make the investment. But Bitcoins are unique. The money was siphoned off from the beginning. Only true if we see Satoshi spending his Bitcoins. We have an online store selling baby products and really want to accept Bitcoins but we can't at the moment since Bitcoin is not widespread…

Hi, I suggest that you check out bitpay.com They will bill your customers in bitcoin and will transfer out USD to you so that you don't have to worry about the exchange rate at all. You setup your items in USD as well and they handle the price fluctuations. They do daily payouts to 30 countries in several currencies. I've been using them since April and it's amazing! Sincerely, A happy bitpay customer :) Edit: oh and…

I'll check out Bitpay, thanks a lot.

Re: Bitcoins: The Second Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History

#30

Post by ashray »

orenbarzilai wrote: post #24

Not directly related to the article, but recently I have heard few complaints about limitations of converting Bitcoins to us dollars (or any other official currency). If these complaints are true, how come these limitations exists? it affects the true value of the coin and works against logic & advantage that Bitcoins has to offer. Anyone can share some information about the Bitcoin selling limitations?

There are limitations because the exchanges are not that liquid. There are no hard limitations as such. People have been converting $2-3MM from bitcoins easily but larger numbers will still be hard to convert at the current price.

This conversion limitation however should not affect the average joe.

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