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Bitcoin is a Ponzi

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Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#341

Post by frozenport »

scottyp21 wrote: post #326

> Nevertheless, investing in gold at the current price seems unwise, since its price is many times its "natural" price as commodity and so it is more likely to go down than up. This is a misconception and a fundamental misunderstanding of gold's primary utility for thousands of years. While it is true that gold's price reflects a significant premium beyond the "natural" market price, this has been the case for millen…

I also think investing in gold compared to let's say stocks is a sort of ponzi scheme in the sense of OPs article. So no price point. Until bitcoin intrinsically generates value I'm not putting money in it.

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#342

Post by meowkit »

acomjean wrote: post #162
echelon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quantum computing is going to bring this entire house down. Money without an army is just paper. Or, in this case, imaginary numbers. There will be no one to cry to when the machines start cracking all the hashes and wipe away the entire ecosystem. I'd wager the NSA already has this capability, but they won't blow it on something so stupid.

I see your point. But if quantum computers start breaking encryption, crypto currency is probably pretty low on the list of worries…

Quantum proof encryption already exists.

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#343

Post by arcticbull »

luka-birsa wrote: post #310

Why 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. [1]

This is what the maxis are after.

If we don't cut this off ASAP, we all stand to lose.

[1] https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/jarvis.ht...

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#344

Post by srge »

luka-birsa wrote: post #310

Why 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…

Exactly. And the argument crypto = ponzi is so wrong. What about other investment vehicles? Gold? Real estate? Stock market. Come on!

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#346

Post by arcticbull »

srge wrote: post #344
luka-birsa wrote: post #310

Why 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…

Exactly. And the argument crypto = ponzi is so wrong. What about other investment vehicles? Gold? Real estate? Stock market. Come on!

The article literally covers each of those cases and explains exactly why those are not Ponzi schemes while Bitcoin is ([edit] under "Common Objections" - which should really read "Common Whataboutisms").

> By that definition, stocks too are ponzis. No. Stocks have an external source of revenue, namely the profit that the company makes by selling its products and services to customers (not investors); and these profits eventually return to the investors through dividends or cash buybacks. In time, those profits are expected to exceed the amount invested, with a significant profit for all investors -- that is, they are expected to be positive-sum games. The market value of stocks reflects these expectations among investors. While some companies fail to achieve this goal, enough of them succeed to make stocks the favorite option of savvy investors.

> By that definition, real estate too is a ponzi. No. Like stocks, real estate creates value while it is being owned, namely the sheltering service it provides to those who live in it. That value returns to the investor (owner) either by him living in the property, or by renting it to others.

> By that definition, gold too is a ponzi. No, gold clearly fails to satisfy that definition on two counts...

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#347

Post by glenvdb »

curuinor wrote: post #335
glenvdb wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Database insert? Ok... You may benefit from reading about why Bitcoin works the way that it does, and why certain tradeoffs were made. But you don't really care to know, do you?

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.

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#348

Post by russianbandit »

srge wrote: post #344
luka-birsa wrote: post #310

Why 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…

Exactly. And the argument crypto = ponzi is so wrong. What about other investment vehicles? Gold? Real estate? Stock market. Come on!

To be fair, the article does address your questions.

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#349

Post by donatj »

frozenport wrote: post #341
scottyp21 wrote: post #326

> Nevertheless, investing in gold at the current price seems unwise, since its price is many times its "natural" price as commodity and so it is more likely to go down than up. This is a misconception and a fundamental misunderstanding of gold's primary utility for thousands of years. While it is true that gold's price reflects a significant premium beyond the "natural" market price, this has been the case for millen…

I also think investing in gold compared to let's say stocks is a sort of ponzi scheme in the sense of OPs article. So no price point. Until bitcoin intrinsically generates value I'm not putting money in it.

Cash doesn’t intrinsically generate value. It’s value comes from your belief in it.

Re: Bitcoin is a Ponzi

#350

Post by sellyme »

HashBasher wrote: post #299
sellyme wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no way to reverse the transaction It boggles my mind that people genuinely believe this is a good thing, especially in an ecosystem so rife with scammers. I get that it's rather integral to the primary use cases of bitcoin, but that doesn't mean you have to pretend it's a good thing when marketing the currency to the average joe as a PayPal replacement.

How’s it bad? You have to accept responsibility when making transactions. This is tremendously beneficial for businesses and end users when making peer to peer transactions.

> How's it bad?

Because there's absolutely no protection against fraud. This is somewhat of a problem when there's such a gigantic amount of fraud going on.

> You have to accept responsibility when making transactions

Yes, and so does the other party.

What irreversible transactions do is give the receiving party the ability to shirk all responsibilities, because it's significantly more difficult (if not impossible) to hold them to account.

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