https://unherd.com/thepost/is-crypto-just-one-big-ponzi-scheme/
This article ignores other potential benefits to crypto (that is, beyond a possible rise in price) and also ignores precious metals, which like crypto offer no interest payments or dividends but have other benefits. The article also ignores some of the possible RISKS of crypto (e.g., that the alleged security and privacy might be illusions, outright theft by an exchange, loss of a wallet or a password, etc). Metals also have risks (theft of physical metal for instance, including government confiscation, plus the added risk if one uses a third party to hold the metal).
There is nothing in life without risk; assessing risk and choosing which ones to take on are among the more important life skills.
Defining whether or not something is — or has become — a Ponzi scheme has been long forgotten; it involves working out if an investment’s underlying structure creates a negative-sum game. With regulated securities, such as stocks and bonds, investors receive a combination of interest payments, dividends, and cash flows, making these, at the very least, a zero-sum endeavour. With crypto, however, investors receive none of these, only benefiting from a potential rise in price — the so-called greater fool theory.
This disparity, among other things, has led many financial commentators to describe even the number one crypto, Bitcoin, as a negative-sum Ponzi scheme (one FT story suggested it was even ‘worse’ than that). If Bitcoin’s ecosystem collapses, funds can’t be returned to holders because its price going to zero means there’s nothing to recover. But with a Ponzi scheme, funds can be recovered and returned to investors. Following the collapse of the infamous Madoff Ponzi scheme, 14 out of 20 billion dollars initially invested have been recovered from offshore accounts.
For now, Bitcoin’s Ponzi status is irrelevant. Bankman-Fried has simply joined the increasing list of crypto’s nobility who’ve accidentally gloated about profiting from dubious financial structures. Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners, infamously likened Bitcoin to a pyramid scheme, despite how his company’s primary function is cryptocurrency investments. Meanwhile, outlets in the crypto media have also embraced Ponzinomics, like CoinDesk publishing an article with a lede reading: “Yes, it’s a Ponzi scheme. But who cares?”
You have to understand, and I’m saying this as gently as possible, you’re serving up desperate lunatic reasoning. Energy input does, in absolutely no way, equal value created. That’s akin to building a semi, fueling it up, crashing it at full speed into a walk, and claiming “Energy is being spent to generate a token of ownership that represents the value of running the proof of work and expending that energy.”
That’s not the description of value creation. That’s flailing.
And the gee whiz neato technology imparts ZERO inherent value to any blockchain currency that it’s based on. The printing press was world-changing technology, but imparts absolutely no inherent value to paper money beyond paper money being something you can burn to stay warm… something you can’t even do with blockchain currency.
Zero intrinsic value, no store of value, no creation of value, a price only propped up by new entrants to a system looking for money for nothing as the smart money early entrants constantly convert out of these scam currencies into tangible assets. And all every Ponzi participant can ever point to is “Well, look at all the money I’ve made, and you can do it to!” It’s 100% a scheme based upon continued entrants of “greater fools”, and these always implode into nothing.
Gosh, how could a money-for-nothing, ever-escalating scheme not be a total scam to separate greedy idiots from their money? 🤣
And you have to understand you're missing the point by focusing on your pet annoyance - you're like the guy who said "who needs sound in movies!" Stuck in the past and unable to see the future.
You're harping on about currency which is only one aspect of blockchain tech. You're like the people who said "mp3?? why would I need my music compressed! I have 100s of great vinyl records!" Duh.
Yes, blockchain is merely the delivery mechanism, it is not the content itself. We are all aware of this. The point is, the technology is FREEING. It aligns with everything we in the Q movement care about. Decentralized - no dirty banks or orgs controlling it centrally. It's not just about currency. A social network could be created that would allow all the users to control their own data and their own identity token. No govt edict could bring it down as the system could simply move somewhere else. Blockchain, like VR and many other groundbreaking tech before it, is not going anywhere. It will take some time to find its feet, as all paradigm shattering tech does, but when it does, people will figure out proper use cases for it and it'll take off. Cry all you want about current implementations and fools wetting their feet but what anyone can see, if they look properly, is tech that provides real value and utility.
Oh my goodness, just stop flailing. My “pet annoyance” is the direct answer to the question.
Meanwhile, your ridiculous diversion about the “paradigm shattering tech” is plainly because you obviously can’t reasonably argue that any unsecured cryptocurrency isn’t a hollowed-out, fundamentally worthless token whose late entrants are funding the real-asset fortunes of the early entrants, and that the house of cards will collapse into worthlessness immediately upon the cessation of the inputs of capital by greedy greater fools. That’s plainly what’s happening, and you realize you can’t make a case otherwise, so you wax fantastical about the facilitating technologies, which bestow zero intrinsic value to a comically worthless and useless “asset.”
lol you're either a troll or shill with this repeated disingenuous response. You're worse than leftist trans apologists xD. Ignoring everything I say to keep pitching your personal vendetta against crypto because you clearly don't actually understand blockchain is like the trans teenager crying that you're calling him a 'he', whatever the biology says.
Ok, now I know you understand that you’ve now simply devolved to total projection, exactly like a Leftist. It can’t feel good, but there you are. It was the only way you could avoid the honest answer to the question. You became a total mess out of fear of addressing the plain truth.
Is Crypto is big Ponzi scheme?
Of course it is. When the new inflows of assets stop, it will instantly implode to nothingness. This is unquestionable. If you wanted to argue this matter, you would’ve. Instead, you prevaricated, you pouted, and you patently projected.
You want to keep talking about the question? Please, have at it. I’ve been nothing but straight and clear, and you full-well know this. But if not (and it’s laughably clear you don’t, since you’ve done everything to avoid it), sincerely, reflect on that. Your have the answer. You know more than you’re willing to admit.