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?”
I guess if you plan on never needing to send money to someone who is far away, or buying nonrefundable services from other people, and you plan on carrying your gold and silver with you everywhere you go, then yeah I guess you're right, crypto is useless.
Or we can just carry cash backed by gold... Thats the entire purpose of cash. Well up til the cabal inbreds turned it into a game of monopoly.
Also i've sent money via Western Union and via wire transfer, both multiple times with no trouble whatsoever. Its a very easy process.
So then you are always trusting a third party - either the government or a corporate financial service provider, which of course require your ID and can decide if you are worthy of receiving those services. They also spy on you and can seize your funds and come after you if they don't like what you are doing.
Yes the same is true for bitcoin. That's why I'm talking about privacy coins where that is not possible.
But with fiat there's also a dozen or so companies all skimming fees off the top of each transaction lining their own pockets, and all they do is move numbers around on a screen yet it takes days or weeks to process and mistakes still happen. Why not remove the human element from the equation and make the whole system run securely on its own since its all digital anyway.