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?”
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.
lol - proven troll/shill. Keep talking bullshit. Everyone sees right through you, shill.