ok its time to put these to bed. In a ponzi scheme you hope to receive more money from the next person(s) incoming, and so this plays with the velocity of money. When new entrant sources fail, then the scheme fails With btc, what is gives in exchange for fiat, or other goods/services/cryptos is a promise to be able to access block space, [1] without counterparty risk, and [2] No person or gov can stop you accessing or updating the blockspace. (the btc blockchain) more correctly btc is necessary but not sufficient, you need enough btc to pay the fee to a miner, and a remainder, to access and update blockspace That promise is unable to be taken away by any other entity. Only you with your private keys can make the decision when you wish to access block space and change the ledger. Now some people may chose to think through the lens of a ponzi scheme because [1] they hope to get more fiat in the future for the same number of btc, but that's not what BTC is. [2] Its easy for people to address something novel this way. If you do get more fiat that's a function of btc being a better system, immune to quantitative easing, policy changes, corporate welfare, bad laws and economically failed jurisdictions. BTC is a protocol and make no promises in an for about returning greater fiat profit or any profit to anyone. Along the same reasoning, tulips did not give you access to blockspace. You simply had a tulip. Now for both you may argue but tulips and pozi gave you access to "tulip space" and "ponzi space" to update the ledger in the respective schemes. Lets deal with that. Any record in either of those space still existed on centralized ledgers, where you relied on others to act as intermediaries and fulfill promises. This is a fundamental difference. Block space is decentralized. You update the ledger without any intermediary. Your actions cannot be countermanded or erased. While this alone is sufficient to rebut and assertions of "tulips" or "ponzi scheme", we can make a sort of restatement of these in ways that may be more understandable You could not transfer to any actor anywhere in the world in either ponzi schemes or tulips with zero counter-party risk and irrespective of capital controls or other risks. The records of you position in the ponzi system was not guaranteed to last or be fulfilled, rather the longer it goes on the more it tends to zero. Tulips well they are very very perishable and you cant exactly send them through the internet. So the upshot of BTC, is its about unfettered and inalienable rights to access block space, a decentralized ledger with zero counterparty risk in a know supply system. The features were not and have not been found in any ponzi or tulip scheme. Nor shall they. What is btc? It is something sui generous, it may have features or people may describe it as a currency, commodity or any other number of say more traditional species of security, and these descriptors may all be true, or in combination true. However is I post a supra set of these things and novel and that makes it hard describe in pre existing language. Sort of like trying to describe email to some one in 1985, and then trying to explain how email was not the internet but it was part of the internet. So while people might be able to wrap thief heads around the mail analogy aspect of email as to post mail, email is not really a good descriptor of what the internet is.
Referring to Bitcoin as a ponzi scheme is a talking point made by people who wanna sound like they know what they're talking about, but they really don't. I've compared bitcoin to Tulipomania and even to John Law but my comparison has nothing to do with the asset(s) themselves. My comparison has more to do with the emotions involved in any speculative mania. We've reached a point in bitcoin where the rise is being driven by greed. This is evidenced by the fact that many people who have never speculated in their life are now buying bitcoin. I even read a story where people are taking our mortgages in order to speculate on bitcoin. So, yeah, it's definitely emotional now.
Bitcoin vs. Etherereum. This is a basic question but helps to understand the drill. http://www.gorket.com/2017/12/18/what-is-ethereum-and-how-is-it-different-from-bitcoin/
..."but while Bitcoin is priced at over $3,000 per, Litecoin currently sits around $45 per." The article was written yesterday. Did the cypto market crash overnight?
[Note to myself: not going to get dragged into this.] Instead of debating, I offer a peaceful solution to the ponzi debate: Let's call mining based cryptos like Bitcoin smart ponzis, where the definition is this: Smart ponzi: a pyramid-like system where the value of the "product" isn't derived from its features, usefulness or widespread usage, but clearly just based on expectations of future price increase. A smart ponzi needs constant new incoming money flow to keep its price at least on the same level, because miners constantly selling new coins. Once this need can not be met, price will inevitably fall. So are you guys happy if I call Bitcoin a smart ponzi?
no. a ponzi is orthogonal to anything to do with bitcoin on a blockchain. The bitcoin always delivers its terms, with your bitcoin and no one can stop it. Ponzi schemes are limited by incoming supply, and the ledger of a ponzi scheme if it has one not a denctralilized permissionless register your suggestion "smart ponzi" missed the entire argument or what BTC / Blockchain is, your not even wrong.
the emotions involved maybe, I expect a correction and all will say its dead (again), until next time when it goes 20x the last ATH. This is going to about 1M a coin, and has 2 more ATH and crashes to get there.
Don't bother to analyse whether bitcoin is a ponzi or greater Tulip or whatever. Just need to know how to profit from bitcoin.