Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin isn’t the future of money — it’s either a Ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/08/bitcoin-isnt-the-future-of-money-its-either-a-ponzi-scheme-or-a-pyramid-scheme/

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether Bitcoin is more like Ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme.

Whatever it is, though, it isn't a currency. It's a tech stock. Each Bitcoin is really a share in a system that seems to make it cheaper to transfer things online—money, stocks, bonds, even the deed to your house—by cutting out the middleman. Well, kind of. Bitcoin doesn't remove the middleman so much as replace him with middlemen who don't make you pay much, but make society as a whole do so instead. Is this progress?

Yes, the P-word still hasn't gone away.  :P

Quite retarded. I would have expected such an article in 2013, but not in 2015.

The author doesn't like Bitcoin, therefore he refuses to understand. The climax is this:

"The future might not belong to Bitcoin, but it should to its technology."

That says it all. So the technology has a future, but not Bitcoin, that is based on the technology and provides the security for it through value. The author obviously lacks some basic reasoning skills.

ya.ya.yo!

This article brought to you by the Federal Reserve  :P

The Washington Post has been acting as the official mouth piece of the federal reserve for the last 70 years or so. So it is not quite surprising to find these sort of articles being published on their online version. That said, the author (Matt O'Brien) is quite an expert in churning out anti-Bitcoin propaganda. An example here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/01/14/bitcoin-is-revealed-a-ponzi-scheme-for-redistributing-wealth-from-one-libertarian-to-another/

Nice find - that kind of pattern is important evidence for an author's (lack of) credibility.

In recent years WaPo is owned by Jeff Bezos (Amazon) - I don't know what implications that has for Amazon's potential use of BTC, but it is worth keeping in mind.

Sometimes the Great Game is just too complicated to follow from the sidelines - I have no idea who is doing what to whom, but both the articles are certainly full of misinformation and spin. It's a useful exercise to pick at the author's claims point by point, for validity consistency and so forth. The style is compelling - the content not so much. Casual readers will be swept along by the style, I imagine, but to what end? What's in it for WaPo, and especially for Bezos, if BTC adoption is thwarted?

I used to love it when WaPo (Watergate) and Bezos bucked the establishment. Sigh.

It is too early to say anything on that regard. Jeff Bezos might be owning the Washington Post. But I am not sure how much power he wields in censoring the news articles, which appear in it. Most probably, he don't have the time to go through all of them, and these articles might not necessarily reflect his views on Bitcoin.

No argument with the detail - I doubt that any media owner acts as a copy editor. However, it would be unusual if a media outlet were putting out propaganda pieces in opposition to its owner's policies. Among the interesting questions - why exactly is WaPo bashing BTC? The answer may be as simple as generating controversy to attract eyeballs (but I doubt it). No way to tell yet though, as you suggest. All we know for sure is that this WaPo author has put out two hit pieces on BTC for no obvious reason.

It's "nice" to see a segment of the media is so scared of Bitcoin as a currency, but this author would be better off making fries in a greasy fast-food place.  Certainly, "society as a whole" would be better without him getting so much attention.