Bitcoin Forum

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8671/any-counter-proof-that-satoshi-nakamoto-did-not-design-a-ponzi-scheme-on-purpose

FUD.

Ponzi scheme offered zero utility, user ONLY had greed incentive.

BTC can potentially serve great utility.

yucca thanks for your comment, because even comments that show complete lack of understanding of the valuation of money, are useful inputs for our analysis of behavior of bitcoiners.

Not sure if you're asking to refute "Ponzi scheme" or intentions?

Your question seems to assume it's a Ponzi scheme and then ask about intentions.

Try asking just one question at a time?

If it's a Ponzi scheme, it's the world's most transparent one.

IMO already has great utility.

@DataPlumber

You hit many good points. Thanks for giving me a chance to clarify.

Occam's Razor says to choose an explanation for any phenomenon that has the least number of assumptions.

I have stated what I believe are the facts with the least assumptions, based on the data and evidence.

I am asking if someone can provide an alternative theory or explanation that has less assumptions. Count your assumptions.

Mine has no assumptions.  ;)

1. It is a ponzi scheme (whether transparent or not), unless the rate of price appreciatioin slows to be not so many multiples of the rate of REAL transaction growth.

2. He chose the design that maximizes this outcome, because the debasement is declining and fixed, this pushing people into all sorts of emotion valuations and it can encourages "the price can only go up" and reinforcing BUY BUY BUY effects. If you try to argue that he was emulating gold, then why did he make the duration of the geometric decline nothing like gold's millenia? Surely he knows the ponzi effect of compressing that into 2 decades. He even says this will appeal to the gold community, so it was a marketing ploy.

3. He was well aware, very sophisticated, very thorough, and the design is complex, so no choices would have been random.

4. Nobody had heard of him, he changes the entire P2P encryption research, then he disappears. THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED. The statistical chance is 0 (winning the lottery). Besides, programmers never do this to a successful baby. Also does he not have any teachers, relatives, friends, parents? Who can keep someone so secret other than the NSA?

No assumptions at all in my statement of the facts.

Thus it is irrefutable as far as I can see. But you can try.

But the linked document is not arguing against that. It is stating the fact that the relative ratios of utility for transactional goods & sevices is the vast minority compared to holding for appreciation in FX value.

I think you actually mean 'puzzle scheme'
You sound very puzzled  ;D

I know infinitely more about money and minds than you, that is not hard as you seem to know zero.

It seems to me that you blame rampant speculation on BTC or its creator when in reality it is created and lives in the mind of the user. But in this weak consumer society the end user is never to blame, like an eternal baby.

BTC is a currency, that is all. If you think it is a ponzi scheme then you'd better get out and return to the safehaven of fiat money and fractional reserve banking, which in case you hadn't realised is a true pyramid scheme and it having a MUCH larger impact on our lives should perhaps be the subject of concern.

Anything that threatens the existing pyramid scheme (fiat & fractional) will be badmouthed, hence you are either creating or relaying this asinine FUD.

Also this matter is subjective and so occams razor does not and can not apply.

If we were to walk down the crazy paved path of logic that you propose then we MUST assume that ANY finite infomation/matter used for storage of wealth is a ponzi scheme. So were screwed and might as well go back to the caves and forage from day to day.

Yes, ant it being a very well thought out cryptocurrency will get much greater.

@yucca, if you say Occam's Razor can't apply then you don't understand its utility.

If you think compressing a millenia of gold debasement into 2 decades can't drive speculative fever, then what can I say except I think you have no clue.

You could read this:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158106.msg1674264#msg1674264

@remotemass, what do you think puzzles me? I think I have it figured out.

My point is that the "speculative fever" has its genesis in the mind of the user. But in a free market that must be allowed and we will see builds and corrections in BTCs formative years until market depth stills the waters somewhat and speculation diminishes. But speculation is not the dirty thing you assume, it is a positive thing, an optimistic thing.

Besides all that, stick this in your Occam pipe and smoke it:


bolded can NOT happen with BTC. however you could create a protocol layer on top of BTC that would allow such shennanigins to happen.

Proof: Speculation ≠ Ponzi.

After reading this thread, I have come to the conclusion that the OP has no idea what a Ponzi Scheme entails.

To quote an apt answer from the Bitcoin StackExchange:


And as I'm sure you've already seen, there's an even more detailed answer provided on Brock Tice's blog (http://blog.brocktice.com/2011/05/22/why-bitcoin-is-smart-and-not-a-scam/).

So what's with the continued skepticism?

I suspect the skepticism stems from an obvious misunderstanding of what a Ponzi scheme is and seeing an apparent "bubble" forming. While it is true that Bitcoin value could come crashing down (whether that is likely or not is a separate discussion), it would be due to demand dropping relative to its supply. Remember, it doesn't have to be a Ponzi scheme for it to crash. Tulip mania, for example, wasn't a Ponzi scheme (there was no central operator).

Does it make any difference what you call it, if you've got a majority of predicting $100,000+ prices and the FX price is being driven by later investors without sufficient fundamental matching value in transactions velocity for goods & services?

I don't care what you call it, it is the characteristics of an exponential bubble that matter to the point I am making.

Playing semantic games as Satoshi did will fool the bitcoiners though.


Good to see someone is astute here.

The long-term (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158122.0) and short-term (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158125.0) expectations polls, both show extreme ponzi valuations. And interestingly bitcoiners aren't as interested in the short-term 2017 time-frame. Their expectations skew is Bitcoin will overtake the world long-term. Speculative investments shouldn't be valued extremely long-term— too many variables change. Any seasoned investor knows this.

What you have here, is Satoshi cleverly hoodwinked goldbugs (knowing their psychological weakness) think that Bitcoin  has the properties of gold (but it does not!), and so these naive investors pile in long-term thinking it changes the world. This has NSA finger prints all over it.

Besides gold has never been a superior currency nor investment over long-term. Go dig into my links, I have all the historical data to proof of that claim.

REALITY CHECK!

You can't be serious?  Read your post out loud to yourself.  Listen critically.
You keep using that word.  I don't think it means what you think it means.

Ponzi scheme has a very specific structure and what we're seeing here, especially the appreciation and depreciation cycle of the BTC as an element of valuation and tradeability itself, makes BTC an element that COULD be part of a ponzi scheme the same way that fiat can, but no different than fiat in that regard.

Enumerate what you think are the assumptions, then I will clarify your misunderstandings.

I don't care what you call it, I described the reality above. Name it what ever you want. You can call it "ZOOZOO" for all I care.

Very different than fiat because of the debasement rate relative to the market cap.

This is why we are seeing $1 billion valuation expectations.

Yes, it does matter what you call it. Don't call it a Ponzi scheme if it's not one.

You haven't shown how there is a central operator. That is a key ingredient in a Ponzi scheme. Are you claiming that Satoshi is somehow that central operator simply because he is one of many early adopters?

If Satoshi or some other early adopter did own a large number of Bitcoin, he could cash them out and this so-called "scheme" would continue to function without him. There is strong evidence that many early adopters actually have been dumping their stashes of Bitcoins onto the market. A Ponzi scheme, in contrast, would collapse if this were to happen.

Whereas a Ponzi scheme is organized like a pyramid, Bitcoin is organized like a network of buyers and sellers.

It makes no difference to me if there is a central operator or not (obviously there is not), because it doesn't affect any of my claims about outcomes or causes.

New topic: Any counter-proof that AnonyMint did not design this thread as a massive troll?

Can you please stay on the facts?

I am waiting for you to enumerate what you claimed are my assumptions.

That's another issue, and yes you're correct in pulling a non-parallel between BTC and fiat with relativity to market cap.  My point is regarding BTC as a ponzi scheme; BTC is not a ponzi scheme though ponzi schemes can use BTC, just as they can use fiat and in *that* sense they are the same.  I am limiting my comment of similarity only to that aspect and for the sake of the point that the subject addresses, nothing more.

Zero.

When you've lost the logic (al debate), you pull out the strawmen.

One of key attributes of a ponzi scheme (or call it exponential speculative bubble if you prefer, e.g. Tulip mania and South Seas Bubble), is the value portion is so tiny relative to the expectation, and the expectation of never-ending rise ("sky is the limit" type valuation).

One of the key attributes of water is that it is a liquid at normal atmospheric pressures and temperatures. Oil is a liquid at normal atmospheric pressures and temperatures, therefore oil is water. LOGIC FAIL.

Maybe Bitcoin has one or more of the key attributes of a Ponzi scheme, but it does not have all key attributes of a Ponzi scheme (ie, a central operator).

Can we both agree that you believe Bitcoin is some type of scheme but not a Ponzi scheme specifically? We're getting hung up on you insisting on calling it a Ponzi scheme when it clearly is not one.

Exactly. Hence my confusion when the OP was calling a speculative bubble a Ponzi Scheme. :D


Actually, it makes a huge difference. Don't call an apple an orange and expect people to know which fruit you're talking about.


Very few people [realistically] expect a price anywhere near what you stated. And who said Bitcoin had to represent a particular value based solely on goods and services? Bitcoin has the potential to act as a safe haven for individuals looking to break away from government-backed fiat. A lot of the upward pressure we've seen so far on price may have been influenced by financial turmoil in Europe...or maybe governments themselves...or maybe dealers looking to launder money...or maybe virtual currency fanatics...or maybe just some good 'ol fashion positive PR. There could be any number of reasons why people are purchasing Bitcoins.

When your assertions are shown clearly false, you wave your hand and say "semantics".  I would argue the moon is made of green cheese, and when you point out that we sent people there who discovered only rocks, I can say that what I really meant by "cheese" is "rocks" and you're just picking apart semantics.

How can anyone have a meaningful argument if the words don't really mean anything?  The only reason I'm still here is the entertainment value.

OMG lulz, you cant call something a ponzi scheme when you mean speculative bubble. Just man up and say you came in guns blazing without knowing what "ponzi scheme" actually means.

Mathematically a finite trading resource HAS to rise in value as its trade depth against tangibles increases. Speculation will cause over optimistic rises but these will be followed by corrections to match tangible depth. Or if you want to be dramatic and newspeak you can say "BUBBLES AND CRASHES!!!"

Also: "straw mans" "occams razor", what have you been reading? maybe "debating 101 for dummies"? lulz.

Sorry you lose.  ;)


It has all of the attributes of a ponzi scheme as defined by wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme


And Satoshi's very clever psychology ploy of making goldbugs think that Bitcoin is like gold (when in fact it has none of gold's qualities) and his designed system continues to act as a "hub" which is fooling the investors.




And he has run away with the initial money, as Wikipedia says:

Hey pumper, address the facts.

But Bitcoin doesn't pay a return to its investors, nor is there a central person/place/thing who "entices new investors by offering higher returns"...soooo how is this relevant? [HINT: It's not relevant. That's why it's not a Ponzi..and also the reason everyone thinks you're trolling]


...Coming from the guy who registered his account yesterday.. ::)

I see the three STFU votes switched to Yes, ostensibly after I linked to this page from the bitcoin SE Q&A, pointing out the "fingers in ears, nananan" skew in the poll. Don't worry, I am still counting you as STFU.

Yes it does pay a return in the form of appreciating price which can be cashed out via FX, just as some investors were cashing out of Bernie Madof's scheme, but he tried hard to promote and keep them fooled, just as you are doing now by perpetuating Satoshi's clever "gold is better" delusion (given Bitcoin doesn't even have gold's debasement schedule nor other properties).

There is a hub, it is the single copy of the longest block chain.

And troll is what you call someone who you are losing the argument against.




Is promoting to change bitcoin to make it more stable a pumper?

You can search the developer area for "StableCoin". I am not the first to propose this.

People who buy into Bitcoin for whatever reason do not interact with Satoshi or other early adopters directly (except when Satoshi or other early adopters buy or sell Bitcoins to other people).

If the promoter has already vanished, then by your logic of calling it a Ponzi scheme, Bitcoin should have collapsed already. But has it collapsed? No? Well that's because Bitcoin doesn't need a central promoter to sustain its value.

Excellent point.

Were people calling gold, silver, and google stock ponzi schemes while their values sky rocketed?

This guy has been running around bitcointalk for the past 24 hours shouting "Ponzi Scheme",  "Scam", "Designed to fail", etc.  He has his own crypto-currency he is pushing (AnonyCoin or something like that).  You are wasting your time responding to this troll.  The best thing you can do is click "Ignore" and walk away.

They are still interacting with his "gold" promotion:

http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf#page=3

It hasn't moved since the day he announced it on the cryptography mailing list (wow was he well organized!) I admire the guy, except for the bad outcome coming.


He has vanished physically and due to the anonymity of Bitcoin (damn this guy was clever!) he can still be around without being around.

His promotion lives on without his physical presence.

This is the first case of someone doing an anonymous extension of the ponzi.

I ADMIRE HIM, but as I said, I suspect the NSA is behind this, not only one person.

Gold, silver, and google aren't/weren't 100 to 200 times their floor value.

Also from that Wikipedia article that you are relying on:


If Bitcoin were overvalued, it would be an economic bubble rather than a Ponzi scheme. Bitcoin is an open market. A Ponzi scheme is not. Bitcoin has "no single person misrepresenting the intrinsic value." A Ponzi scheme does.

If you want to gain any credibility, stop calling it a Ponzi scheme.

In your mind, what is the threshold for something to be called a "Ponzi scheme"?

Why do I have to repeat myself are you blind?

They are still interacting with his "gold" promotion:

http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf#page=3

It hasn't moved since the day he announced it on the cryptography mailing list (wow was he well organized!) I admire the guy, except for the bad outcome coming.

And don't tell me that investors in Bernie Madoff where not bringing in other investors for him.

It requires some white lie. The pseudo-lie is that bitcoin is anything like a commodity currency or gold.

Then it requires some level of exponential valuation where it can't possible happen due to the law of nature that large things grow slower.

I think people will have to dig into details and justify that case.

The key here is the trajectory. With a currency, we know that if dormancy is not decreasing while the price is exponentially increasing, then the greater fool effect is kicking in.

I see links to two very unscientific, self-selecting polls with small sample sizes. Basically useless.

The short term and long term expected value of bitcoins is currently 75 USD per BTC. That is what the market is telling us. Some people may be overexcited and expect to make 1000% returns, but if the overall consensus was that the price would be over $1000 in a couple years, then the price would quickly correct to over $1000 now.

Agreed except not totally useless when factored in with other information, such as the lower-bound of 60% dormancy, which means it is in reality much higher do to sending to self and FX not being goods & services.


That is not correct. Try to cite a reference on that, you won't find it. You can't project the current market price as the future market price, you need discounting, such as a future's market. Geez, learn what an option is.

Except bitcoin does not pay any returns. Therefore, it does not fall under the definition of a ponzi scheme you are trying to shoehorn it into.

Edit: Just noticed Korbman already said this farhter up in the thread, sorry.

DannyHamilton is one of those guys who can only see his nose.

I already refuted that. Go back up thread and read.

Holliday, if you want to make a valid point, try again plot a relative chart to marketcap (M x P) rise. Then you will see it going the wrong direction.

And yet you carefully overlook the items that don't support your assertion:
The "earnings" are exactly the payments to "investors", as buying and selling BTC is a zero-sum game.  And this is a currency, not an "investment scheme", though some seem to treat it as such.
Where are the secrets?  The only one that's been kept is the actual identity of Bitcoin's creator(s), but who can blame them?  Would you want the media (or other) attention of being the creator of something this potentially disruptive?  Besides, that would give the illusion of central control, which Bitcoin is created to be free of.

I could go on, but I grow bored of this thread.

http://www.nma.org/pdf/gold/his_gold_prices.pdf

18->1800 seems about 100x the value.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_as_an_investment

silver from .34 to over 30 is about 100x as well.

SCAMS!

You didn't refute it though. Ponzi schemes pay out some amount to those invested in the fund, like a dividend type payment. Bitcoin does not do anything like that. Buying bitcoin is only a ponzi in the same way that buying gold is a ponzi.

Nakamoto is most one or more of a group of Anglos who were living in Japan in 2009.  The Pro-Ponzi argument is that it was founded by a mystery man, the early adopters (AKA Nakamoto) undoubtedly get the most coins for the least effort.  Those of us now, especially those of us interested in mining are at the suspicious point where we can still profit, but there are obstacles (cash to make machines, space, time heat dissipation, electricity) and an attempt to over-come those obstacles will make us more likely to be scammed.  Possibly a scam within a scam.

But.

I think the early adopters of bitcoin will make a tidy profit for themselves, but the openess of it, being able to look up each block chain and each transaction shows me it may not be a ponzi scheme.  It shows me this enough that I have invested in mining hardware, made my own controllers at what could be a real loss for me.

It could be a scam.  If it is, it is a good one.  If it is not a scam, it is a revolution in currency and economy.  If it is not faith, then it is risk.  I am taking the risk. I do not have faith is a mysterious founder and in fact I am suspicious of him.

I wish you would bother to read Wikipedia:


Where is the profit of Bitcoin?

OP has a point for theorizing that an authoritative agency may have designed Bitcoin in order to relieve the fools [people] of their money.

This is an advanced conclusion not without merit. When one gets his bitcoin out of his ass, it would actually make as much sense as a super genius Satoshi devising world-changing monetary system by himself for the benefit of society, and then disappearing for good.

Thinking NSA, however, is naive in an obnoxious US-emphasized way. It would be something way larger. Just as naive is debating about the definition of ponzi. That's where the OP is wrong, and he's losing his own red thread because of that.

This is how I come to terms with my decision to hoard some btc:

There is plenty of money being made by businesses in the credit card and payments arena. BTC cap value is not even 1% of that money.

The real money does not come from the operation of their computer systems or printing plastic cards but from the FUD about the rates of morosity, claims, lawsuits ,etc.  

As with the insurance gambling businesses they rely on typical information assymetry between users and companies, they are in better position to asses the odds of credit problems. And they bet with their rates. The bets are placed by humans.  

Bitcoin is taking a piece of that market, taking away human activities (such as risk assesment) and replacing it by objective algorithms. Transparency left governments with nothing to regulate. The algorithm is a clear contract between users, as clear as a contract can be. If all contracts were like this one, there would be no lawyers.

My rationale is that BTC is a new company that competes with Paypal with a new approach based on algorithms and I bought some stock to see what happens.

Satoshi created the company and is becoming rich. Good for him. Thanks Satoshi for sharing.

Profit...Prophet...get it *buh dum, tish*

https://i.imgur.com/LenFa.jpg

I like it.

Pope Satoshi!

GCInc. et al, ok I may be naive on NSA.

Can you all carry it from here without totally trashing my points in my absence?

I need to go back to work. Programming is what I do.

Thanks to all for the opportunity to share my idea.

The man got his bitcoins saved up from the get-go, has a ton I'm sure, cashes out now and again and is living a dream life while his invention gets huge and he basks in his anonymous glory.
Oh, and who wouldn't want to be anonymous of the creator of such a thing if gov. got involved?

vqp I also love the potential of Bitcoin.

I hate to see it ruined by a ridiculous debasement curve that favors the original creator who mined first.

It is causing insane levels of valuation at such an early stage.

We need to build it out rationally.

there are some other issues too.

IMHO, the computational Proof-of-work is not democratic. We need to make it hard-disk space, everybody has one of those (so we have a lot of capital to fight with collectively). I already explained how to do it technically. Otherwise we lose any way:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158106.0

But I don't care who builds it. I just wish someone would and pronto!

There is a value with the potential you see. And value wants to belong to somebody.

What is your problem with Satoshi and other early adopters getting insanely rich for taking Paypal/VISA/MC market share? 

That is the whole point: money now might be coming from new investors as in all start-ups, but if this works as I think it can, there will be real money for the senioriage of the currency for a while and modest money supply for processing transactions in a highly competitive market.

Even Forrest Gump got rich unexpectedly and he didn't even take an informed decision.

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8671/any-counter-proof-that-satoshi-nakamoto-did-not-design-a-ponzi-scheme-on-purpose/8697?noredirect=1#comment11345_8671

In my dreams, it would belong to those who create the system that has the long-term staying power, but it may be too late. Bitcoin can't be changed now drastically (the debasement schedule is non-negotiable according to the wiki) and it has too much inertia and no one is going to like something that appreciates more sanely because everybody prefers "to get rich quick", rather than a methodical approach.


The problem as I see it, is he designed the debasement to be so short in duration and to feed into the delusion that goldbugs have that gold was a better currency in the past (it wasn't! go study history, it was same sh8t.).  But this is really twisted because it doesn't even have the similar type of gradual debasement that gold and silver have, it is more like palladium or some rare earth metal that was just discovered.

<rambling>There is a reason we don't use these for money, it is because the debasement is too rapid. Go read Dr. Fekete, I am sure many of you goldbugs know of him. He explained this to me in email long ago. I was writing on gold-eagle.com since 2007. Go read my articles. Some were lost. I used to write on financialsense.com too, but they lost my articles. Ditto Lewrockell who deleted my articles because I disagreed with him.</rambling>

It sort of analogous to Russia dumping palladium, then hoarding all production, but in this case they speed up the debasement in the beginning to get an inordinate share, then they slow it down inordinately too rapid, to create false scarcity which helps no one but the early adopters. It kills the long-term of the currency. Bitcoin will never survive long-term I can guarantee you that. It will run way up in price, and then it will fail. The govt will step in, then they have their digital currency. They will then modify it to fluctuate debasement.

You can't deny from the market what it needs. Debasement must fluctuate. Either you do it, or govt will later. Do you want me to explain why?

So what he accomplished is the psychology that we are doing something good, yet he compressed it so it is really bad. Nothing like stable money at all. Clever trick but I saw it immediately because I am so well studied since 2007 on monetary theory.

I would love for him to come forward now and say "we need to fix the debasement, I was wrong", then I would have no problem with the coins he already owns. And I would respect him much more. I would work on it, if anyone needs me (which they don't, there are good programmers here).

If we can't fluctuate the debasement rate, then we can't have it auto-adjust to abnormally high levels of dormancy, which are indicating froth and ponzi-like nature. But simply removing that goldbug delusion attribute, might be enough by itself. Debase it over 100 years at least, so the early adopters don't get 50% of the money supply. Giving them all the incentive to pump, pump, pump.

The reason it hurts us is because an unstable currency has many problems. I explained in a prior link that it opens a scenario for the govt to apply deposit insurance or otherwise regulate bcz dumb fool investors will complain when they lose their shirts. Also a volatile currency will not be adopted as a unit-of-account by businesses. They have fixed costs in USD, so they will go bankrupt from the volatility. So they will have real problems with meshing with the currency due to levels of FX risk.

There are many monetary reasons. Do you want to have a serious discussion?
  

We need the seniorage forever to keep all miners on our side. We would be better off if every user can mine with his hard disk space, no need ASICs.

Ponzi schemes have no inherent value.

Bitcoin has inherent value as a transaction processing system.

Therefore, Bitcoin != Ponzi.

You seem very deeply emotionally invested in the phrase "ponzi scheme", which is just hyperbole, and your dogged refusal to move toward a more semantically accurate term does no favors to your credibility.

Why not couch your argument in semantically correct terms?  If you'll pardon my presumption, it looks to me like you're trying to say:
(A) "I believe Bitcoin is overvalued, as the growth in its current value as a currency/exchange system doesn't match the growth in its trading price."
(B) "Satoshi could singlehandedly crash the economy if he attempted to cash out all of the 3mil BTC he's suspected of controlling."

The first is an opinion based on a fact, and the second is just fact.

To those points I would say:

(A) People who assign a higher value to BTC than you do, are doing so with full understanding that it's overvalued for the real-world transaction processing happening right now, but they perceive a higher future value than you do.  This is where the term "speculation" comes from, which is the first half of "speculative bubble", which may very well be happening right now.  And "speculative bubble" a much more accurate description than "Ponzi scheme", where there is no actual value underlying.  What we have here is a question of how much actual value underlies, not whether-or-not any does.

(B) Yup.  But by doing so, we'd be able to follow the money to where he/they live, and that could raise a lot of legal problems for them.  Besides, doing so would be short-sighted and foolish, and I expect anyone as smart as Satoshi has proven to be would also recognize this.

Communism! Must... force... everyone... to be equal! Let the government hand out the bitcoins. We can't trust any other way!!!

If Joe buys a bitcoin for 10 dollars, and then sells it to Steve for 15 dollars, Joe has made 5 dollars profit, but that was not 5 dollars from bitcoins, it was 5 dollars from trading bitcoins. Trading bitcoins is more like trading a commodity than trading a stock. You do not get dividends from holding oil, you make money by selling the oil for more than you paid for it. Is oil a ponzi scheme?

We must give out oil rationally!!! I want my share of oil in a bucket delivered weekly.

Go read my immediately prior post again. I don't know if you can grasp it?

You are entirely missing the point, which just shows how clever Satoshi's scheme is. When they can make you believe that something isn't what it is, then you've fucked yourself. Rothschild has been doing this for centuries. People are dumb. Even you goldbugs are dumb. Very easy to herd you.


No. You try to move the discussion to non-important words, because you don't grasp the importance of the issue which has nothing to do with whatever name you would like to agree upon. As I said, name it "zozozo" if you want. I don't care, as long as you understand the issue. There is no exact term, bcz he cleverly invented a new way of doing a ponzi scheme. It is still a ponzi scheme, if you look at the generative essence of it.

I suppose you need about 130 - 140 abstract IQ. You can test yourself here on the abstract:

http://iqtest.dk



B has nothing to do with it, except that 50% of the coins were generated in the first 4 years if I am not mistake. And 75% by 2016. He took the money and ran. That is a characteristic of a ponzi scheme, but not sufficient by itself.

A is not a problem if the scheme itself is not designed with a white lie to deceive investors and cause them to make this egregious overvaluation.

The white lie was the whole bit about we will make a better gold. That was just a cover for the fact these BANKSTERS were stealing 50% of the money supply in the first 4 years.



I refuted those in what I wrote above.

I am an anarchist. You conflated some things which lead to your wrong conclusion.

I never said to give it away equally. I said to make the playing field level, so everyone can compete fairly. A meritocracy instead of a scam.

The hard-disk space is something everyone can run the mining client on in my design. But I am not stopping anyone from buying more hard disks. It just means the users are also a huge mass of miners, which will put a stop to these threat of the banksters using their 50% of the money supply to buy ASICs and enslave us.


Is the supply of ASICs sufficiently diversified? Can you buy one any where? What about hard disks?

Yeah just like selling FB stock. And FB has a velocity of 1.5 every 3 months. Bitcoin does not. 60+% does not move at all. We don't the actual figure, we only know the lower-bound.

And even FB was much better velocity, it still sold off like a ponzi scheme, because the insiders were making white lies on the ipo to pump up the value.

Don't y'all know that no mass movement occurs without the Banksters owning it.

Don't be naive.

As he said, "get the bitcoin out of your ass" and be objective.

It's only a ponzi if the majority of bitcoin "users" behave the following way:
1. Aqquire bicoin.
2. ??
3. Profit.

..come on people it's a currency, ment to be used. Theres nothing wrong with saving, but if you dont even consder using bitcoin in any way all you are buying in to is a bubble.

You're right; it's not sufficient by itself. Economic bubbles (which unarguably are not Ponzi schemes) also involve early investors taking the money and running. The gold rush of the mid-1800's resulted in many early miners becoming rich while many later miners losing out. Producers of mining equipment also made out quite well. Was that gold rush a Ponzi scheme?

Do you equate economic bubbles with Ponzi schemes? It seems that you do.

You are being herded to provide liquidity for the insiders to take profits (but they also want to control  it long-term as they do facebook).

This is the way it always works. Same sh8t, same smell. Nothing changes.

Facebook's underwriters were short.

Don't try to be free! Or if you are going to, then never expect it to be with a mass phenomeon. Needs to be smaller. They don't have time to swat all the flies.

christop, you are conflating too many things. I will just let you think you won.

... says the person who thinks that an economic bubble is a Ponzi scheme.

According to his definition it quite clearly is a Ponzi scheme.  The problem is, no one else shares that definition.  And no amount of people pointing that out will shake his belief that he can create his own personal definitions for well-known words.  My suggestions on words he might use that actually fit his definitions were met with ad hominem attacks.  In that spirit, I'll say this: methinks someone has his tinfoil hat fit just a little too snugly.

/shrug

Yeah chris you won  ;)

I am not quite as clever as Satoshi, because he wasn't likely one person.

One thing you must realize is that money is complicated. It doesn't have one dimension or even 10.

Thus the key insight that Satoshi made was that he needed a simple story about money.

So all those who need to feel they understand, will boast that they do.

The key is to make dumb people think they are smarter than they are. Then they get overconfident.

Good point, and I'm out of this thread unless anything really changes (which I doubt will happen). The troll has won this round.

Okay I guess I am out of here for now.

If anyone wants me to implement my idea, then contact me.

I don't know if I will pursue it otherwise. Have many things to work on already.

I put the design out there for anyone who wants to copy it.

chris, I did not win anything. No of us will be winners. We will all lose. I know you weren't interested in winning, you were just interested in making sure no one in the media calls bitcoin a ponzi scheme because you are worried about the value of your bitcoins. Don't worry, the banksters are pushing this price up. They will make sure it goes up, until they are ready for it to crash.

bitcoin has no "rate of price appreciation" - thats a simple supply/demand issue - there's no assigned or implied "value" beyond the uBTC number

I am not going to repeat the whole discussion again. If you are not going to get, then you are not going get it.

You go ahead. Enjoy the delusion.

All of you try to look at only one dimension at a time, you have to look at all the dimensions. What drives the demand and supply? Etc....

NEVERMIND!

For those of you joining this ridiculous (yet humorous) thread, here is a brief summation of the 5 pages thus far:

EDIT: As a few people have found humor (and usefulness) in the summary, I figured I'd try to update it a bit. Conversations denoted in "**" represent things that happened after the original summation (page 5 and on).

AnonyMint: Bitcoin is a Ponzi Scheme and Satoshi is the head.
Forum Members: Not quite, here's why... [...]
AnonyMint: Ok fine, it's an "exponential bubble" which is a Ponzi Scheme.
Forum Members: Umm, it would be a speculative [economic] bubble, which isn't anywhere close to a Ponzi Scheme. There's a lot of things that can cause this.. [...]
AnonyMint: It's a Ponzi Scheme since the early adopters made a substantial profit.
Forum Members: Soo buying into company stock early on, having the company wildly succeed, and cashing out later is a Ponzi Scheme?
AnonyMint: You guys just don't understand, so obviously you're all sheep. Ponzi Ponzi Ponzi *randomly insults people*
**Forum Members: Dude, what the hell are you talking about?
**AnonyMint: You guys just don't know how to put facts together! You sheep all think your poisonous thoughts together, thus you're all wrong, can't you see!!
**Forum Members: Well, I see some of your points and the thought behind them, but here's why you're not making sense.. [...]
**AnonyMint: *starts rapidly posting and arguing to himself* (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158111.msg1679002#msg1679002)
**Forum Members: Wait..what? But that doesn't make any sense because... [...]
**AnonyMint: STOP YOUR DELUSIONS!!! *types out essay upon essay on Bitcoin-based conspiracy theories (pages 7-8)*
**Forum Members: Nothing you've said so far makes a lick of sense, and we've already explained why. But to rehash it all... [...]
**AnonyMint: *randomly insults anyone who makes a rational argument*
**AnonyMint: I QUIT! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158111.msg1682646#msg1682646)

Skimmed back over the pages to make sure it was pretty accurate. It is.

Feel free to add on if people want more detail.

@Korbman

I love your summary.

But you overlooked the part where he claimed to be smarter than everyone else, but suggested, in his broken English, that we could get our true measure via an online IQ test.

That was my favorite part. :)

Well said

I take it back.  You did cover that point.

Wow you guys are insecure.

DataPlum, have you ever heard of getting sleepy? I have been at this for about 72 hours practically nonstop. Not to mention that I was debating 10 people at the same time both here and in bitcoin SE, so I had to type furiously fast.

When you find yourself "re-summarizing" (twisting and spinning) to defend your egos, you know where you are.

And the very intelligent readers can see right through your BS.

Look at the votes on "No". That is well distributed by IQ. They are laughing at you.

Hmm..it might say something about your situation that you've been repeatedly debating (the same argument) with 10 people. Clearly it must be some impressive coincidence that 10 random people around the world are incredibly wrong about something they all have a vested interest in...or maybe you're just the smartest person ever who has come across this amazing epiphany that Bitcoin is the biggest scam EVER!

Cheers to your 10 debaters, and I salute you with eye rolls accordingly.

::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)

In what logic system is the mania of crowds equal to wisdom? Why don't we put the debasement of our currency up to a popular vote?

(sometime people just don't think)

Attaboy!

What the fuck are you talking about? You are Shelby Moore III, not even all the faculty of the largest university can compare to your unrivalled intellect. Frankly, why you even condescend to speak to us is a mystery...

Who started the mutual disrespect and lack of cordiality?

I know who my peers are and I am humbled when I write to them (JustSaying is me):

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4861&cpage=1#comment-397124

Do you know who created the term "open source"?

The first developer to interact with Satoshi was one of our tribe:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4854&cpage=1#comment-397115

Clue: does an economic bubble require a lie?

(I told you that before but you can't seem to assimilate more than a few facts at a time)

If you want to differentiate malice from a free market where investors can make their own choices, then the lie is relevant. If not, then nothing is scam. The key is that it is not economic phenomena when there is an individual distorting the asymmetrical quality of information.

That deceiving central party is what makes it a ponzi scheme. This differs from pyramid where the underlings do the deceiving. And all of this differs from economic bubbles which can be caused by aggregate effects or herding behavior of humans.

CAPICHE!

I've watched some interesting youtube videos about the subject...

This is called Collective Intelligence, and may also run under the guise of Distributed Knowledge or Group Intelligence.

I'll just leave this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence

And do the members of One Direction reply to your writings?

You seem to conflate "disagreeing" with "not understanding."  I understand your wingnut conspiracy theory, I just think you've been in your own feedback loop a bit too long.

So you think Satoshi is evil because you can't imagine a world where any developer would willingly pass a project off to the public, anonymously.  Then you look for evil reasons for evil things in Bitcoin based on that 'irrefutable' premise.

So, let's challenge that Assumption.

Non-Evil(tm) reasons to stay anonymous / drop involvement:
1. He thought long and hard about this, and realized that if the creator stayed involved, he'd never get any sleep, and he values his privacy.
2. Bitcoin has to lack a clear leader if it's to sustain credibility in its claim of being non-centralized.
3. The only way for his baby (to borrow your metaphor) to succeed is to raise it to young adulthood, then send it out into the world to make its own way.

Understanding any or all of these reasons, and probably some I haven't thought of, he set it free.

Here's the thing.  You can't disprove any of those reasons, just like we can't disprove that he's an evil guy in a high-collar cape skulking in the shadows, waiting for his time to strike.  Muhahahaha!

You dislike his inflation model.  I get that.  You ascribe that to a convoluted evil-conspiracy theory.  Here's my theory:

1.  He conflated wanting to distribute a fixed-supply currency over time with the need to incent miners in the time before transaction fees are significant.

That's a very simple reason, and is a complete explanation for the diminishing returns in block rewards.  So let's apply your much-vaunted Razor of Occam to this, shall we?  Wait, are we only supposed to pick simpler reasons when they support your dark world view?

Do you really think anyone with two brain cells to rub together doesn't understand that early adopters are in line for a windfall?  Guess who took the risks, spent the time spreading the word, spent months and months investing time and credibility and money into a system that would probably never be anything but a curiosity for nerds?  It's the early adopters.  That you're butthurt with envy about not being one of them isn't our problem.  That we're currently taking a risk that these early adopters might abuse that position is something we're all aware of.  We aren't children that you have to lead through the playground.  I haven't put one red cent toward Bitcoin that I can't afford to lose tomorrow.

Just for fun, a market value list of gold for several decades passed: https://raw.github.com/datasets/gold-prices/master/data/data.csv

♫♫♫So get out, get out, get out of my head And fall into my arms instead I do not, I do not, do not know what it is But I need that one thing And you've got that one thing ♫♫♫ - Bitcoins

LMAO

You continue to make assumptions that are not true, and conflate things which are irrelevant. This is what people with lower IQ do.

I wrote an explanation which makes Satoshi a hero:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8671/any-counter-proof-that-satoshi-nakamoto-did-not-design-a-ponzi-scheme-on-purpose/8709#8709

Note that is not a counter-proof that he didn't do it on purpose.


These are assumptions because they are not at all required by the facts of the situation.

Whereas my explanation is the only one that can fit the facts.

My comments about your 3 assumptions:

1. I don't value my sleep and privacy more than recognition for my creations. We don't know if he did or not. Irrelevant.

2. Nonsense. Satoshi's design is the leader, everybody knows that it can't be modified. And Gavin Anderson is his selected general going forward.

3. Yeah so what? I never said he didn't nurture it and send it out. Irrelevant point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds

And you did not address my point about the insanity of allowing popular opinion to decide the rate of debasement of our currency:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=984

(insanity defined as doing the same thing over and over again, and wondering why the same failure results)

reading *some* posts in this thread is like inception >.> "looking" (as in "i dare you") for a counter-proof for theory that a not ponzi scheme economic bubble was not created on purpouse, which is really a ponzi scheme created by an evil camphor alike guy who allegedly has left his creation and his name and these are 2 things that we know about him. yay. conspiration theories <3

as for the group "intelligence", as bacon says, "the intelligence of the group equals the intelligence of the stupidest person in the group". how's that relevant to this convo anyway? neither economy nor any money/currency is based on group intelligence, group perception nor group's opinion.

You either fail to understand Occam's Razor, or you fail to agree that Bitcoin is unarguably a ponzi scheme. You can review the links to why it is unarguably a ponzi scheme:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8671/any-counter-proof-that-satoshi-nakamoto-did-not-design-a-ponzi-scheme-on-purpose/8709#8709


In a forum yes, because can't ignore single person as it fills up the space. In voting, it is the stupidest group with the most voting power.

The participants there often disagree and argue with each other, so there is no One Direction.

And yes they do interact with me occasionally:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4824&cpage=1#comment-396599 (warning humor ahead)

Let me quote from my answer to my question:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8671/any-counter-proof-that-satoshi-nakamoto-did-not-design-a-ponzi-scheme-on-purpose/8709#8709

"The stability of a currency’s value is based on how many businesses can keep their unit-of-account in that currency, because business have to do valuations with longer-term planning for their inputs and outputs. If I ask you to go to the store to get some milk, then I ask you take 10 steps forward and 9.9 steps backward along the way, will you do it? Volatility is a cost. Even appreciation is a cost to a business, because they aren't not always going to be on the appreciation side of the equation with their inputs and outputs."

This myopia is central to Satoshi's ability to create a market value with his "gold" (scarcity) design.

Gold has an intrinsic value because it is used as a physical commodity, and the most important use is central banks hold it. This is why although gold skyrockets, then crashes, it never crashes to 0. Silver is heavily used in industry, this is why it can never crash to 0.

The key is that the most astute and wealthy capitalists will hold gold and silver long-term, but they will not hold Bitcoin long-term, because they understand that the free market rewards those who correctly assess value. Ask Warren Buffet about value creation.

Bitcoin has very, very low instrinsic value, because of it can't be used as a stable unit-of-account (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158111.msg1679002#msg1679002).

IMO, like all ponzi schemes the believers will make denial rationalizations (and even get angry at people who present them facts) as to why it must have intrinsic value, and thus it will continue to skyrocket in price for as long as greater fools can bring more money into it.

But when the next general economic liquidity crunch comes, many of these fools who put too much of their networth into Bitcoin, will have to sell in a panic. This will pop the bubble (circa 2015 - 2017) and then the stampede will be on, because there will be stories in the news about how there is very insignificant transactional and unit-of-account usage of Bitcoin by businesses and the profitable and productive sectors of the economy who are the only sector that matters for generating value. Don't forget my point that spending money on goods and services drives value of the currency higher, because the businesses can reinvest in greater productivity gains from profits.

To understand money, you need to understand the economy, see How an Economy Grows and Why It Doesn't (http://home.earthlink.net/~schiffeconomics/).

Bitcoiners will rationalize that gold is a superior money because they claim that no one can debase it. This so stupid. First of all, both inflation and deflation concentrate wealth to the rich (http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/408/does-hoarding-really-hurt-bitcoin/8533#8533). Secondly, because of this concentration of wealth under gold to the rich, the public will never allow it! You get a world war if necessary, but the public will always demand debasement, and there is no technical way to stop it (not even Bitcoin is immune, the government can easily subvert it when they are ready (http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8572/powerful-elite-thwarting-cryptocurrencies/8653#8653)).

And this is the way it should be! A free-market does not mean that it is a merit to encourage non-productivity by erroneously assuming that BLIND capital can invest most efficiently in productivity (http://www.coolpage.com/commentary/economic/shelby/Demise%20of%20Finance,%20Rise%20of%20Knowledge.html#FinanceabilityofKnowledge). The larger the capital one has, the less knowledgably one can allocate it. This is a fact. This is because innovation is born in the small, and no person is omniscient. This is why the Bible says that money will fly away.

Storing past productivity and holding the future in chains with your past accomplishments, is the antithesis of prosperity.

Yes we need some savings, because this represents sacrifice and hard work, which is a merit based system.

But we also need to debase the capital over time, so that the rich don't have an unfair advantage to make the innovators slaves to the lack omniscience.

The philosophical paradigm of Bitcoin, is that the early adopters from first 4 years will have 50% of the money supply. That is insane and will never be allowed in a meritocracy. The free market will never allow this. Yes people should profit on their innovations, but they should not have 50% of all future production. Society will go to world war if necessary to remove those chains.

The technological innovation of Bitcoin that I love is that no person can control the debasement. However, with Bitcoin this is not true. Satoshi controls the debasement and he got some (large chunk) of that 50% of the money supply.

So I would like to take his technical innovation and put it in a new bitcoin-like system where the debasement is automatically adjusted by a mathematical algorithm designed to get a balance between transactional and unit-of-account usage versus store-of-value usage. To prevent it from sliding into the ponzi scheme outcome.

CAPICHE?

P.S. Dunning-Krueger dolts who think I don't realize that Satoshi can't change the preset debasement schedule, that is irrelevant. He alone decided it. And it is insane and not a merit-based duration as I explained the reasons why above.

What you describe as "rationalizations" is just us being, y'know, rational.  You discard all simpler explanations that do fit facts as "baseless opinion" but then wave Occam's Razor around like it's a prison fight.

NO MATTER WHAT debasement scheme is used, all new market entrants will start at zero, and ALL EARLIER ADOPTERS will have ALL OF THE COINS.  Shocking, I know.

Except the one you want to design, which, of course, solves that problem for you.

BTW where's this description of your alternative system that can work based on how much hard drive space you have?  It's simple to show proof-of-work using cryptography, but I'd like to see how you can prove to the satisfaction of a neighbor how much drive space have.

Funny you quote the definition for insanity as you've been arguing your same conspiracy theories over and over again for 6 pages now...as if expecting a different response from the rest of us...

Dunning-Krueger dolts can't see their ignorance. They will continue to spout illogic, and there is no logic they will ever accept. Nor will they ever admit defeat, because they don't have the logic to see when they are making a total fool of themselves.

I hope you prove me wrong. I would love to see that you can adjust to reason and logic.


Either you do not understand that the 3 items you presented were one of many possibilities that can (within statistical likelihood) fit the facts, thus by definition assumptions.

Or you do not agree that Occam's Razor is an accepted principle of the scientific method.

In either case I can only shrug. What can I do with an utter dolt?


Did you pass your Algebra 2 course?

If the latter debasement is mathematically adjusted to market conditions (in a decentralized manner with no SPOT of failure modes), the early adopters are continously diluted. If they hold forever, their value will asymptotically trend towards 0.

However, this will take a long-time, and in the meantime they will be rewarded by appreciation in value (both FX price and real productivity gains in the economy from transactional velocity as I explained in my prior post).

An honest and merit-based system, instead of ponzi scheme.


I want the honest and merit-based system, and I never said I would pre-mine coins and keep it secret. Everyone would be on an equal footing and can bring their Proof-of-Work to bear on it as it is released.


Yeah I am clever. Satoshi did not think of this perhaps:

http://anonycoin.org

Btw, I have better name coming soon...

but I don't know if I will implement this. I need to see some support and desire for it first.

Ahhh there it is. I was wondering how long it would take before you started advertising your own Alt-coin ;)

Communist.  ;)

(I expected you to do exactly that. I knew you were waiting for DataPlum to ask me to share my algorithm)

What is your retort now you fool?

I am saving this entire thread, so if any moderator deletes it, I still have a copy:

http://goldwetrust.up-with.com/t188p45-bitcoin-the-gold-will-save-us-ponzi-scheme#4825

Hahahahaha I stopped seriously reading this thread and giving it merit after I put up my summary back on page 5. Since then it's just been a laugh-fest. I've literally been laughing out loud at your recent bout of paranoia.

Retorting here is a fruitless effort as you'll continue to pedal your ignorance against all voices of logic and reason (regardless of how sound and well thought out they are). It's incredibly clear that your sole agenda is instill doubt about Bitcoin in order to push your own coin.

Thankfully, many of us here see right on through your nonsense ;)

Do you have a thread to discuss this?  If so, please respond there and link me to it from here.

1.  What's to prevent me from connecting to the network a thousand (or ten thousand) times so that I might improve my odds of being selected as the next block creator?  (An "attacker network" of one or more machines (sock puppet connections or a botnet) masquerading as many more than physically exist.)  I don't need to have 1tb available until i'm selected, and then only one instance of 1tb needs to exist behind all of the sock puppet connections.

2. Which peer throws the dice to 'randomly select' which other peer is selected to be the next block creator?  What if that peer is compromised to produce a non-random number that throws the next block to another member of an attacker network, thereby locking in the attacker network's indefinite control of the blockchain?

3. What happens if that selected block creator
a. fails / disconnects
b. generates an invalid proof-of-work
c. is continuously DDOS'ed as soon as it's selected?

4.  Is there a mathematical proof that your proof-of-work scheme cannot be simplified by a hitherto-unknown heuristic that allows for a proof-of-work with a much smaller storage requirement?

PS It's "DataPlumber" not "DataPlum".  <shrug>

There are several ways in which Bitcoin is a better currency for the internet age:
- It's not subject to inflation / quantitative easing
- Can be used for internet payments, with low fees (try 1 satoshi fees!)
- Wallet encryption makes it safer from theft than your credit card / cash
- It's extremely divisible

First we used seashells and leaves, the we used gold & silver coins, then we used paper banknotes and plastic cards - finally now we use Bitcoins!

ChipCoin,

Welcome to the thread, and the forum.  I'd suggest going through the previous posts to get a sense of the depth of the discussion, or at least check out the excellent summary on page 5.

Apologies I was away for some minutes writing about Big O algorithm-cost math:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4861&cpage=1#comment-397234


STOP. All of you readers need to stop a delusion that is in your mind.

1. Inflation and deflation both transfer wealth to the rich at a faster rate than they transfer it to you. Neither is good. So don't think Bitcoin's inflation is better. Please re-read the following linked post slowly over and over until you understand. It took me 6 years to figure that out. You are not going to get it in 5 minutes. You need to sit down with a cup of coffee and read it slowly.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158111.msg1679165#msg1679165

2. I agree that letting some humans decide the debasement rate is bad, because it means they can game the system and profit more than others. The debasement rate should be algorithmic in the open source, so we all are on a level playing field. The debasement should be optimized to minimize both inflation and deflation. Our value should increase with a balance of FX price increase and that goods getting more plentiful at the same price due to increases in productivity. We will never get this perfect, but at least if we can agree on something more sane than what Satoshi chose, then we won't have a ponzi scheme.

Also all you goldbugs needs to read this:

Does Money Have to be Backed?

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/03/26/does-money-have-to-be-backed/

Expect to your preconceptions destroyed, if you have an open and rational mind.


Agreed, I would never want to lose this.

But the transaction fees in Bitcoin are not set. As the profitability of mining declines, they could increase, especially since the Proof-of-Work in Bitcoin encourages a monopoly as Satoshi himself admitted! Go back and read the OP linked question and following the links!


Agreed! I love the technology advance of Bitcoins. But I am telling you it has to be improved. There are some fatal flaws in the debasement and the Proof-of-Work.

I've updated page 5 with a more accurate summary, taking into account the past 2 pages. It's a light read compared to everything else, but the same valid (and important) points are covered.

Nice you choose the page that has all the "finger in ears, nananana" politics, and nearly none of the factual content.

ChipCoin at al, I suggest reading the entire thread, not just one page of it.

They don't want you to read the truth. They are trying to hide the facts in their so called "summaries" which are nothing more than politics and hiding all the details.

Note if they continue this, then I will continue adding this post to the bottom of the thread too. I will also make a request to moderator to stop this pollution of the discussion, with such attempts to funnel readers to only one part of the thread.

It is so pitiful, they have lost the logical debate, they have to resort to such slimy methods.

They can also see they are losing as new votes continue to appear for "No", as more readers learn the truth.

Not yet. I was hoping that moderators will let me out of Newbie area, because I don't want to put such a serious thread in it. I want to interface with smart developers.

I don't understand why you want to have a technical discussion with me, when you are still playing politics and asking ChipCoin to go read a summary which is just BS and has none of the details and truth?

You expect me to be nice and respect you when you continue batshit dumb juvenile behavior?


Re-read the algorithm at http://anonycoin.org, that is explained.

In short, you need to have all those 1TB (or what ever size we chose, probably scale it by Moore's law over time automatically) of secret keys stored, or you are not ready to respond when your turn comes.


The dice is determined by the hash of the chain of blocks with the entropy of the transactions. No one can predict it, nor change it. When selecting which transactions to put in the current block, the current peer has only a limited time to respond and the difficulty will be set high enough that it is not practical for them to search for a set of transactions that would select a desired peer. Also remember there is a transaction fee, so it is costly to add bogus transactions.


That why several nearest closet will also do duplicate work.


I haven't written it down yet. Intuitively I've got it. I need to formalize.


Good technical questions. Shows that you are developer. So why the political BS from you? Come on now. You are smarter than that. I will respect you, if you respect me.

Do you think I would ever trust you to be in charge of something, if you chase away new ideas as you have done to me? I had to fight so hard, others won't be able to do. Show me that you embrace new information rationally.

I voted yes, but purely for semantic reasons, as bitcoin is clearly not a ponzi.

I think you have valid points, but what you're missing is when the early adopters cash out, that bitcoin will return to the bitcoin economy, and start to maybe be used again.

So it will seem like a ponzi scheme when the price drops from early adopters going and getting theirs causing late-comers to lose out on money, but the price will stabilize again as demand for that bitcoin continues to increase, which will occur naturally as bitcoin gains legitimacy. If the demand for bitcoin drops over time from lack of adoption (and not just early adopters cashing out), then the early adopters are fucked (unless they cashed out already). Ponzi schemes do not fuck the early adopters.

That risk is what I think makes the difference between a viable currency, and a con (which is the word I think you should be using in place of "Ponzi scheme,")

However, your language is intentionally trying to piss people off (by implying that every poster has a low IQ, for example), so I view you as a troll.

A very successful one too, because you've stirred up quite a name-calling contest here...

Thanks for being amicable and also for not lurking. Hope I don't piss off but I must be frank, you have two logic fails here. Hopefully you have a thick skin.

You are correct that as the wealth is distributed with a better Gini coefficient, then it will be less skewed to ponzi. One of the key traits of ponzi is the white lie that lets the insiders walk away with a big chunk of the networth of society.

And my design is that everyone with a harddisk can mine, so a much better Gini coefficient from the start and forever.

However your vote of Yes fails on two points.

1. It is a ponzi until they cash out at least. Short-term ponzi, long-term stability would not change what it is for now.

2. Lack of debasement is not a stable form of money and not even better for anyone except those who control politics, never has been and never will be. I refer readers again to read more carefully the following two linked posts.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158111.msg1679165#msg1679165

Does Money Have to be Backed?

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/03/26/does-money-have-to-be-backed/


The problem is that the white lie about "bitcoin is better like gold" and "no debasement is a better world" is causing the ponzi frenzy. Every person who is pissed off about the end of the 78 year sovereign debt cycle, is religiously passionate about a better system.

The problem is that their religion is being aided by a debasement that is not increasing to dampen some of the rush into it. The debasement should only slow as the transactional goods & services economy becomes a larger share.

And because of this flaw, it can't never stabilize, just as gold and fiat can never stabilize. But at least fiat stabilizes for much longer periods than gold (in some cases), because the better central banks do allow some flexibility. (not saying I like central banks. I don't, I want a free market with open source algorithms)

With an algorithmic fluctuating debasement, we can get something like a mix between gold and fiat, without the bastards front running us with their secret control of the levers.

Then finally, we can get a bitcoin-economy that grows in value.

Until that technical change is made, it is a ponzi scheme. Sorry.


No chance of that. Price is going way up. Don't worry. It is an awesome ponzi scheme, for the religious delusion reasons I explained.

Once the sheep are jealous of the earlier ones, the gold fever starts. They are all 49ers rushing to California now.


A ponzi scheme can fail only if the participants realize that the value isn't there.

In this case, no one is going to believe what I am saying above about the valuation of a currency.

They will stampede into Bitcoin, guaranteed. I should buy Bitcoin. I would make a lot of profit, if I sell out at the right time.

But I am not interested in profiting on a ponzi scheme. And who knows when it pops and crashes.

I will admit that as Bitcoin crashes, it still has some transactional value, assuming that the merchants don't get so burned that they curse it.

However, if a competitor is able to get traction that has more stable value, that could alter the outcomes. I don't think this is likely.


I only implied that to those who were writing batshit stupid nonsense to me. Such as fornicating over whether the white lie in Bitcoin is an economic bubble. I don't care. We have a scheme here that is caused by misinformation and greater fools funding the earlier fools. Call it what ever you like. That is waste of precious time to argue over the name, when the effects are the same either way.

If you waste my time with stupid games over irrelevant naming, then you are not smart IMO.

I'd suggest you go back up and see who started that.  Your very first reply on this thread was condescending and rude, and had I noticed that at the time I might have declined to engage you.  Your constant belittling of the intelligence of everyone on this thread, including those like me who started in good faith, has done no favors to your ability to influence others.  As a rule, I respond to ad hominem attacks by turning the snark up to 11.

I've realized since yesterday that your primary distinction between "bubble" and "ponzi scheme" is the presence of malicious intent of the creator, *which, semantically, makes more sense to me now*, but I find your basis for conclusion of malicious intent (which is, strictly speaking, unknowable unless you are Satoshi) shaky at best, as there are simpler explanations that fit the facts.  [I didn't fail to notice that you ignored my much-simpler-than-yours explanation of the debasement schedule.]

You may find the debasement schedule stupid or unsustainable or untenable, but here's a corollary to Occam's Razor:

Never blame on malice what can otherwise be blamed on stupidity.

Liar. Here is my first reply to you:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158111.msg1674023#msg1674023

Nothing there but being respectful and answering your question.



Yadayadayada.

You continue to waste my time on politics. Stop, or I will ignore you.

I wasn't using a metaphor  ::)

I thought you were using caps for emphasis not in the proper usage, since there is so much of that sort of thing in forums.

Then I guess you were implying that who are my external peers is irrelevant in this forum, and/or that I'm juvenile or possess some trait of that boy band. I admit I do look young with blonde hair and blue eyes even though I am 48.

When did the affliction of losing control over your eyes start?

(egos are bigger than brains, and balls are smaller than hoops)

The early adopters have 50% of the money supply ... until they spend it. You seem to completely miss how bitcoin is actually a currency, it is transferred around to help generate wealth. Say there is Joe, who has some bitcoins he mined a long time ago. Joe pays some bitcoins to Bob to do some work and create some value, Bob would otherwise just be sitting on his couch watching TV. Joe the early adopter has now cashed out his bitcoins, but because of bitcoins the total value of the system was able to increase.

I hope you can appreciate how impossible it will be for me to teach every member here basic economics? I don't have enough time. Eventually I must quit and go back to real work.

The number of possible misunderstandings and conflations is unlimited.


I did not miss that, my entire thesis is that spending is what is lacking in Bitcoin. There is too much store-of-value and not enough velocity.

But then you try to erroneously attach that truth to giving 50% of a money supply to a few people.

I would have no problem with them having 100% of the current money supply, if I know that the debasement is sufficiently fast, that they are not incentivized to sit on that capital and bury it in a hole.

Please people, stop conflating truths with non-truths.

Yea... guess I've been doing the customer service a bit too long :P I don't have thick skin, but I do have an open mind, and google for the words I don't understand. And I've decided to give you the chance to convince me, if you can.


Okay, so that supports the argument that bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme, and if anything negative, would best be classed as some kind of con? Not that I really care, I want to address the points you're actually making, not the naming scheme.


This might actually be more fair in the beginning. I will concede that point.

But over time, after the early adopters have sold out, after the mainstream has picked up on it, the wealth is going to redistribute itself to those who "do more" to earn it (that's a different argument all together though, and I'm not trying to derail the thread).

So at worst, we'd end up with a system similar to what we see now. The result of capitalism where the wealth is more topheavy, the only difference being that we would not allow banks to have control over what we've accumulated (if we didn't want to). This sounds just peachy to me.

In a system, like you propose, where the initial coin is distributed more fairly, those who take more action to earn it are still going to end up with more money, and thus more resources to set up projects that make more money. So in a laissez-faire system, the end result is still going to be same after the shitstorm, so why care if early adopters profit from the risk/work they put into it?


So it's only a con until the early adopters cash out, then everything equalizes? I don't understand how this is even a con to begin with. Just seems like another bubble bursting, which is something we all expect to happen many times during bitcoins ascent to ubiquity, a natural consequence of it's growth, and the uncertainty that people have inside them.


Is bitcoin a frozen debasement though? I will admit, I had to look the word up on wikipedia. Here's what it says:


It seems to me that if the mainstream DOESN'T pick up on it (and those dumb-asses may well not), then debasement is not frozen but thoroughly possible. Not because extra bitcoin is being made, but through lack of demand for what exists.

So... bitcoin debasement is not frozen, just driven by something other than the federal reserve's whim?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by this...


Oooohh I think I see what you're saying. Yes it is unstable now. But with mainstream adaptation the price fluctuation would be much less volatile than it is now. Also, we have the technology to compensate instantly for what differences in price would still occur. And only the fringe is arguing that bitcoin will make fiat disappear. So if it didn't completely overtake fiat, we'd still have a way to store wealth that is stable. If it does overtake fiat, then the larger market saturation would ensure that more stability exists.


Seems those fortyniners made out pretty good, and the economy survived, did it not?

As long as demand exists, any price drops from early adopters unloading would be corrected for in time. And your argument is that religious delusions will push demand higher over time, until it's mainstream. Right?


But those merchants won't get burned, unless they intentionally leave their money in BTC for speculative purposes. Instead they will have immediately converted it to fiat, which isn't going away THAT fast...

Regarding the name calling, whether somebody is smart or not, if you're trying to warn them that bitcoin is a con for altruistic reasons, then you might have better luck not pointing their (our) lack of intelligence out to them (us).

If that is not your intent, then what is?

It seems to me that the matter of whose right and wrong in this thread comes down to this:

What happens after the hoarding early adopters have mostly cashed out? Does bitcoin survive and remain popular? If yes, then this is not a ponzi scheme/con/whatever you wanna call it. If no then you might have a point, whatever words you choose.

AnonyMint: I got to go help my friend move, I'll be back, not planning to duck out on this.

If Charles Ponzi gains more owners of his receipts from his "Securities Exchange Company", did this better Gini coefficient make it not a ponzi scheme?

The key is that if the people invested are not spending, then the value isn't there.

You think that later they will become spenders, thus you think the Gini coefficient is dropping in a valuable way. I see they are all buying to sell later at a profit.

Thus I disagree with you.

More replies to follow...

Sorry to tell you this @WishIStartedSooner, but there's WAAYY too much logic and solid reasoning in your post. AnonyMint will be writing up an essay on why he disagrees with you momentarily.


EDIT: Called it.

So either John Derry or Mark Zimmer has had significant plastic surgery I take it?

Not any time soon, when dormancy is not improving it means more and more people are just piling in because they want to profit on others piling in.

They do think they are going to hold until the spenders finally come.

But so far the spenders are not coming in at the same rate as the speculators, i.e. it is diverging not converging (means can only end up as a blowoff peak and crash)

And the more the price goes up, the more people are going to get jealous and come piling in.

The merchants and spenders economy can't possibly develop as fast.

After the ponzi scheme crashes, then if only the spenders and merchants hang around, then maybe it can stabilize. The lack of debasement will be a negative, but not as much so as now, if there is a larger installed base of spending by then.

So what ever it will be later, for now it is not that. For now, it is a divergent system, with ponzi scheme qualities.



By the time we get to that future, the governments will probably have co-opted it already any way. It really only makes sense to talk about what it is now.


Differences are:

1. My Proof-of-Work is more level playing field, everybody already has a hard disk. They can jump in.

2. The award won't get less fair over time.

Yes capitalism will still be in play. I want meritocracy, not socialism. The difference is I remove the ponzi flaw (#2) and the monopoly miners flaw (#1).

The way we are headed now with ASICs, the users of the currency (the spenders) won't mine. In my system, they earn the debasement.


We can't look into the future and say anything. Futures contracts are inherently socialism (but that is too deep to discuss).

We can look only at what is now.

We have no idea what it will do after it crashes.

We know it will crash, for as long as speculation is diverging from value. We just don't know when. Depends how many fools are coming in.

It is ponzi con because the perpetraitor knows that the fools believe there is value. He knew how to structure it "like gold" so they would believe. But it is nothing like gold (see the OP linked question), and in fact structuring it that way enabled him to get a huge chunk of the greater fool funds that are coming in.



Yeah if you don't know these things, you should not be voting.

You just proved my point that Satoshi used asymmetric knowledge to fool you.

Debasement means we increase the quantity of bitcoins. This is currently decreasing at a geometric rate of halving the debasement rate every 4 years. Nothing every used as money has that fast of a declining debasement.

Gold is the most extreme, and it isn't close to Bitcoin. Orders-of-magnitude difference. This is what is causing the frenzy of speculation. The speculators will say it is because they expect future growth of spending, but the fact is they are coming in because of the EXTREME scarcity of the newly generated coins. And this religious delusion I have described in this and prior reply to you.


Please learn about the system.


Roughly agreed.


Ponzi schemes look great until the implode. The key point is the divergence.


Overly simplistic analysis.

There are many ways they can get burned. Once is they lose a revenue source they were projecting as increasing. Another is any value they had in the system could be wiped out. Another is they may not trust the system. Another is the government might come in and shut down the system claiming too many people were harmed. Etc....

Nobody likes to be part of things that fail. Bad outcomes happen when many people are harmed. Wars... New regulation... etc...


I tried but they were trying to drag me into games, so they could get me to hide my points in a 1000 posts of diarrhea. I know how trolls operate. I know how to minimize their effectiveness.

I wasn't really familiar with the name of their band. I remember seeing something on Mark's blog, but didn't memorize the name. Yes I have spoken with Mark recently on his blog and it was going well, but the last communication was my dislike of Apple's "walled garden" for apps, so I might have hit a nerve I don't know.

Did you work at Fractal Design Corp?

Afraid to tell us your real name? I am Shelby Moore III. What is your real name?

I guess it never occurred to you that a gambling site takes a pool, awards it to the winner, and gives the house a percent.

This is nothing like a system where greater fools are funding the sales of earlier fools.

What separates a stock from a ponzi is:

1. There is some intrinsic value that is growing as fast or faster than the increase in valuation. Or at least not diverging exponentially.

2. AND, there is not some white lie using asymmetric knowledge to fool or manipulate the psychology of investors.

Who is the idiot here?  ;)


I already explained this up thread. Since you did not bother to read, I will tell you again, that Satoshi is profiting and his centralized promotion about magical quality of "gold" has been there from day 1 until now:

http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf#page=3

When in fact, he made the debasement decline so fast that it is nothing like gold at all. And this hoodwinked the philosophy of investors. They do indeed think it will go up forever.

Satoshi did not create an honest platform. He used a trick to fool everyone. And you are still fooled by it. That just shows how clever he was. Even I tell you, and you can't see it right in front of you face.


BS! You are so fucking ignorant, I shouldn't even bother replying to you.

Currency gets its FLOOR value from the government, or in the case of gold because it is held by central banks and the kings.

Currency gets its real value from the M and V in the equation:

M * V = P * Q

Quantity Theory of Money.

STFU ignoramus.

You can't even see the pedantry in your first response to me, and for that I can't help you.

This is a forum for discussion, but you're not here for a discussion, you're here to preach your same points (while tolerating no argument) until you're blue in the face.  

I think we can both agree that all of your "facts" are irrefutable... to you.

I cannot think of any currency, current or past, that doesn't have every property of a ponzi scheme:

That it has no value other than what has been paid by previous investors and is only gaining value by specuation.

For Bitcoin to be fraudulent,  It has to have a back door in the code or another weakness only known by Satoshi or a few. This would be difficult to implement, as it's open source.

If Satoshi had criminal intent in creating Bitcoin, i.e. financial "terrorism" or other ill intentions towards a lot of people or society in general, would still not make Bitcoin by itself, fraudulent.

The early adoptor argument is also invalid as every ground breaking startup have had a single individual with that never thought off before idea that wil become the new sliced bread of the internet. Most are of course less briliant than they think, but they all have the early adoptor advantage.

Can Bitcoin be a vehicle for a Ponzi scheme? Yes indeed and more so than fiat in general as there is less regulation. Could the early developers around Satoshi have finished off that idalistic nerdy coder because they saw the great potential in using Bitcoin to defraud the planet? Sure but that is unlikely, firstly they would have nowhere to run and secondly, the whole process in the history of Bitcoin have been almost completely transparent. There would also have been other tell tales like missing information about mysterious code parts and inconsistencies in the explanations for various properties of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin have been evaluated by several independent universities and the FBI out of curiosity and the possibility that Bitcoin was a fraud, They have found nothing in the code and with the people involved in early development as far as I know.

Autism is a fascinating condition...

Occam's Razor.

A guy who studied previous e-currency, learns enough about cryptography to write a theoretical article.
That doesn't sound like a Ponzi scheme. It sounds like a math / CS nerd who proposed an experiment and then created the software to implement the experiment. Since latecomers can benefit from trading Bitcoin, it is certainly no Ponzi scheme.  It merely is a cool, math / computer science experiment that involves many people.

BINGO! What took you guys so long to reach that important realization.



The fraudulent point is very important. You can rationalize all you want about what is and is not fraudulent, but the fact is that when the public interest is harmed, and many people get angry, history shows you can be prosecuted without fairness:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8671/any-counter-proof-that-satoshi-nakamoto-did-not-design-a-ponzi-scheme-on-purpose/8709?noredirect=1#comment11400_8693


What is fairness anyway? It is just another word for "I got mine and got away with it".

Now you know why I won't touch a bitcoin even if you offered it to me for free. I am not stupid.

Read this:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/8728/3441

Here is what I wrote:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8671/any-counter-proof-that-satoshi-nakamoto-did-not-design-a-ponzi-scheme-on-purpose/8709?noredirect=1#comment11404_8728

And then disappears and no one knows him. He has no parents, no siblings, no friends, who had any clue that he might be working on something for 3 years.

Also math nerds do not have the networking programming skills to code what was already a completely working version when he released it.

Also programmers don't just leave and never say anything again. I have never seen that happen.

Any one who has a case of a programmer who was on a big project and never mentioned it or put it on their resume, etc?????

Then why does he choose to halve the # of new coins every 4 years, then say this is like gold, when gold's production is NEVER halved. It always increases!

http://64.19.142.11/www.goldsheetlinks.com/auyear.gif


 The shape of the gold production curve is inverted in concavity:

http://64.19.142.11/www.goldsheetlinks.com/autotal.gif

I QUIT.

I will not continue with making a currency that is backed by nothing.

The more I think about it, I wasted my time. This is so stupid.

Currency must be backed by production, else by force.

That is a basic reality of economics and politics.

The developers of Bitcoin have no idea the risks they are taking of being blamed when the ponzi bubble crashes.

You early adopters who are pumping, all the information is being saved by the NSA.

When they are ready to prosecute, when the general population is destitute as this economic crisis goes into the abyss after 2017, there is not going to be any rationality.

Homeland Security has purchased over a billion hollow point bullets.

Think about it.

Find your rock.

So what?  He obviously (to me) planned to stay out of the spotlight from the start.  Didn't want it.  Doesn't care.  We can speculate about his motivations but speculation does not constitute proof.
Apparently not the ones you know.  In my experience, math nerd translates to programmer quite well.
What does your personal experience have to do with it?  If you've never been mugged, it never happens?
Not everyone thinks like you do.  Not everyone behaves as you do.  Your premise that you must be able to understand his behaviors using your value system is fundamentally flawed.
There IS a fixed supply of gold, we just haven't gotten it all out of the ground yet.

I QUIT

Also I am not replying to DataPlum's ignorance any more. He is thicker than molasses.

FUCK!  :'(

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8671/any-counter-proof-that-satoshi-nakamoto-did-not-design-a-ponzi-scheme-on-purpose#comment11415_8728

Nice. Since that's supposedly the end of this ridiculousness, my summary has been updated: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158111.msg1676413#msg1676413

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8671/any-counter-proof-that-satoshi-nakamoto-did-not-design-a-ponzi-scheme-on-purpose/8723?noredirect=1#comment11426_8723


http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8671/any-counter-proof-that-satoshi-nakamoto-did-not-design-a-ponzi-scheme-on-purpose/8723?noredirect=1#comment11435_8723


http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8671/any-counter-proof-that-satoshi-nakamoto-did-not-design-a-ponzi-scheme-on-purpose/8723?noredirect=1#comment11421_8723

Korbman, let's talk about fraud. Where are the prospectus on your site? I see  you are selling notes to fund mining pool in ASICs. No wonder you hate me, because I was going to use hard-disks.

So where in your prospectus do you disclose that bitcoin is lying about being modeled on gold?

Let's get legal now. Put here on the written record.

Come on, don't get shy now  :-*

No. Backing a currency is only needed to prevent the supply of the currency from being inflated without bound. And it's even an imperfect solution to that.

For inherently backed currencies like gold, there's always the risk some cheaper way to get or make the inherently backed item could be found. We could find a way to mine an asteroid made of gold some day.

For agency-backed currencies like dollars or redeemable certificates, the backing entity can always collapse or betray you. The US government can print more money. The organization that redeems your silver certificates can go out of business or declare an emergency and force a partial redemption.

This is a problem Bitcoin doesn't have. The only way to create more Bitcoins is for the stakeholders to get together and change the rules of the system. If you're going to worry about that, then no currency will work for you -- they all have remote risks on that kind of level. Gold can be stolen or seized by the government.

You don't understand the reason that I said, "Currency must be backed by production, else by force.".

It has nothing to do with making sure the currency is not debased or making sure the backing is paid.

The reason I wrote that is because all currencies are UNFAIR, because both inflation and deflation concentrate wealth from the less wealthy to the more wealthy, for no merit reason.

Also all currencies are manipulated by the rich. Even Bitcoin is manipulated and it will be more and more manipulated. The rich will control all the mining, they control 50% of the coins, and they control the laws.

Your idealistic bullshit about Bitcoin being different, is just naive and nothing more.

What is worse for you, is that if you are developer of the software or the foundation or otherwise connected to informing the public about bitcoin, you run the risk of being held liable for all the manipulation and have it blamed on you.

Currency is the game of the Rothschild. Don't fuck around with your bitcoin so far up your arse that you think you suddenly changed the reality since the beginning of time and to the end of time.

David, I like you, I was just using some vulgar words for the hyperbole. Please don't mind it. It is not personally directed at you.

Must...not...feed....troll.... ::)

MUST....NOT.....FEED.......THE......TROLL  :-X :-X :-X

WHOA... my reply posted BEFORE the post it quoted!

I CAN BEND SPACE AND TIME!!!

Now to go back in time and buy when I should have, at $5

You either didn't read the thread. Or if you did, you are incapable of comprehending it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

With a name like odolvlobo, it is not surprising.

Btw, what happens to Bitcoin bcz transaction fees won't scale (http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/876/how-much-will-transaction-fees-eventually-be/8749#8749)?  ;)

$130+ billion a year in revenue.

You are batshit stupid.

It's possible that you might actually have a point, but I can't tell. What did I say that you think is "idealistic bullshit"?

That's fine. The problem is that I can't figure out what you're talking about. I thought we were talking about whether Bitcoin was a Ponzi scheme or whether its use as a payment system was something people could legitimately expect to add value. That was a reasonably interesting conversation but then you suddenly switched to full conspiracy mode.

Let's say you're right about all of that. Wtf does that have to do with Bitcoin? Okay, the whole world is badly broken and so is Bitcoin. But then, everything is. So your argument isn't *about* Bitcoin anymore. Your complaint then reduces to complaining that I'm not making the exact same argument you are making.

But we can have that argument if you want, and maybe I can convince you that Bitcoin is a tiny bit less awful because at least people can't inflate it.

Just to clarify, I said "first reply to the thread", not "first reply to me".  Didn't notice that misunderstanding earlier; I guess I should have been more clear.

Your first reply to the thread was,


Which is unarguably condescending and rude.

Joel, I invite you to read back through the thread, to include the handy summary on Page 5.  You're hardly alone in this sentiment.

Ever heard of sarcasm?
Ever heard of being polite?
Ever heard of not being rude?
----------------------------------------------------
Edit: Nevermind. I should have seen that coming by your first post. You probably posted something trolly and rude while I was editing this post. It seems proper conversations about the topic of bitcoin and ponzi schemes cannot be discussed. I was hoping to incite some interesting comparisons and discussions from others with my post but I think this thread is just troll. I am done here. I advise others to do the same to prevent bumping by anyone except anonymint

Okay David I'm humbled by your humbleness and motivated by your rationality, so let me step out my war mode and speak to you civil. Apologies, I had gotten war weary in this forum dealing with so many combatants.

I just provided a new answer at the bitcoin SE about transaction fees won't scale. So thus, it adds another reason to support that Bitcoin is designed to not scale for transactions, rather for investment.

But without transactions, there is nothing to invest in-- no value. Precisely what makes a ponzi scheme.

It is specifically designed to fall off in revenue for miners, as transactions were supposedly going to increase.

Satoshi separated transactions from blocks. The only protocol point of Bitcoin is to mine blocks, not to process transactions. And the mining was designed to fall off at halving every 4 years.

If that ain't a scam, then tell me why?

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/876/how-much-will-transaction-fees-eventually-be/8749#8749
http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/3111/will-bitcoin-suffer-from-a-mining-tragedy-of-the-commons-when-mining-fees-drop-t/8686#8686
http://anonymint.org/#Bitcoins_Transaction_Flaws

---

I want to share something about the way money should work from a genius (who was held in prison by the USA for 7 years without a trial):

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/03/25/sovereign-debt-crisis-conference-2/


The banksters were so afraid of this guy, they tried to murder him in prison. They put him maximum security prison, etc..

The only reason they did not succeed, is he has too many friends. He helped too many people make a lot of money, because his Pi model of economic confidence is always correct. He was earning $33 a minute on consulting in the 1980s.

I've been studying many different sources about monetary theory. Armstrong is correct.

We should fund what we need from debasement.

Bitcoin is the wrong model. It won't scale.

Wow, he may actually have a point!  I've wondered about the scaling of transaction fees.  Someone ask him for a link, as I'm on his ignore list.  Where's the emoticon for badge of honor?  :'(
Aaaaaand we're back.

No, seriously, someone ask, please.

Why do you think you can fool and belittle the intelligence one of the developers of Bitcoin:

http://bitcoin.org/en/development

He won't fall for your inane "summary" on page 5.

Not my summary.

Edit: Not inane either.  Unless "inane" means "hysterical" to you.

I had already provided the link. I will provide it again. So far, nobody is answering, they are anonymously downvoting:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/876/how-much-will-transaction-fees-eventually-be/8749#8749
http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/3111/will-bitcoin-suffer-from-a-mining-tragedy-of-the-commons-when-mining-fees-drop-t/8686#8686
http://anonymint.org/#Bitcoins_Transaction_Flaws

Thank you for the links.

I'm a little disappointed that the link for "as Satoshi Nakamoto anticipated..." was not to any primary source, but rather your inference of his intentions.  I feel that your link to something other than a primary source is a bit misleading, since the thought that went through my head as I clicked was, "wow, he really said that?  I wonder what the context was."

Perhaps "as I clearly show Satoshi Nakamoto anticipated" would be a better title for the link.  It fits what you're trying to say without being misleading.

<snark off>
Dude, and I hope you can believe this, I really want to help you better communicate.  Which is why I've been all over your semantics the whole time, because if you actually want to have an intelligent discussion on a topic, you have to be crystal clear in your word choices, and use terms in ways that most-everyone can agree with.  It took me eight pages and a good night's sleep to figure out exactly why you believe "ponzi scheme" is more apt than "bubble", and I think you might be more clear (and I apologize again for putting words in your mouth) if you say, "I believe it's better described as a Ponzi scheme than a bubble because I can show beyond any reasonable doubt that Satoshi designed this system to funnel value from late investors to early investors and leave nothing behind.  And it's this malicious intent that separates a Ponzi scheme from a bubble."

Now, don't get me wrong, I still disagree with you on the "intent" part, but I honestly think those phrases better describe what you're trying to convey.

A message to everyone:

The reason I am so warlike in this discussion, is because I understand that the future of our human race is at stake.

When you try to argue definitions, you are falling right into the hands of the people who are manipulating this. They are masters of Double-Speak.

One of the facts of life, is that things are not always what they seem to be from your own perspective.

I am trying to get bitcoin fixed, so that it can be what you think it is.

It is not what you think it is. I wish it was.

You will say, "why should we believe you, you don't even know what a ponzi scheme is".

All I can say to you, is you don't know the technical, monetary, and other issues involved here.

If you knew what I knew, you would understand.

Please stop thinking I am trying to destroy P2P currency.

Indeed, I do think hard-disks for Proof-of-Work would protect us more from the real threat, which is government.

But that is not the main problem with Bitcoin. The main problem is that debasement is dying. You've been hoodwinked into thinking that debasement is bad.

All of you should try to slow down with your reactionary minds, and do some careful reflection and study.

I don't have time to be a word-smith. People can think a little more slowly and figure it out.

The page I linked to has links somewhere (I can't remember where!) to some of the design decisions or statements by Satoshi.

Satoshi said that he expected mining to become concentrated among a few miners and that it would possibly be free.

Sure sounds to me like he was planning for a govt or fascist-corporation takeover.

You readers go vote and you don't even research all my links. So no wonder you don't see what I see!

You didn't understand why he said that.

Here, you're the latest inspiration for this...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159349.msg1684347#msg1684347

Not sure if that was directed at me, but I'll be surprised if it wasn't.

<snark off>
The fundamental problem with using language for communication is that EVERY WORD IS A GENERALIZATION.  No word you use has exactly the same meaning to anyone who hears it, so it's of paramount importance to choose words that leave as little "wiggle room" as possible in their meaning, in order to ensure others' inference is the same as your implication.

<snark on>
Now, I'm as big a fan of Orwell as the next guy, but engaging in hyperbole does NOT lead to a better understanding.  But if you're trying to preach instead of educate, and therefore playing fast-and-loose with terminology by finding the most emotionally-charged words instead of words that are the best-fitting for your idea, then YOU are the master of double-speak, not those who are trying to pin down your actual meaning.

Are you sure I don't know? (hope you didn't overstep with your hubris)

I think I do understand why he said it would become concentrated.

It is a natural function of fixed-capital capitalism and economies-of-scale and I explained that here:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/3111/will-bitcoin-suffer-from-a-mining-tragedy-of-the-commons-when-mining-fees-drop-t/8686#8686

Did you even bother to read that linked document before accusing me of not knowing?

Satoshi even anticipated ASICs. Did you know that Mr. Bravado?

As for Satoshi's assertion that transactions might become free, I don't know why he would say that. Do you know why?

The only reason I can think of is government subsidy.

Why are you referring me to Satoshi's paper, when I've read it already and linked to it numerous times? Are you accusing me of not knowing how Bitcoin works? Please back up your accusation with proof.

The link where Satoshi said mining might be free in future, is from the mailing list where he first announced (the post where he discusses 10GB bandwidth for internet). I have read all of his posts. Have you?

<snark off>
If you have ideas that are Important, then the second most important skill you can have (after the skill of having important ideas) is that of being a wordsmith.  Because ideas that aren't communicated well are ideas that die in your head.

Take time to become a wordsmith.  You won't regret it.

I'm nerd. Programmer. Not a writer.

I am waiting MoonShadow? Where is your proof to back up your accusation?

Don't get shy now.  :-\

Of course not.  How could I?  You had not provided such a link in the post I quoted!  Do you really think that you're opinion is so highly valued that we actually read everything you write?  I still won't read it, and I still know you didn't get it, because of this statement...


Yes, I do.  Hell, I was here.


Not even close, buck.  I've had this conversation so many times, I feel like a third grade teacher ready for retirement.  You really have no idea.  Please, for the love of God, use the search function!

I linked it twice before within the past several posts.

So if you are not going to read the thread, then don't falsely accuse.

If you are going be an asshole, then don't be surprised if I am an asshole to you.


Give me the terse summary please. Because I suspect you are full of shit, based on the fact that you didn't even read the thread you were replying to as proven above.

Being "here" doesn't impress me. I've seen many logic fails on this site.

You've already demonstrated that you don't always have a high comprehension level.

P.S. Don't try that shit on me. I know how to deal with assholes like you.

---

Also why are you shifting the discussion from the debasement, which is the major fucking problem for funding mining for transactions going forward?

Satoshi said mining would become centralized:

http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg09964.html

Here he said there would probably always be nodes willing to process for free after debasement ends. He did not elaborate on why:

http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg10142.html

Another reason to centralize mining is the communication overhead, which I implied in my prior post where I said Satoshi was discussing the 100GB bandwidth.

Satoshi believed that there would be few professional mining outfits, and that most users would not often have to pay a transaction fee, because in a future that bitcoin had adoptence and success near the level of a minor national currency, most businesses would be accepting them.  For major retailers such as Wal-Mart or Target, accepting bitcoins via free transactions would be a comparative advantage they could wield over smaller competitors because these major retailers could afford to either build their own mining farm or sponsor a professional mining outfit by contract, so that their free transactions could be favored by those same contract miners in the same way that fee paying transactions can be expected to be favored over free transactions now.  The same kind of arrangement could occur between bitcoin "banks", who agree to transact off-network between their members whenever feasible and to mutually favor each other's userbase regarding free transactions within their own transaction/mining pools.  Thus, the market for transaction fees was expected, from very early on, to compete with partial trust parallel payment networks built up specificly to avoid direct blockchain transaction fees.

Therefore, few professional miners as mining without sponsors or some other off-network method of income would eventually become difficult; and mostly free transactions (to consumers) because the primary burden of paying for the network would shift to the corporations that desire to get you to spend in their stores.

And, yes, that is the short version.

Oh, I doubt that.  There are not many assholes quite like me.  I havn't even put any effort into this one.


Because it's not a problem, and you don't see why.  Start with the above summary, but there is much more to it.

He is not using the bandwidth as the reason the mining will become centralized. He says it will become centralized any way. That is why I say the reason is the economics of fixed-capital investment.

If you have 1 million transactions per day with 1KB each, that is only 1GB per day bandwidth for each peer. With a 10Mbps connection, that is only 15 - 20 minutes per day. And bandwidth is increasing.

It amazes me that you couldn't see that what I was expecting from Satoshi is exactly what you have written below.


Thank you very much! So you just proved my point that he was expecting the fascist-corporatism model for our future!

Where did he actually write that? I just deduced in my own mind that he was expecting a govt+corporate takeover of society. Or is that some interpretation you all sorted out independent of him saying it?


That is exactly the problem.

You are not building freedom. You are building slavery.

The mining pools we use today exactly fit this description, yet I don't feel threatened.
He did not elaborate on why, but I will probably be one of those miners.  Can you elaborate on why?  Hint: we may have different value systems.

Until recently, much of the mining I did was at a loss.  ...Well, ex-post-facto, it wasn't at a loss.  But I had no reasonable expectation it wouldn't be at a loss.  I just think Bitcoin is really ridiculously cool from its premise to its implementation.  What I like to call a "Fonzie scheme."

But I'm sure we can both agree that the recent growth in Bitcoin FX value defies "reasonable" as a description.

So now thanks to our gracious global moderator MoonShadow, we see the true model for Bitcoin.

This is a model where debasement ends, and the large corporations control our lives.

You've just proven which answer is correct to my question. And it wasn't my answer.

Thanks for the slamdunk! Wow you couldn't have made it any easier for me.  :-*  :-*  :-*

Nonsense.  The innovation of Bitcoin isn't it's decentralized nature.  Paper cash is moreso.  The innovation is that the transaction settlement system is automated, unstoppable and cannot prevent new players from entering into the network.  Anyone can offer mining services, even when Walmart has a mining cluster, if they are willing to mine at a loss.  Many are and can.  I do, as I have a GPU based mining rig I bought used last fall that is offsetting a portion of my heating demands for my detached garage.  I'd be using that electricity anyway, but I can't make a business model out of waste heat from a mining rig.  Even if Walmart and Target are fighting over half of the network, they can't stop me from participating at whatever level I desire.  Central banking is about control, not centralizatin per se.  If you really view it as a problem, don't use it.  No one is asking you to, much less compelling you to.  Just go back to your legal tender and go pay your taxes like a good little socialist/capitalist/Morman/whatever.  That's real slavery, and you don't even realize you're already part of your own solution.

In particular:


ONLY the pool operators or solo ("professional") miners have to support that level of bandwidth.  Individual miners simply work on the block headers, which involve minimal bandwidth.

If any pool gets too big, people will naturally migrate to the underdog pools:
(A) because they're aware of the problems inherent with any pool getting too large, and
(B) because shucks, everyone loves an underdog!

I predict (without any facts to back me other than our experience BTD [Bitcoin-to-date]) that no solo entity will be able to compete with the larger pools.

Mining at a loss is a barrier to entry.

When the corporate-fascists spend $10 billion on ASICs, you will never be relevant again. They will control everything.

Then they can take over the protocol, through their cartels.

Are you blind to history fool?

This has Rockfeller's fingerprints all over it.

Don't you understand fool, that the corporations are the same monopolists who own the banks and government?

Don't you understand that you are helping them build the 666 system?

Dentralization of the debasement is absolutely essential. Without that, you go directly to 666 within 10 - 20 years.

You use the word "fool" a lot.  Remember that MoonShadow is relatively new to this thread and perhaps hasn't earned the scorn that the rest of us have :)

In a decade or three, you will be wishing you were only fool.

Have you guys not studied the history of fascism?

Do you not understand what is going on now in shift in the world with the sovereign debt crisis and how the big banks are doing a reverse takeover of our governance?

Where do you think the mega-corporations get their loans for expansion?

And when the global economy goes into stall velocity circa 2017, these mega-corporations are going to be owned by the banks, because the sales will collapse.

Haven't you seen the many mergers and mega-corporations under mega-mega-umbrella groups?

I'm sorry, are you arguing that we should be for, or against Bitcoin, here?

Do you not understand that if you give the mega-corporations control over Bitcoin transaction block mining, you've given them the control over everything in your life?

They will run your life as a digital slave.

History doesn't matter.

Gold could crash any day just like Bitcoin.

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/876/how-much-will-transaction-fees-eventually-be/8749?noredirect=1#comment11471_8749


I don't understand all the vested interests here.

I suppose you just have a lot of money in Bitcoin and mining hardware.

I suppose most of you don't believe there is a real threat of corporations taking over all control of your ability to transact.

I don't think it will help for me to force it down your throat.

MoonShadow, I appreciate that information very much. You confirmed my fears. Occam's Razor was telling me that it had to be so, and you confirmed it. Now I realize that many of you will think I am paranoid or delusional. That is okay. By the time it is too late, you will say "I wish I listened to Shelby".

But of course it will be too late then. So there is nothing I can do.

I wish all of you the best. I wish no harm will come to you. And I don't wish to destroy your speculations. I wish you good luck with them.

http://64.19.142.12/armstrongeconomics.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/realestate-cycle.jpg?w=584&h=344 (http://armstrongeconomics.com/models/7219-2/)

http://64.19.142.11/www.coolpage.com/commentary/economic/shelby/2011-Case-Shiller-updated.png (http://www.coolpage.com/commentary/economic/shelby/Housing%20Recovery%20Illusion.html)

http://armstrongeconomics.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/jumper.jpg?w=584

http://armstrongeconomics.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/weapons-on-streets.jpg?w=584&h=484

http://armstrongeconomics.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/tsa-agent1.jpg?w=584&h=423

http://64.19.142.13/armstrongeconomics.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/uk-poster.jpg?w=350&h=572

http://armstrongeconomics.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/cyprus-atm.jpg?w=584



New Zealand Prepares to Stealsthe Moneys

Last week we notified our clients that plans have been in place for some time in New
Zealand to be able to declare a bank holiday and instantly haircut all depositors.
As it turns out, this can be done with as little as “a few mouse clicks.”

AFE’s inside source (a senior developer for one of New Zealand’s largest banks)
confirms that these plansstarted some time ago. According to this source’s personal
knowledge of the system’s implementation, which facilitates instant theft on behalf
of the government, this project was initiated years ago. Interestingly, it was the
Reserve Bank of New Zealand that instructed all banks to put this system in place as
well as providing the deadline as to when it had to be implemented.

AFE’s Duncan Cameron says, “You don’t build bridges to nowhere with no plan on
walking them.”

“If depositor’s funds are protected up to €100K, and anyone holding deposits over
that amount has to bail out their bank if that bank  gets into trouble, it will set
a precedent for other banks’ depositors worldwide who have deposits over the
insurable amounts within those nations!

In Australia and the USA, the insurable amount is $250K for any single entity
(person); therefore, any one entity over the insurable limit could be subject to
similar scenarios.

Basically, from a legal standpoint, this has shifted the liability of customer banks
deposits from central banks to the banks’ depositors themselves. The legality of
this shift in liability will have a significant effect in the days ahead, I am
sure.” - comments AFE's Treasury Director, Simon Heapes, in the office this morning
regarding the current situation.

Few Places Still Safe for Substantial Wealth

How many other jurisdictions already have these type of plans either on the drawing
board or in process? I think it is a legitimate question to ask at this point.Anyone
who has followed what we have said over the years knows we have warned people to
take measures to protect their wealth:

1.       Place a core position of wealth in gold and/or silver, which is purchased
and held outside of the banking system. This prevents such “instant confiscations,”
protects from bank failures, and allows a person to weather inflation and still have
access to liquidity if cash is needed quickly.

2.       Diversify wealth internationally so if the government of your jurisdiction
feels it is necessary to confiscate the wealth within its reach, at least they won’t
get all of it.

3.       Open bank accounts in other jurisdictions to allow options and access to
cashflow should the banks you hold your cash with go into a bank holiday, and you
find yourself with limited options.

It is important to ask yourself some very serious questions. If you have more than
the government-insured limit in any bank, have you diversified your wealth
geopolitically to where you will not lose everything from the failure of one
nation’s banking system? Have you taken steps to protect yourself versus the
confiscation of wealth that occurs when governments are out of options?

If you have not, we encourage you to take the necessary action needed now while you
still can.History shows that capital controls and increased taxation are always put
in place as a government’s fiscal situation continues to deteriorate. At some point
you may not be able to legally secure your wealth at all outside the reach of a
failing government if you do not take the needed steps today.

Kind regards,
Alex Stanczyk
Chief Market Strategist
Anglo Far-East

Question posed and answered.

Anyway, why is this thread still growing? Anony rage quit on page 8 (twice)..yet still comes back to argue the same points (this time with a global mod)?

You make a good point, I should have locked this thread already.  In my own defense, I'm inclined to let posters speak their mind as much as possible, even those who too readily let their crazy out for all to see.

But with that, this thread is now locked.