Bitcoin Forum

ok its time to put these to bed.

In a ponzi scheme you hope to receive more money from the next person(s) incoming, and so this plays with the velocity of money.

With btc, what is gives in exchange for fiat, or other goods is a promise to be able to access block space.

edit>specifically btc is necessary but not sufficient, you need enough btc to pay the fee, and a remainder<

That promise is unable to be taken away by any other entity. Only you with your private keys can make the decision when you wish to access block space and change the ledger.

Ponzi schemes have never even had an equivalent to block space.

Now some people may chose to think through the lens of a ponzi scheme because they hope to get more fiat in the future for the same number of btc, but that's not what BTC is. If you do get more fiat that's a function of btc being a better system, immune to quantitative easing, policy changes, corporate welfare, bad laws and economically failed jurisdictions.

Along the same reasoning, tulips did not give you access to blockspace. You simply had a tulip.

Now for both you may argue but tulips and pozi gave you access to "tulip space" and "ponzi space" to update the ledger in the respective schemes.

Lets deal with that.

Any record in either of those space still existed on centralized ledgers, where you relied on others to act as intermediaries and fulfill promises. This is a fundamental difference. Block space is decentralized. You update the ledger without any intermediary. Your actions cannot be countermanded or erased.

While this alone is sufficient to rebut and assertions of "tulips" or "ponzi scheme", we can make a sort of restatement of these in ways that may be more understandable

You could not transfer to any actor anywhere in the world in either ponzi or tulips with zero counter-party risk and irrespective of capital controls or other risks. The records of you position in the ponzi system was not guaranteed to last or be fulfilled, rather the longer it goes on the more it tends to zero. Tulips well they are very very perishable and you cant exactly send them thrould the internet.

So the upshot of BTC, is its about unfettered and inalienable rights to access block space, a decentralized ledger with zero counterparty risk in a know supply system.

The features were not and have not been found in any ponzi or tulip scheme. Nor shall they.

The whole thing looks to them like ponzi scheme because they can't understand how people could earn money without going through the traditional route.
 Working for Cryptocurrency is like mining for solid minerals. Those with good mining equipments will mine while others will extract, trade and use them for making all kinds of stuff. It's thesame thing. It's sustainable and very useful.

I agree with you completely. I'm not sure why fiat supporters and central bankers are accusing of bitcoin being a ponzi when their own activities are literally one of the biggest ponzi schemes that are ever in existence in the entire universe.

Bitcoin may be in a bubble since the price has risen so much so quickly, but it's nothing to the extent of the tulip mania. Tulips had no real use, bitcoin's intrinsic value comes from its ability to serve as money(including the fact that its amounts are limited), just like gold, but better.

How can bitcoin be a ponzi when there is no one person running it? That baffles me. Sure, early adopters earn a lot. But if you are accusing bitcoin is a ponzi scheme, you are saying that all angel investors to startups are ponzi investors. Doesn't make sense, AT ALL.

A ponzi scheme is reliant on a centralised ledger because it requires the "company" to manage which people it pays at which time and which money it can put in its pocket.  You're correct about that part.

However, tulip bulbs are not reliant on a centralised ledger, they are simply an object.  The benefit of having block space is that you can say "I have BTC which is worth X amount" - in the same way, you can show someone a tulip bulb and as long as they know what it is, they recognise that you own it (this is entirely decentralised, just like gold and other offline transfers of goods).

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The distinction between a Ponzi scheme and Bitcoin is entirely objective and obvious, so it's utterly ridiculous to compare the two as it would just be referring to natural supply and demand as a Ponzi scheme.  

However, tulip bulbs rely on this same supply and demand, so to call it a similar economic bubble is subjective and there is certainly an argument to be made on that side.

it is all a game they play, just don't bother and don't fall for it.
for about 2 months or more bitcoin price was rising with little corrections and everything was smooth and everyone was happy. you never heard anyone call bitcoin Ponzi or tulip bubble or bullshit like that. but when the rally slowed down as all rallies do, all the bullshit of old came out and people like JPMorg CEO also took advantage. most of them are filling their own pockets anyways. a dip that big means a huge profit that nobody with a little brain functionality will give up.

there are still some people wont understand no matter what you said or explain to them its because they are lack of knowledge in the technology and what is happening online. this happen to me one time when i posted referals about bitcoin on facebook and many users comented and said that it was a scam, even i expalined it properly on my post that its not about investment or anything suspicious. its sad to know that these people are rather falling on to the obvious scam one.

I am fairly certain records of who owned some tulips would have be kept on centralized registers somewhere. But even if wrong I can argue the converse. Tulips were never kept on a decentralized register

Only idiots and noobs in this technology will look bitcoin like a ponzi and tulip, they do not even understand how bitcoin operates of course some hyip company are using bitcoin as one of their payment, like they do with all the existing payment processor, but that does not mean bitcoin is exclusively for hyip and ponzi scheme.

the issue is that there is no promise of block space

you have to bid for it using tx fee's and even then there is no guarantee.

as for utility. that is in decline too. less and less merchants accept bitcoin than in 2014.
and now with every one running away from blockchain utility and running towards LN multisigs.. the OP's argument of counterparty agreement falls flat too

bitcoin is no longer the same ethos and idea of 2009. stop trying to sell bitcoin as the 2009 ethos to people on the forum that know better.

in short if your promoting bitcoin to people on this forum your advertising to people that already know about bitcoin, thus double wasting your time.

bitcoin is losing its utility and only bcoming a background reserve.. not a front line currency

if you want to promote bitcoin, atleast be upfront honest and embellish its real abilities and offerings not the stuff that the BScartel are removing and twisting out of the community. because once people start using bitcoin they start to see that its not what the OP is talking about anymore. and so they start to only care about a fiat price as an exit strategy rather then what was the ethos of 2009.

all i can see the OP doing is stretching the truth using old outdated thos, just to hope for a fiat price increase due to hype so he can exit.

...
with less people trying to make bitcoin utility grow. and more people just looking to pump and dump, its becoming more apparent that bitcoin is becoming less about features and more about buying from one person to sell for profit to another .. much like ponzi's bubles, schemes.

in short bitcoin needs to get rid of the fiat loving a-holes and concentrate on coded rules for expanding utility.. not 'free market' crap

Ah franky you sound a bit butthurt

if BTC has become digital gold, what is wrong with that? You can use the LN network or a crypto of your choice for buying stuff; even the Romans did not use gold coins for their daily shopping; silver and copper was used for that

So 2000 years ago, "gold adoption" was quite low amongst merchants because they did not have enough change.

But gold was the king. BTC is the king now.  :)

btw. what is "block space"? Owning a bitcoin means owning a guaranteed piece of a highly valued public ledger, not a guaranteed low fee when transferring it.

well i have spent years promoting bitcoin utility, going to different countries concentrating on driving utility..
never promoting it for 'get rich' or fiat doubling or other investment schemes that are taking over bitcoin promotions recently

 but since 2014 utility has been dropping due to the BSCartels roadmap diversions..

now people just see bitcoin as a speculative bubble and a rob peter to pay paul scheme just to return to fiat richer.

my hoarding is safe and secure and going to cover me but if bitcoins utility just goes into the speculation sector then bitcoin has failed as a spendable currency and will be treated like a ponzi.. oh and ys gold/fiat are ponzi's too.. check the 2007-2008 crisis for proof, and then check why bitcoin was created there after... to fight against the fiat ponzi... not join it

The kind of people who have deemed Bitcoin as a Ponzi have almost zero knowledge about how Cryptocurrencies work. Although, what led people to this misconception, was the large fluctuation in prices, leading to very high earnings, sometimes within small periods of time.

It's definitely not a Ponzi, it's a currency, which do share some properties with fiat currencies but in the same time, they are completely different.

I did say crypto tech in general not BTC necessarily. BTC has issues, and a pos coin or other basket of coins could take over.

Your biding on blockspace BTC point is true, as does off chain transactions.

I also feel if core does not adopt 2xSegwit, then the BCH camp sound a lot more convincing.

I would love to see BCH activate segwit!

I feel BCH has proven the system does not collapse under block size increase.

It seems reasonable that some blocksize increase is made by core as technology has increased massively since 2009 in terms of HD space and bandwidth per $.

by block space I mean access to the space in the blocks in the ledger. For BTC the only option is BTC to access this. I said nothing about a fee. Although the fee does set a minimum amount of BTC you need to access block space so I should refine my defn to you need a minimum amount of BTC to access block space and that is the amount that remains unconsumed by fees.

currencies can be ponzi's too... FIAT is the largest ponzi of them all

Before bitcoin created, POnzi scheme have run by scammer. However,they were not blown up. with bitcoin the ponzi scheme can be easily done because no need bank account. They need only bitcoin address and when the scammer have collected the money they soon will run away with the money. No one can track the money after that.

Bitcoin is oftenly called as pyramid due to it hasn't a physical for and it's creator is not uncovered, but I think it's choice of Satoshi Nakomoto to stay in a shadow. In any case bitcoin is not pyramid, cause of it's not based on other people whom you need to involve in it to get money.
I am more used to think that bitcoin is a babble, but not the ponzi and tulips.

Then any investment is a ponzi or a tulip bubble, and much worse than Bitcoin because the supply is unlimited and even manipulated is almost all markets.

If no invests on gold then the prize will go to 0 and if no new investors buy gold, then the price will go to 0. Same to stock market or diamonds or art works or anything.

Fiat money is even worse because it is guaranteed to slowly(or quickly) steal the purchase power of anyone holding it?

But why isn't everything ponzi and tulip bubbles ???

Lots of people are buying bitcoin in order to sell for a quick profit without caring one jot about using it as currency. They are creating a ponzi bubble on top of the value of bitcoin as utility. Normal ponzi scheme collapse when "the game is over." Bitcoin ponzi bubble will collapse, but bitcoin will still exist and continue at the correct value.

This is crap and i suspect you know it. No one has unfettered and inalienable rights to access block space, when miners can decide whether or not to include one's tx. Turning each block into a fee market is insane and bad economics by the illiterates.

I did modify my defn to:: "BTC is necessary but not sufficient access block space. Its is sufficient when you have enough residual to update the ledger, after fees"

Also I am not limiting my argument to BTC but to cryptos in general, so fees are much lower on LTC and BCH for instance.