Bitcoin Forum

Exposing crypto currencies as ponzi schemes and showing that they never had nor ever will have anything to do with money is an incredibly easy task to do. All one needs to do is to look at one simple concept -the concept of number. A number is defined as a mathematical object used to count, measure, or label things. Now, given this concept let us ask one simple question: What 'thing', is measured, counted, or labeled, with the number called bitcoin?
.... the rest you can watch in this short Youtube video:
https://youtu.be/gcNngl8fCUY

You are asking a meaningless question here, bit the answer is easy, you are measuring ownership of a scarce resource.

From when is number a scarce resource?

You clearly do not understand the concept of value. Would you compare a dollar bill to a number? What about 1 yen - it is the same number but worth much less than 1 dollar. Cryptocurrencies will not go anywhere, in fact adoption is just starting in my opinion.

And what is money? It only recognizes papers as a value. Why BTC can not be money. It's a contractual issue. Depends on demand and supply ...

There's very little you can do about that fella. You have to join the bandwagon or stay where you are. Bitcoin is here to stay.

Dollar bill is paper that represents legally enforceable claim which originated from loan contracts. Number on it is a mathematical object that measures the size of this claim. Bitcoin is a number in digital form. You cannot compare a number - an abstract mathematical object, to a legal claim - a property.

I question the legitimacy of bitcoin being a real resource. Furhermore, the number of total bitcoin may be somewhat scarce, but the fact that it can be acquired by anyone who wants it means it is not really scarce, and the price people are willing to pay for it makes it less scarce as it is easily divided into fractions of a bitcoin.

In a banking system all money comes from debt. So when new money, dollars for e.g., are created, in the same time, some individual, company, or organization became legally obligated to pay these dollars back. That's the nature of debt - it must be paid. In other words, every dollar that is currently in circulation, must eventually be returned to FED or commercial banks. That means that those who received dollar loans and put dollars into circulation are forced to get these dollars back by selling their goods or services to people who have dollars. Otherwise they will fail to make necessary loan payments and as a result they will be taken to court and the banks will seize their property.
So due to the fact that dollars come from debt and debt must be paid, people who have dollars do not have just a piece of paper with some numbers on it, but instead, they have legally enforceable rights to goods or services of people who received the loans. Dollar is therefore a property, which is by definition a resource with real or intrinsic value.Regarding cryptocurrencies, since they didn't originated from debt, nobody is legally obligated to use them to repay the debt, which is why cryptocurrency holders have nothing but mere numbers. And if a situation occurs where nobody wants to accept cryptocurrencies in exchange for goods and services, no legally enforceable right exist upon which they can get some kind of value out of them. Hence, all that these people have is hope and faith that someone will exchange their numbers for something useful.

You don't know crypto that's why you tell us this and base on your rank you only newbie that don't understand crypto at all,crypto for me bring so much conveniece because here i can earn while learning knowledge and i need this in life because of the transaction and good to save my money here not like bank.

You clearly understand the fiat banking system, based on debt. This is why cryptocurrencies and blockchains are so revolutionary, they don't revolve around debt. You should continue the research with an unbiased viewpoint to actually see what the potential is and get out of your slave wage mentality. If you don't want to do that, you're just trying to rank up to spam more on this forum.

since blockchain technology invented digital scarcity. that's basically the Whole point of the technology behind Bitcoin etc.

that's all well and good. except the very same caveat applies to any currency. the very moment people decide to stop accepting it, legal tender or not they become just as meaningless. Even a gold standard currency can become worthless the minute those controlling it choose to stop releasing the gold.

If everything breaks down, then crypto is actually more survivalistic than any single "regular" currency. Yes, you don't have piles of printed paper to stuff a deposit box with, but that paper indicates something just as tangible and similarly fungible as cryptocurrencies do. ANY system collapses the moment people chose to stop accepting it as a system. that's not a discovery.

If bitcoins was easily acquired it would have made it worthless in the international market team fact that people are buying thousands of machines just to mine it alone should tell you that it's a valuable resource which can't be discredited easily as you think.

Why are you shouting scam scam scam here? We are all dedicated crypto currency and we love it. and What you said is just a pure non sense.

Don't spread anything bad about crypto they have a real future uses which we need to gather.. you're just a newbie that ones to create fud news. We crypto community wants to spread awareness and good governance.

Yes.Money is just a small piece of paper.USD is published and issued infinitely and it is not backed by gold.Bitcoin is far better from that.It gives assurance that the concerned person only is the owner of that num ber,i mean bitcoin and it is free from inflation.It could not be devalued as it was done by indian government by devaluing high value notes.

oh thank you so much for defining what a number is could've never guessed .
Did you ever hear of the theory of value ? There is no value without exchange . Bitcoin has an exchange ,thus it has a value.
the Price and numbers alone aren't a factor to determine weither bitcoin is a scam , same goes for every fiat currency.

I'll have to agree with you. The only thing that has every created wealth for me was learning skills and talents that are valuable in the marketplace. So far, fiat (USD) is the only useful currency. It has enabled me to buy real estate (now worth >$1.5MM in equity), which ALSO generates income for me every month. I could stop working today and easily live off the real estate INCOME.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency will NEVER PRODUCE CASH FLOW, so therefore cannot be valuated. I work in a very technologically oriented field within medicine as a physician, and I have played around buying some crypto. I am still not seeing very much utility. >95% of people buy crypto NOT to actually use it in the way it was intended, rather to hold and speculate that it will rise in value. That is dangerous and just foolish.

Until a real use for cryptocurrency is realized, I will not put more than 0.5% of my assets into cryptoassets.

A ponzi scheme and it has been in existence for nine years without intellectuals in investment and money not finding out. Look at the number of invested hardware ,publications and resources into cryptocurrencies, how do you term this as ponzi scheme.

Educate yourself first about cryptocurrency so that you will have a wider understanding about it. This forum is a good place for you to learn. Don't just focus on one source and then convince yourself that it is a bad thing.

I am sorry to disappoint you, but bitcoin has no exchange. You cannot exchange bitcoin for something because bitcoin is an abstract mathematical object. It cannot provide utility. And without utility there is no value to be exchanged. Bitcoin price just shows how much goods, services or legal claims(money) people are willing to throw away. If I throw away my iPhone and my friend records this by writing my name next to the number 1, this won't make  number 1 valuable. Number 1 is still a number, it's still a mathematical object without utility, without value and as such it cannot store, measure or hold value of something. This is also true if my friend spends enormous amounts of energy to generate this number - to mine it via brute force. Number 1 would still be worthless mathematical object with no practical utility.  This is also true if I give a fancy name to this number - for example iPCoin. I can call it whatever I want but this won't make it practically useful. Crypto system is basically a child's play. All it does is generates, stores and transfers empty numbers between members.

The so called crypto market is not market at all, but a place that records how much values(goods, services and money) people are willing to throw away just to have numerical record of it. Calling a numerical record an asset, money, currency, tokens, coins, digital gold, won't make it valuable. Numerical value is just an emergent property of measurement of some object or emergent property of some mathematical or real relationship and it cannot have value in principle.

For example, number 100 next to the simbol "$", which is recorded in a bank's computer, measures the size of bank's liability towards a depositor and this liability is the result of a loan contract. This number is therefore just an emergent property of the loan agreement. It is a numerical representation of an actual object - a real legal relationship between the bank, borrower and depositor. It is an abstract object that measures something and it has no value on its own. This is like using number on a phone bill, to measure a legal claim of a telephone operator for telephone service . It is not the number that has value. The claim is what has value, while number is just a numerical representation of it.

Bitcoin however, is not a numerical representation of some legal claim, some legal agreement, or of someone's legal liability. It is not an emergent property of measurement of some actual object. Bitcoin is literally an empty and useless number. People are throwing away goods, services and money just to end up with valueless numbers. In order to rationalise this foolishness they gave names to this numbers or call them assets. This is like throwing away your iPhone, make record of it, then call this record an asset and saying that this 'asset' has value. It's really mind blowing how easy is to manipulate people. You can really make people believe that an abstract mathematical object is an actual asset. You can really fool them to give you real tangible goods, services and legal claims(dollars, euros, pounds) for numerical records on the internet. You can really trick them to give something for nothing. All you need is good rhetorical skills, some story that they are part of some new magical kingdom without evil governments or banksters....and you can do whatever you want with them. Albert Einstein was right when he said: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about th’universe!"

Here it is clear that you are not newbie by rank but also by knowledge , Because here you are saying about to expose cryptocurrency .
No Doubt that few altcoins are really time for the people and also to loss money but in actual reality we should have idea , trick and stretagy to handle them for our own profit in every possible ways .
Here it is only the trust that works in cryptocurrency otherwise without trust there will never exists demand and that will results into no value of cryptocurrency at all .
So here you need to change your thinking and also this field it you don't want make anything form here and only to insult cryptocurrency for no reason or any basic .

Let us all bury fiat money then. What is fiat money after all? It is nothing more than just a piece of worthless paper. Or perhaps let us also bury gold and silver? What is gold or silver? They are just tiny stones mined from muddy mountains or under dirt. You know what, everything that has value in this mad world is agreed upon. Your bills and coins will give you food to eat, a car to drive, and a home to shelter you. But what is that really? They are simply human creations out worthless materials that began to acquire value because everybody agreed to. 

Value is something that has practical utility, be it: legal claim that grants rights to tangible goods and services or tangible goods and services. Numbers on the internet are no such things. Crypto is neither a legal claim nor something tangible. It's just an empty number, a numerical value. If you give your iPhone to someone and as a result some number has been modified this won't make this number practically useful. If no legally enforceable claim exists that is represented with this number, than this is the same as throwing away your iPhone.
  

If it's not used as a currency ?
Then it's not one .

So you keep talking about legality, I take it cryptos aren't legal where you are at. In the U.S., where the dollar is used/made, cryptos are legal. So, just like a bank note, the law does allow for the trade of cryptocurrency for goods and services. People are getting paid in Bitcoin, you can trade/buy things with cryptocurrencies at/from U.S. companies. So, just like the fiat world, cryptocurrencies are being used as currencies. It's just that the ledger is on an open source blockchain instead of being behind closed doors of the banks. Get more educated on what cryptocurrencies are and how they're used instead of putting fud out there. Why are you here otherwise?

I see so many people throw these ponzi scheme accusations but isn't a ponzi scheme run and controlled by a person or a group of people who are trying to profit from it? To be able to prove that Bitcoin is built like a scheme one would have to identify the people cashing out. Who are they? The members of the Bitcoin Foundation maybe? Gavin and the CIA? Satoshi Nakamoto whose coins haven't been moved for years? It's just a bunch of wild theories.

This has happen many times bitcoin price may dump but not to the facts it will dead. Bitcoin is the strongest online currency and becoming more popular. Also in demand these days because of its huge ability to take the price high. This cryptocurrency will bring you to challenge and to become succeed in life.

I dont think that this will happen so fast. As long all the gouverment dont censore the internet, you cant stop cryptocurrencies. People are talking since 4 years about the cryptobubble. But this makes Cryptocurrencies just stronger! So dont believe the lies!

The digital currency has its value and it is measured by the uniqueness of a combination of numbers that have a certain meaning and use. For example, what determines the cost of the painting? Is it the amount of paint expended or the high cost of cloth for it? No, it is measured by the aesthetic satisfaction of a person, expressed in a certain combination of length, color and color saturation. A cut diamond? What is its high cost? Obviously, the above arguments against the value of the crypto currency are untenable.

 
This is not an argument.


No, I am not talking about legality. I am talking about the fact that cryptos are numbers and that numbers are abstract mathematical objects without value. You cannot compare bank notes to numbers(cryptos). A bank note is a legal document showing that people who hold it, credited borrowers with tangible goods and services. Since borrowers must pay back their loans, otherwise they would lose their homes, cars or other assets, they are legally forced to return tangible goods and services back to people who have bank notes. Hence, a bank note is a legal document that entitles the holder to tangible goods and services and as such it has intrinsic value. Cryptos however, are empty numbers stored on the internet. Comparing a legal document(which grants right to tangible values) to an empty number is nonsense of a high order.



Ponzi is not determined by means of control or profit, but by one simple thing: people put in actual values in the form of dollars, euros, pounds, tangible goods and services... and they end up with promises, faith, hope or empty numbers(like in the case of cryptos). Or simply put: value in - junk out. If you give your iPhone(value) to someone and as a result some number has been modified(crypto) this won't make this crypto practically useful. It is still a number - an abstract mathematical object without practically utility - you can't eat it, drink it, wear it, drive it, sit on it, enter into it, please the aesthetic senses with it, etc. Hence, value in - junk out. And that is ponzi.


Bitcoin is not a currency. Bitcoin is a number, while currency is representation of loan contracts in a specific country.



Digital currency is digital representation of loan contracts in a specific country and legal claims that originated form them(deposits for e.g.). Bitcoin is number in digital form, not a currency. A number can exist in human mind, on paper, in  computer's memory, in sand, etc. Bitcoin is number that exists in computer's memory. Digital currency is representation of loan contracts that exists in banks' computers. Calling a number (bitcoin) a currency won't make it representation of loans or legal claim.

You guys should educate yourselves about basic monetary concepts instead of just repeating nonsense that numbers are currency.

Only uneducated people would call Bitcoin a scarce resource. I don't know much about  Bitcoin but I think is based on math and math is its foundation. Let's make an example why Bitcoin is same as real money. Let's suppose I finished all my FIAT dollars and I don't have no money anymore but I go to my computer and exchange Bitcoin F2F with some other user in a big mall with lots of security cameras and lots of people. I give this person Bitcoin and he give me Dollars based on the current exchange rate at the time we make the exchange.

You see, now Bitcoin is transformed from "scarce resource" to a mathematical value measure, in this case money.

This thread is really must be banned. There is no sense in author’s words. Bitcoin will become the full-right currency with the time. The process of this is inevitable. We’ll see by our own eyes.

This is as nonsensical as saying: with time, a picture of a car in digital form will become a road vehicle with four wheels, powered by an internal combustion engine and able to carry people. Well... it won't. You can pay $1,000,000 or even $100,000,000 for a picture of a car but this won't make it a car. Likewise, you can pay $100,000,000 for a number in digital form(bitcoin) but this won't make it a currency. Currency is money of a particular country which originated from loan contracts. As such it grants its holder the legal right to tangible goods and services of people who have loans and is backed by enforceable loan contracts and collateral(or bank's assets in the case of unsecured loans). On the other hand, number in your bitcoin wallet is an abstract mathematical object that is completely useless. It is nonsensical to compare this two instances or believing that a number in digital form can become legally enforceable instrument just because this number is modified when people give their goods, services or money to someone.

Currency is a medium of exchange, nothing more or less.  If use cigarettes, Pokemon cards or abstract numbers on a computer to trade for goods, services or abstract numbers, then they have currency.  Banging on about debt and whatnot just focuses on one type of currency.

Nobody prevents you to exchange goods, services or dollars for cigarettes, Pokemon cards or abstract numbers on a computer. But this doesn't make cigarettes, Pokemon cards or abstract numbers a currency. A currency is legally enforceable instrument which originated from loan contracts. A cigarette is a small cylinder of finely cut tobacco leaves rolled in thin paper for smoking. A Pokemon card is a collectible card based on the Pokémon video game series. A number is an abstract mathematical object. So, you can exchange whatever you want, but thing A will not magically become thing B because of that.

P.S. I have a number 5 written in my Word document. Are you interested in buying it? The price is just $1,000. On a standard Bitcoin exchange the same number costs $65,000.

You have a very narrow and specific view of currency, describing one form of modern use of currency.  How about you tell us how legally enforceable the $ currency is in France, or how legally enforcable the Euro currency is in Brazil?  From there, maybe realise you're creating a big fuss over your own definition of currency and not accepting the broad usage of the term.  Ever heard of gold or silver being used as currency?  Currency is an attribute of something used for exchange.

You've just proven how confused you are about this terminology. What you've described doesn't refer to a ponzi scheme but to any high risk investment. You put money into a restaurant without doing the research and end up with a place near a smelly canal in a poor neighbourhood. Value in -junk out.
Following your way of thinking, when you put your money into a third party account like paypal only some numbers get modified. They can freeze your account and you get nothing.

Yea... Nice spam and fud and also bs.

Did you just come here and make an account to cause FUD? Don't you have anything better to do? I can already spend my crypto on real world physical items so you talking total crap. Also if you think bitcoin is a ponzi then you seriously need to read a dictionary and learn to do your own research because in order for there to be a Ponzi there has to be a centre of control. Bitcoin is decentralized therefore can never be a ponzi. If I were you I would seriously consider in investing in some better education as you seem unable to read and logically put thoughts and facts together. I feel bad for you. Oh and noone is going to give you free views to that YouTube channel. Try harder Mr Troll. xD

Could you please explain what actually is the value of a USD since it is not even backed by gold.Bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme.It actually gives ownership to its holder and it could not be devalued by governments any time.

It is free from inflation.Just like gold gets its value from the trust people have over it and the price which they are willing to pay to buy bitcoin.Bitcoin's higher demand increases its value.If there is no demand,even gold would be just considered as a piece of yellow metal.

OP crypto are good in easy transaction and to save our money here so if you only know what the negative of it why you just go like leave this if you don't know the value of it.Either you do business here so you can earn by that or learn here some knowledge that's crypto.Moreover i think base in many way your right about the number that only counted to earn but still they open a job from it and give an easy way to transact in different country all over the world.

Bitcoin didn't get so popular because it was a scheme. It opened a new thread which leads us to a new era, the era of blockchain. We will achieve great things with this tech, it might not be Bitcoin, but something good will come out of it.

Your premise is extremely poor and would not be enough to prove the invalidity of bitcoin or the other cryptos. In fact, the weaknesses that can lead to the gradual collapse of the market are many different technical and practical issues, rather than theoretical entanglement based on the supposed inability of bitcoin "to measure something".

In fact, numbers are not "objects," as you absurdly mention, nor is bitcoin a number.