Bitcoin Forum

I heard a lot of discussions from different people that against BTC, let me discuss BTC in historic view to see what BTC is and what it will be.
Opinion 1:
BTC is a Ponzi schema, the reason why I accept it is because I believe there will be bigger fools to purchase it from me.

Answer:
In that point of view, US Dollar could be viewed as a much larger Ponzi schema. The reason why you accept US Dollar is because you believe someone else(or maybe everyone else) would accept it. Someone may argue that US Dollar is backed up by Government or Federal Reserve, and that’s the reason why we believe in US Dollar, which is not true.
In the beginning of 20th Century, there is no Federal Reserve, bank notes are separability published by more than 4000 Banks across US, if you want to exchange/transfer one banknote from this bank to that bank, you need to pay discounts.You may ask why America did not set up US Central bank earlier, wrong question, America did set up First Bank of the United States and Second Bank of the United States. But American people even President Jefferson did not believe in Government control money system in 18th to 20th Century.
Why do we now regard US Dollar as a safe way to store value? Modern monetary theory has an opinion that it’s Tax Driven. The US Dollar you received can pay off your debt to government, which is Tax. One just keep in mind that this note can be paid for bills, that’s enough. The fundamental basis of this theory is that US Government acts as US Dollar final receiver. That’s leads to my opinion, as BTC is becoming a worldwide THING, as long as some governments accepts it as legal currency or commodity, to pay for their people’s debt, BTC has its value, the same as US Dollar. Yes, we have Japan/Denmark/Estonia/Finland/Greece/Iceland/India/Italy/ governments regard it as currency, we have Austria/Germany/Canada/Philippines regard it as Barter Good. We now have 105 of 251 countries to regard it as legal. That’s fit for Modern monetary theory.
So the conclusion is, if BTC is a Ponzi schema, so is US Dollar.

Opinion 2:
BTC has no intrinsic value, but Gold/Silver has.
Answer:
Since thousands year ago, in Mesopotamia, Silver was used as currency, to exchange goods, to loans, and to finance business. The interesting thing is that Silver has no intrinsic value at that time, today we can use Silver for industry, but at that time, Silver is useless, the only reason to use it to exchange goods, is that it’s hard to get it. It’s value is abstract, but good for value transfer.

	Gold	FiatCurrency	Land	Oil	BTC
Durable	yes	n/a	yes	yes	yes
Portable	yes	yes	no	no	yes
Divisible	yes	yes	no	yes	yes
IntrinsicValue	yes	no	yes	yes	yes

BTC does not fit for point 2, but as the world is becoming more and more digital, Aristotle cannot foresee this, but instead, BTC take this as an advantage. We are making more and more value through our technology, so if one currency needs to fit point 2, one needs to carry large bulk of currency to go around, that’s not good.
For point 4, US Dollar has no intrinsic value, Federal Reserve can publish US Dollar to market by “keyboard stroke” (-Bernanke). That’s why so many countries meet hyperinflation, so did America in 1970’s. If in any Emergency situations, eg. at war, the first choice of government is to publish Debt or even just print money, which is a huge allure for any government.
The conclusion is, BTC has the same intrinsic value as Gold/Silver has, which is the cost to mine them. For US Dollar/fiat currency, the answer is no.

Opinion 3
BTC is a Big Bubble.
Answer:
As discussed in point 2, BTC is an upgrade GOLD. So let's assume that BTC replaces gold for government reservation, how much will be 1 BTC equaling to USD?
from wiki(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve), in 2018, the sum of top 20 government gold holding is: 29334.8 metric ton, equaling to $1,218,919,609,600, and let's assume that governments take holding of as much as 50% circulating BTC as reserve(comparing to gold, the percentage is about 30%), given the circulating BTC number now is: 17,038,200(a lot of them are lost), so the price of BTC should be: $1,218,919,609,600 / (17,038,200 * 50%) = $143,080, and now the BTC price is around $8400, how could that be a bubble?
So, even governments replace 10% of their Gold reserve to BTC, the BTC price should reach as much as $14,308.
BTC also has properties that Gold has not, that it has the ability to easily transfer throughout the world, it has smart contracts, it's indeed circulating, paying for goods.
Why governments will take BTC as reserves? It's indeed Nash equilibrium. If BTC just has a potential to be Gold, then if any government does not take it for reserves, it will lose in the future. Comparing to huge potential of a loser, the government must make the move to reserve BTC. Once more and more countries join in, the others will never want to be left behind.
So the conclusion is, even $100,000 for 1 BTC, there is no bubble for it.

Let’s take a deeper view of BTC.
From the beginning of human history, people were looking for something to act as General Equivalents. Good for Good exchanging is not good for value storage, and hard to take value around, so that it limits people’s freedom. Once currency is made and commonly accepted, our life conditions grows. In China, thousands years ago, people even use beautiful shells to exchange things, mainly in lands far away from Sea, so that shells are difficult to fetch especially for beautiful shells.
So the fundamental requirements of currency definition are abstract, once if something is hard to get and publicly accepted, and easy to store, the thing could be used for currency.
As the Global Economy growth, we need something that’s more easy to exchange and store value, an anchor that our economy be based on, something that’s has it’s intrinsic value, something that cannot be devalued by some government’s own interest. That’s the reason that cryptocurrency appears. BTC is a currency that if you trust Math, you believe it cannot be published through a keyboard stroke. As so many people accept it, and so many government regards it as legal, it has its own intrinsic value.

Both of these are common things that bitcoin outsiders say, especially that "bitcoin has no intrinsic value". I think the myth that bitcoin is a ponzi scheme has been debunked so many times that there is no need to respond to that any more.

Gold and silver have intrinsic value because of its natural scarcity, and the fact that it has served as a reliable store of value and currency for many centuries, if not millenniums. But more importantly, its supply can't be manipulated by a central authority, the way that fiat can, and thus can serve as a effective store of value.

That's why fiat depreciate over time, and gold/silver tend to hold its value. Same thing with bitcoin, nobody can ever mess with the 21 million cap. And that's why it's a long term store of value, much like precious metals.

I don't believe that Bitcoin is a ponzi at all, but I don't think it's at all comparable to USD in this context. Bitcoin is said to be a ponzi because speculation drives its value up -- this is where the belief that some other person will buy it for a higher price comes in. That trait very loosely fits with the narrative that a ponzi is a scheme where older members benefit from the new members coming in. It's very different from a person accepting USD because it's legal tender, where there are no speculations involved.

a Ponzi scheme actually requires more centralization where someone takes your money as an investment and then pays the older investors from that money.
bitcoin price is set on a free market, if we starts calling this market a Ponzi scheme then everything else in the world is also a Ponzi scheme! every object is prices this way, it is not just USD

Bitcoin is not a currency but also considered as a new business hub, I think that is the difference between Bitcoin and other conventional currency. we see that other currency's price is not getting ups and downs as like Bitcoin because of those currencies controlled by an authority but Bitcoin is fully controlled by it's holders.  That is why I believe that Bitcoin is as like as the capital market.

Is this your article https://medium.com/@kongyang217/value-btc-from-a-historic-view-fb389b77deb8 ?
If yes then I have no problem ;D
Anyway, I just have a concern about BTC being opensource. It means that anyone can create "another" BTC.

Oh, I completely agree. There is no clear singular benefactor to Bitcoin's rise in value, which should invalidate all arguments that Bitcoin is a classic ponzi scheme. People who claim that it's a ponzi mostly classify it as a "mass ponzi" (because purely in essence, it could be loosely construed that new members pay out older members) rather than a classic ponzi scheme though, so I don't think they're overly concerned about the centralization or lack thereof.

We know that argument is bullshit either way though, and there's no point arguing with people who have already decided what they want to believe. People love bending semantics to suit their narratives, so only time will prove us right at this point. Let the naysayers say nay.

Bitcoin goes beyond country, politics, religion, culture and law. In different countries with different national conditions, one might think that the government always puts its own interests first, and if it is wise, it can be seen as a double-edged sword. Some countries ban certain medicines, but others do not. The bible was banned in some countries. Religion, customs, doctrines, superstitions forbid a lot of purchases, which are set by the time. These policies are often made by selfish groups, and if everything happens in the "right" party, race or religion, items can be bought or banned. On their own.

Yes it is, thank you:)

Bitcoin will always be valuable in its existence), and even if one day there will be a strong fall or a complete collapse, it will remain forever in the history of the world), he made a coup and it is not even disputed))

For the first time in history, an unknown person or group of people has created a financial system that has taken its place in the world and can compete for the primacy, as a world currency, that not one single currency has been managed so far.

exactly.
Ponzi schema is hard to define, and whether there involves speculation is subjective.
Currency is a thing that the reason I accept it is because I believe others will accept it. And that's how Gold/Silver/Shells/Dollar work. I mean, the belief can also considered speculation, it's just different levels of confidence. For example, the theory "Bad money drives out good". US governments promised that $35 dollar can exchange to one ounce, so that allies and people are willing to accept it,  and ended it in 1971. Let's assume another Ponzi program, if you invest gold in this Ponzi program, you get a paper certificate that you can exchange back to gold at a fixed rate, and you can also get paper certificate interest at 2% every year, and the certificate is published by the program. The only way that this program continues is that there are more members to invest gold to join this program. How is this program different from US Dollar? The federal reserve print a lot of certificate(USD) to people, and give them interests, and someday they announce that we do not exchange USD to gold, but you have no other choice, just use USD.
Now we have BTC, the digital Gold, though there may be deflation, but in history, deflation is a good thing most of time.

Never in history a new technology has been so criticized and ridiculed by the media, celebrities, nobel prize winners, famous rich people (even rich developers), investors, etc as bitcoin has.

No, Bitcoin is no Ponzi Scheme and it has nothing to do with it. It's a currency and a payment system!

I think that even to discuss this topic is a way to give credit to those who spread misinformation about bitcoin.

If anyone wants to research about bitcoin, he will discover it's not a ponzi scheme in few minutes.

A lot of the intrinsic value of bitcoin comes from the miners. They spend a ton of money on electricity bills and the rewards for mining are getting lower every few weeks.

Bitcoin now is like a business, not really a crypto.

I don't understand why does bitcoin called pronzi? Some said it because its speculation increase its worth. A pronzi should be more centralised. Whereas, in price fluctuation the investors plays a great role for bitcoin as it is decentralised. It is not controlled by any specific people.

Bitcoin itself is as crypto as you want to have it. Everything around Bitcoin is business. In the same way the price with all its fluctuations doesn't reflect Bitcoin's utility and actual progress. All important differences.

Ignorance is the main reason. People don't understand even the basics of Bitcoin and the market that's extremely new and thin. Volatility and extreme gains are side effects of a new and thin market, it's perfectly normal.

Traditional assets don't experience these fluctuations and increases because of how developed their markets are, and how institutions rule them with iron fist. Bitcoin's market is still a market ruled by regular people mostly.

Eventually I can see it change with how institutions are slowly finding their way into this market, but it will be a process taking years with how slow governments always are with implementing the proper regulations.

Dear, what you mentioned is not my opinion, I just cite it and post my opinion against it.

updated opinion 3

Bitcoin is digital money. Bitcoin isn't cash yet additionally considered as another business center point, I feel that is the contrast amongst Bitcoin and other traditional money. we see that other money's cost isn't getting high points and low points as like Bitcoin due to those monetary forms controlled by an expert however Bitcoin is completely controlled by its holders. That is the reason I trust that Bitcoin is as like as the capital market It is not a Ponzi scheme as Ponzi scheme needs centralization here bitcoin is decentralized.

this value cango much higer still in some years

Because of digitalization world is changing nowadays so bitcoin is the best crypto currency in the market before silver or gold used for reservation or trading system but nowadays world changing so people who are smart enough they replace gold/silver with bitcoin because they shift their previous system because bitcoin is more profitable and easy to use directly you can buy or pay tax in few state but you can buy limitlessly in the world.

Good point

such an informative post buddy. people who dose not support bitcoin might say what ever they want to say, what we have to do is let people know about how much positive this coin is, there won't be any fud that will effect people anymore.

No, Bitcoin is definitely ponzi scheme. Ponzi scheme are subjected to more of centralized system and bitcoin is a completely decentralized system. I believe, a day will come when bitcoin will have more value than gold or silver.

Update adding your point:)

In many ways, it is necessary to make yourself uncomfortable because it is considered as a pony because the concept leads to its value - this is where another person will buy it for a higher price. Some drugs are banned in some countries, but others in some countries The Bible was banned. Religion, customs, doctrines, apostasy prohibit many purchases, which are determined by time. These policies are often made by selfish groups, an unknown person or group of people has created a financial system that has taken its position worldwide.