Bitcoin Forum

Something I realized today:
What makes bitcoin any different from a ponzi games that we see in the gambling section?
In those games, you send your coins to someone and he holds it until someone else sends coins and then pays you, in the end no one sends him coins so payouts stop and the last guys who have coins in it don't get a payout.
How is bitcoin any different? You bought coins, someone buys them from you waiting for someone else to buy them and keeps going like that until no one buys them, or less people buy them so they end up losing their money.

Bitcoin is a decentralized ponzi scheme with no central authority. You f*** over each other by selling "bitcoins" to someone else who hopes someone else buys them from him.

You know I'm right.

Disclamer: I am not holding bitcoins any more.
I am taking my money and leaving while I'm up.
Good luck.

[ ] understands Ponzi
[ ] understands Bitcoin

have a nice day

Onkel Paul

Should i sell my gold/silver/diamonds too? I´m not sure, could be ponzi too?

Yes
Buy something that has real value, like shares in a profitable business.

Life itself is a ponzi scheme.
It's called survival of the fittest.

LOL

ever bought facebook or google or apple or twitter .. shares before?

Internet companies stock are over valued by wide margin. Most don't even pay dividend, why anyone bother to even buy them is beyond me.

So, you don't like capitalism eh!!! Me neither!  :D ;D

Ha, you mean like on the stock exchange? Good luck finding shares with a reasonable P/E ratio. Everyone sane is short the major western exchanges now.

Early investors in Apple made money from other investors following them - must be a ponzi scheme

The Queen of England makes money from the rest of the country using her money and buying more of it with other currencies - must be a ponzi scheme

I started my business with a little bit of money and now make a decent living from it - must be a ponzi scheme

With a ponzi scheme there is uncertainty and deliberate obfuscation about where the money is, how much there is and how many investors there are. With bitcoin, this is all transparent. We are all creating a floating price based upon the utility of a limited number of units of peer-to-peer decentralised money. The exchange value will, of course, go up and down, and I agree some people have persuaded people to buy at the top of bubbles, or sell at the bottom (reverse ponzi-like) which is dishonourable.  But the fact remains that cryptocurrencies in general are only just a tiny part of the global economy at present, which many people think is extremely unlikely to be the case in 5 years, and so there is logic to it as an investment.

Granted it has been a wild ride so far.

How can you have 145 posts here and still don't understand what a ponzi scheme is or bitcoin or simple market dynamics?
The troll is strong in you my friend....

Judge not by the look of the book but by the content of what it is written.

I did, i checked his profile and posts. He's a new member that probably thinks he missed the boat and it seems he's trying to get into every altcoin he can just to make sure he's one of the early adopters. But that's not the content what was written here, that was the past.

Let's look at what he wrote in this topic. He assumes the only reason people buy bitcoin is to sell it at a higher price than they bought it for. If not the only reason, then the biggest relevant factor.
Of course speculation is part of the adoption curve and will have extremes in both high and low ends, as to be expected.
However, the total neglect of how bitcoin works, it's properties, show me he either has no idea what he's talking about, or he's trolling.
Being so active with altcoins, i assume he has at least a very basic understanding of the properties and potential of the protocol.

No matter the bitcoin value, it's utility is still there. Only speculators care about the price, people that care about 'free' money (as in freedom of speech...) don't. It will remain useful for many many people around the world.

holy. shit. what an idiot...

ya cuz buying shares in a profitable business, never made anyone rich.

are you implying you too believe gold and silver has no intrinsic value? or that precious stones don't keep up with inflation better than any other asset in history? because if you are, you're stupid.

All those materials just have value because we value them, there is no such thing as intrinsic value, just intrinsic properties.
You are basically thinking that because in the past this happened, this will carry on until the end of days, and that my friends isn't nothing but speculation.

Yup. No such thing as intrinsic value.

Bitcoin should only be compared to gold and not silver. Since there is little industry usage for gold (silver has usage) and the only reason it has value is because central banks around the world give it value.

i was about to answer in this thread, but then i realized that someone quoted you and others quoted that one who quoted you.
therefore it must be a ponzi, i should not post here

I actually believe that Bitcoin has several aspects of a so called "Ponzi Scheme". But it is more of a naturally occurring Ponzi, as someone put it a couple weeks ago. It is true that early adopters profit from putting faith in Bitcoin and risk their investment. But Bitcoin doesn't need any new people to join the party in order to work. The price may suffer if no new people join Bitcoin, that's true for most parts, yeah, but the block reward continues to go down successively and the total number of Bitcoins is limited. A Ponzi has to go bust at some poin, it's designed that way. Bitcoin isn't bound to completely fail should there be no new adopters. That's the striking difference here!

i guess silver and golds industrial uses have just evaporated before our eyes then right? the fact that the industrial demand of silver is greater than the entire world supply can ever be is just a fantasy of investment nerds huh?

what the fuck are you talking about gold has little industry usage?  gold is used in all modern electronics.

gold and silver have intrinsic value...

but they are NOT an investment, only a store of value, that historically do move up but not as fast as inflation, only once in a while there is gr8 uncertainty in the Financial system, and everyone runs to PM, but i'm not sure this is going to hold true now that we have bitcoin....

its not very risky to buy gold ( especially now that its been dropping for 2 years ), less risk less ______.

investments will be risky but more risk more ______.

it might make sense to do both store some value long term, and invest, who knows?


so.... is my view stupid?

no adam thats not stupid. i was implying that if you agreed gold and silver have 'no real value' then that is stupid. what you said makes sense, from a ROI perspective its not really a good investment if stocks are doing well.

That's true, you can "build stuff with them" but their advantages as a metal or material aren't as high as to justify their price! Gold has a good electric conductivity, but it isn't that dramatically higher as to justify the price of Gold compared to Copper, for example. It's more of a speculative commodity.
(I hope I don't get banned from the Wall Observer for arguing with you :D)

It's stupid to assume anything to have intrinsic value, materials may have intrinsic properties, but value is set by human trade.
If tomorrow gold drops to 1 USD/oz, it will worth 1 USD/oz, there is nothing in gold itself that would push its price up. Same goes for silver, oil or whatever resource around.
But even "how much is 1 USD" is variable...

Ok So take your " money and leave". but wait....what you gong to do when people will decline your money? I think maybe first try to understand what bitcoin is and how it works. whole world reliant on something.  this that means whole world is ponzi? even if why not try to go with the bitcoin flow?

Atleast gold and silver at 'real' metals and have physical properties that make them unique (good conductor, looks good, gold doesn't tarnish)

Diamonds on the other hand, have only a 'look good' value to them.  Yes, there are certain industrial processes that use diamonds but they are heavily pumped by the DeBeers cartel.  Diamonds are not a good 'investment'

Let me guess, you were there to get rich quick by just watching a ticker and it didn't work out. Bummer.

Now just open your spam folder and find your next investment opportunities. Good luck!

Wow, I was a ponzi and didn't know it! I must be Berni frickin Madoff. lol

No, I don't think you know how a ponzi works or you would understand the silliness of an open source ponzi.

I'm surprised nobody has posted this yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u4F8cpzqao

If the price of a coin is sustainable on longerterm then it's not a ponzi.

Bitcoin is a naturally occurring ponzi scheme - World Bank

do NOT forget the dead cat bounce at just 4 days ago! $520 - $470 again!

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=940&m=bitstampUSD&SubmitButton=Draw&r=5&i=&c=1&s=2014-08-17&e=2014-08-18&Prev=&Next=&t=S&b=&a1=&m1=10&a2=&m2=25&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&v=1&cv=0&ps=0&l=0&p=0&

Nah, that isn't a dead cat bounce. That's just bouncing off a resistance level! We simply needed to go lower! This chart doesn't say Jack about whether we're in a another dead-cat-bounce or whether we're in a trend-reversal!

Do not believe in quotes you find over the internet - Benjamin Franklin

I see no evidence that a "dead cat bounce" is possible in bitcoin. You are thinking of a stock, which could die if valuation falls to low. That is no concern at all of mine. Bitcoin does not need to support any price and simply can't die as long as two people are using it. I'm one, anyone else want to be the other?

I don't think fallling or any of his clones deserve any answer whatsoever anymore. Let him post his same graphic over and over until the mods get fed up and show him the door.

see you at $470 or even lower soon after this fake recover!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=748241.msg8456086#msg8456086

You seem to be getting lazy - why all the copy 'n' pasting?

I feel ya. I'm really posting for those who want to understand more. I think we all know fallling is a bear and a half. lol. That's cool with me.

I understand, but it's kind of pointless to try to put sense into this guy. He will just go over and over about the very same as if he is some sort of finance guru and isn't up to learn anything. He just hear about dead cat bounce and jump to it without any sense or clue of what he is talking about. I think he believes Bitcoin is some sort of corporation, at least one of his clones came up with "the owners of bitcoin", which can bankrupt and disappear overnight.
I believe most of the seasoned users here have some basic financial knowledge to understand he is saying nothing at all, just picking on any low to vent his ignorance and troll around.

I believe we call it 'desperation'.

a ponzi scheme is a criminal scheme, where the fraudster promises high returns and actually pays those high returns with the money of new participants/victims to older participants (repeat, repeat...)

do you see that is going on with bitcoin?

with no fresh money a ponzi scheme COLLAPSES instantly. and it only collapses once, then it is over.

when no one buys bitcoin (=no fresh money) bitcoin price goes sideways, not collapsing.

yes, there were bitcoin price collapses (when people sold), but if you find me an acknowledged ponzi scheme that has ever collapsed more than once i pay you half a bitcoin. do you think 24 hours is enough time to do your research ?

and this bullcrap about "natural ponzi" just means that every asset that can be traded is a "natural ponzi" and if a definition fits every asset, what is the point ? p r o p a g a n d a  by c e n t r a l b a n k e r s.

when no one buys bitcoin (=no fresh money) bitcoin price crash and failed

As long people sell bitcoin they will buyback lower if possible. If no one sells while no one is buying it then price remains the same.

I like how the retard responded to this by copyin and pasting something. Pretty obvious that no one will ever take falling seriously since he's never answered a single question anyone's asked him ever. He's literally like a parrot that only knows three phases.

Hahaaaa, what a moron you are, bitcoin is still to difficult for your pig brain, isn't it? If all the people that are trading this thing, buy back, we are back at 680$, no fresh money required for that.

So NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bitcoin is NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT DEAAAAAAAAAAAAAD.

Do not cut loose, hodl, if you had listenend to everybody who said that in 2010, you would be rich now, throwing cats of a roof to see if they bounce.

its more like a decentralized western union service. Is western union a ponzi scheme?

they transfer currency across the world but have expensive fees. bitcoin can do the same thing for a fraction of the cost.

You should be more specific and say "shares in a profitable business, which pay a regular and predictable dividend", because non-dividend-paying stocks (which are most stocks) meets your misinformed definition of Ponzi.


And as should be obvious, bitcoin is simply an asset which is likely undervalued. Here's why:
- Bitcoin reduces the friction of electronic transactions.
- Therefore more people will use bitcoin for electronic transactions.
- More capitalization of the bitcoin money supply as a whole is required to meet the eventual fundamental transaction demand.

According to you all investments are Ponzi  :D :D

FTFY

I have read that paper...so according to the world bank and by proxy yourself all the stocks and securities that are traded are naturally occurring ponzi schemes.

Bitcoin is not for buying and selling.

It is for earning and spending.

If you think ponzi scheme is just early adopters profit on late adopters, then the biggest ponzi must be fiat money: You always need a late adopter to dump your USD in exchange for some goods/services, and the early adopters (banks) pay almost nothing for newly created money. Same goes for pension fund, where you need young people from the next generation to pay for their grandpa's pension

If a ponzi scheme applies to everyone, then it is legitimate

if btc is a ponzi scheme then so are all the modern financial systems and most fin institutions.

In a Ponzi scheme I would be passing along money to someone who passes it to others along the line, then I would need to bait someone else into join so more money passes along the line and I can recover my "investment"... in trade you buy something and hope it to value.
You can work a Ponzi scheme with Bitcoins, as you can with Euros, USD or whatever sort of currency. But Bitcoin itself is not a Ponzi scheme!

Definition of Ponzi scheme is earlier investors are guarantee profit.

That is not the case for bitcoin. Many earlier bitcoin users do not benefit much for the huge gain, coin are lost due to forgotten private key or outright tossing them away because the total amount were small back in the earlier days.

Even if you buy now, it is not a guarantee that you will make profit if bitcoin survive long term. The late comer may profit more than earlier one if the price dropped and then bounce back again.

Bitcoin is more like a total free market asset than a ponzi scheme with no clear winner and loser.

This is true. Any currency can be used to fund a ponzi scheme. You don't even need to use a single currency, or any currency at all. I would think that it would actually be more difficult to pull off a ponzi with bitcoin because people who use bitcoin tend to be more savvy.

Might be true for now. But when the price shoots up, a lot of people do rush in....

Then rush out at a panic sale...

Resulting in them losing a lot of money. And Bitcoin gets a bad name.  ::)

well bitcoin isn't just trading, you are saying that against trading in general, which has little to do with bitcoin...


that's not a good example, i mean early in investors in a ponzi could lost their money in other way, bitcoin early investor were rich, if they screwed it at some point they deserved it

so, how is fiat not a ponzi?

no one really wants dollars, they want stuff.

once the last person refuses to accept worthless paper for stuff, the bagholders will have worthless paper.

everything is a ponzi if you look at it like that.

Fiat isn't a ponzi because it isn't an investment scheme. Fiat is a store of value.
"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the operator"

Fiat is an IOY based on trust in a government (and ofcourse the fact that countries suffer of "Tragedy of the commons" where we "overgraze" our economy and try to sustain our stupid lifestyles, or simply don't care about the govenment because "other" people should do something about it) :)

Bitcoin doesn't have an operator an thus is not a ponzi scheme. It does look like a ponzi since people market it as a sure thing.....