Bitcoin Forum

After figuring out how the mining works, that it becomes increasingly more difficult obtain, wouldn't that just cause the price to keep on increasing, like it will never stabilize and outside of the speculative fluctuations, the price will always continue to rise and the guys who set it up and invested early sit on an asset that will continually appreciate in value. The distribution won't ever be even and prices will never stabilize for it to be an viable currency for trade. So the guys who created bitcoin really made a Ponzi scheme for themselves as the price is always set to rise due to the increasing mining difficulty

it's ponzi for noobs ... because they buy high (they trust) and sell low (they cry).
dumb not allowed.

See the latter half of my signature.  Additionally, 'rising asset values' is also not the definition of a Ponzi or pyramid scheme.

Oil becomes increasingly difficult for drilling companies to obtain as the decades go by. Is oil a Ponzi scheme?

Also, "The guys who created bitcoin" don't own or create all new Bitcoins - they are created and distributed, essentially, in proportion to the amount of computing power contributed to the network, and anyone can contribute.

There's real demand and use of Bitcoin, so it's not a ponzi.

Nobody is promising you anything, you buy bitcoins to use them. A ponzi scheme is based on giving a percentage each month based in your investment.

Bitcoin is based on supply and demand.

It is naturally occuring ponzi scheme.

Well yeah, it's not exactly a Ponzi scheme per se, but it is a lot like oil and other natural resources, but they're a resource and not a currency. It is quite a lot like a natural occurring Ponzi scheme though. I don't anyone has actually explained this yet, the core point I'm getting at is if the supply is inherently built to continually diminish, then wouldn't the price continually increase, and that in itself is can't sustain a stable currency and the people who invested early will never be at risk because their asset will be guaranteed to continually appreciate in value

No, the supply isn't built to continually diminish, it's built to stay exactly the same, that's the whole point of a deflationary currency, if miners were allowed to infinitely create coins then we'd end up just like the dollar, why else do you think a Bitcoin is worth $500+ now? It isn't because Bitcoin is necessarily a valuable currency, it's because they've hyperinflated the dollar so much that it's so expensive to buy something like Bitcoin which is in limited supply.

As for buying early, yeah, so the fuck what? Of course they benefit more, because the people who are buying in early are taking the most risk, when you buy into something early you don't necessarily have any idea of what's going to happen in the next month never mind year and you have to live with the fact you might lose several hundred. This is reality, you don't have the government price fixing or the central banks artificially propping prices up to make people think what they're holding is worth as much as they've paid for, you have to do your research and make calculated decisions.

You, like many other people also need to look up what a ponzi scheme actually is because it's just complete bullshit when used in regards to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has had very large drops in its price and this risk is still present.

The number of Bitcoins in existence never inherently decreases (though it will if people lose their Bitcoins), but the rate at which it increases will slow down over time.

That Bitcoin is supposedly guaranteed to increase in value over time, as you say, is a self-defeating prophecy. If anything is guaranteed to increase in value over time, people will speculate in it right now, which will drive up the price right now, which means it is already at the point where people expect it to be in the future. The role speculation plays in the value of Bitcoin thus dwarfs the effect of reductions in the rate of Bitcoin creation.

Source: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp

You could argue that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, but it does not promise anything to anyone. The only thing Bitcoin promises is an open source public ledger for transfer of value. If that were to fail then obviously Bitcoin would be worthless.

When I bought some Bitcoins they never came with a promise of future returns. The only criteria Bitcoin is missing to be money is to be seen as a long-term store of wealth (which isn't coming anytime soon).

There are tons of articles about bitcoin and Ponzi, the summary is: no it isn't.

According to the World Bank, bitcoin is a naturally occurring ponzi scheme.

http://www.coindesk.com/world-bank-report-bitcoin-naturally-occurring-ponzi/

no it isn't because is decentralized, mining also is still decentralized, the definition of a ponzi is different

Doesn't look like there's any diminishing...

https://en.bitcoin.it/w/images/en/e/e3/Total_bitcoins_over_time_graph.png

Not a Ponzi. QED.

Bitcoin is a inherent Ponzi Scheme, please correct me if I'm wrong


its a "ponzi" like stocks, land, real estate, gold, oil and all other things too  ;)

The quote defines a "natrually occurring Ponzi" as a thing sold at market that forms a bubble. This could very well apply to Bitcoin, as Bitcoin has been in bubbles and may be in a bubble, but that has absolutely nothing to do with Ponzi schemes.

bubble != Ponzi.   "Ponzi" has become a catch-all term for "something financial that I don't understand but I'm still suspicious of." And such people are going way out of their way to fit the word "Ponzi" in here somewhere, even if it's completely unrecognizable from anything Charles Ponzi ever did.

According to that same article about the World Bank, real estate and gold are also "naturally occurring ponzi":



Of course in the exact same article the report states:

If nothing else, the fact that Bitcoin is scheduled for a maximum of 21 million bitcoins, makes it not a Ponzi. It might be something similar, but it is definitely not a Ponzi.

:)

The market sets the price not the early adopters.  If you ask me I see the mining difficulty as a way to make the coin scarce and therefore more valuable.  The price has incentive to rise but this is not necessarily due to mining difficulty.   As opposed to fiat, where the value is diminished due to high supply and low demand and also no central entity controlling the currency..

 I've personally never heard of a Ponzi scheme that brings new revolutionary technology to the table, have you?  

It looks a bit like a Ponzi Scheme, as early adopters have an incentive to make bitcoin more poplular and more adopted for their own sake.
But most definitely it isn't. Bitcoins are sound money and have all proprities of such, namely:

Divisibility
A currency must be divisible so that units of its value can be paid to match the value of your purchase.

Portability
For a currency to be convenient, it must be portable. You must be able to have access to it at any moment to spend it and you must be able to receive it just as easily.

Scarcity
Money has to be sufficiently rare. If the medium of the currency is easily obtainable or reproducable, it will have little worth and be easily counterfeited.

Fungible
Every unit of a currency must be equal in value. Diamonds are not fungible because there are other properties of a diamond that makes it worth more or less than any other diamond: size, clarity, cut, purity, etc.

Durability
Money must not have a property that allows it to decay over time. Any perishable items are a good example of this: Vegatables, Spices, Tea, Milk, etc.

and

Non-consumable.

The value of bitcoin is completly ruled by the market and basic law of supply and demand. The value of bitcoin is not determined by how much people think they are worth, it is determined my market forces, in the same sense that one kilogram of gold or one liter of water has the value that the market determines and not the value that people, individually, think they are worth.
But, of course, people are always free to sell them or not, for any price they want, driving the market forces.

Bitcoin is great because it is the separation of Money and State, and the end of fractional reserve banking.
It is fascinating and has a great future! So much potential to change the world...

Not a ponzi, study more my friend.

Please do a search before making posts like this. Your assertion has been proven wrong a hundred times already.

Look up the definition of a Ponzi scheme (but not the investopedia version because it is confused). This one is good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

Bitcoin is not that.

Cased closed.

You might consider Bitcoin a pyramid scheme, but then you would have to apply that label to any asset with limited supply, such as real estate or gold.

Also, the cost of mining does not affect the price of bitcoin. because the supply of bitcoins is independent of the cost of mining.

https://i.imgflip.com/bkbxc.jpg (https://imgflip.com/i/bkbxc)

A Goldbug would argue that it isn't a reliable store of value or recognisable as wealth to most people. Until this is achieved BTC doesn't satisfy all the qualities of good money. I personally think it will in time, otherwise why would I own any.

The definition of a ponzi does not match what bitcoin is. If you wanted to choose a bad type of investment that bitcoin is then you should choose bubble because it much more closely resembles a bubble then a ponzi. A ponzi is something that later "investors" pay the earlier "investors" plus some amount of "return" this is not at all how bitcoin works. There are a set amount of bitcoin that are available to be "owned" which increases over time and in order to "win" the increased amount you do not need to pay anyone that already owns bicoin.

hahaha my new background image lol

Depends on what you call a ponzi scheme, a ponzi scheme as I understands promises a profit return in future, bitcoin doesn't comes with any such promise.

Ponzi scheme is honey for masses. It promise you profits or maybe you are to believe that you will earn. With bitcoins there is nothing of that sort. You are free to invest if you think it is safe and will make you profit.

Have seen such kind of top for a lot of times..
Bitcoin have been accepted by a lot of people, and it has the future to be a payment system and long term investment approach, just dont know why some ppl keep saying it is Ponzi..

In a ponzi scheme you need new people all the time to keep it going and profits are 'guaranteed'
With bitcoin this is not the case. No guaranteed profits and new blood isn't necessary to keep it going

take a look at litecoin pls... like wtf are u talking

Right, proper ponzi setups do heavily depend on a regulated grow, or crash is immanent.
On the contrary the adaption rate to Bitcoin is completely unregulated. Bitcoin can only crash if people (all of them) decide to walk into the opposite direction.

OP， If you buy thousands of BTC in 2010 or 2011, I don't believe you still think Bitcoin is Ponzi scheme. You wouldn't criticize BTC of constantly increasing price, and will be happy to hold them.

For clarity - LTC hashrate up, price down.

The price of bitcoin has been stagnant for several months now. The same is true for the market cap of bitcoin. Under this defination of a ponzi bitcoin should have crashed and burned by now as more people are not pouring money into it.

Not really, at least not from the article you cited: according to an academic who's cited by a World Bank economist in one report there are such things as "naturally occurring ponzi schemes". I'm not sure I'd take Shiller's view of "financial bubbles that form without the manipulator’s baton but from finished natural market forces and with one person’s expectations feeding into another’s" and extrapolate from that that Basu's employer considers Bitcoin to be a naturally occurring ponzi. Heck, I'm not sure I'd even extrapolate as far as saying that the World Bank agree with Shiller (about financial bubbles) - I'd want to research that further before making that claim.

Good, as you note, it is not a ponzi scheme.  Ponzi's have a central actor who uses new investor money to pay old investors.  What you've described above is any scarce commodity, e.g. land.  As the second poster to the thread pointed out, a simple review of the definition of Ponzi would illustrate the difference.

Financial bubbles are possible with any financial instrument.  Bubbles do not equal ponzi's, that's why they are called bubbles, regardless of what Schiller kinda sorta says.

The same could be said about land. If I bought several hundred acres of land in rural PA as an investment would you say that I am investing in a naturally occurring Ponzi? After all the supply of land is limited.

It's Ponzi for haters and gold for believers.

This is actually the same logic that people use when they said that housing prices would never fall as a group throughout the united states. As we all very well know housing prices did fall by a lot.

With that being said, this is not what the definition of a ponzi is. A ponzi is when an investment run by some central person pays out early investors large returns with the new investment funds of later investors. This is not at all what happens with bitcoin. The price of bitcoin is determined by supply and demand, there is no one person who determines the return that investors of bitcoin receive.

It has been proven over and over again that bitcoin isn't a Ponzi scheme, people should stop thinking about this.

No its is not as so many people are onto the trend and we are the witness price increases cause the miners contribute onto generation of bitcoin.

Don't let yourself be fooled by the average bitcoin shill. Most of them don't know it better:

Bitcoin IS a decentralized ponzi scheme which means there's nobody directly profiting from it (unlike other premined scamcoins for example) but it is the common creation of a useless good in constant search of a greater fool.

Oh, an no: the price will of course not contine to rise forever (that's a ridiculous assumption often touted by bitcoiners) The bitcoin network will collapse when the mining reward is no longer big enough for rational investors to keep mining for profit. If you want I can lay out what is going to happen in that case. The problem is though we don't know when it is going to happen, it could be next year, it could be in 10 years (or it could never happen, because bitcoin is killed earlier because of another problem but it is going to happy for sure given a long enough timeframe). Until then many will waste their money on bitcoin.

The sarcasm is evident in this post. Either that, or a greater good called, 'Idiotic'. I'll go with the first one.

Please, before you use a phrase, understand what a 'Ponzi Scheme' is. Nobody owns Bitcoin. Thus, Bitcoin can't be a Ponzi scheme. Google it. Please - just Google it to save anyone from explaining, which I'm guessing someone already has. If it was a Ponzi scheme - It wouldn't be 'XBT' right now.

Nobody is promising you anything, you buy bitcoins to use them. A ponzi scheme is based on giving a percentage each month based in your investment.
Bitcoin is based on supply and demand.
You could argue that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, but it does not promise anything to anyone. The only thing Bitcoin promises is an open source public ledger for transfer of value. If that were to fail then obviously Bitcoin would be worthless.

Bitcoin is a technology. People are the ponzi.

Ok I'm looking to write an article for an Australian publication, so if anyone would want to use their real names for quotes, than please let me know. I'm not against Bitcoin or anything but one final query I have. How is it viable to use a currency that is in limited supply. Remember, this isn't land, or oil or gold where there is an inherent value in those resources i.e. you can use those resources for a wide variety of purposes, breeding cattle, running cars and what not. The problem with bitcoin is that you can only trade it with someone who also thinks it is valuable. Wouldn't it be Ponzi like, instead of an charismatic individual, we have an integrated system for a currency that never stops rising. Like if something is in limited supply, then it is highly likely the price will never stop rising, i.e. oil and land. As such, it can also be easily speculated as there will always be a limited supply and it takes one marketing campaign to drive up demand. We have seen that happen many times with land, gold and oil. For a currency, isn't that quite troublesome if people are touting bitcoin as the next financial revolution, where international trade will be facilitated, but its value highly subject to speculation.

And for clarification, I'm not saying that it is a Ponzi, I know what a Ponzi is. But that doesn't distract from the Ponzi like speculative features that Bitcoin has to offer, all under a self-regulatory and non-institutional package. I think having a limited supply will inevitably cause the speculators to come in and destroy it for any other purposes except for speculation. As we have seen with many other things in the US, land, oil and gold. People bought land to speculate and not live in

If Bitcoin had perfect distribution then would you still call it a Ponzi scheme?  I think this is what people don't get, it's only considered a Ponzi scheme because some think it is unfair they didn't get in early as those before them.  Free markets aren't perfect and neither is Bitcoin so you can expect things like speculation to take place for as long it will be tolerated IMO.

If BTC is a ponzi then many things are a ponzi..... housing market, gold market, education system etc.

Bitcoin is the way out of the ponzi scheme that is the dollar.

A ponzi scheme is when early adopters are promised a return on top what they put in that comes from later contributors.

The Fed created a ponzi scheme after the default of the gold standard by promising returns of 15% to bond holders to rescue the dollar from collapse. Where would this 15% return magically come from? From borrowers taking on ever more debt to buy ever increasing assets while savers buy the bonds at ever decreasing interest rates. Until they can't go any lower then it blows it up when no more takers of the debt can be found.

Now those early joiners from the 80s are sat on multi million pound houses after lowering their borrowing costs along the way while someone joining now is stuck between borrowing at 2% to buy a house that will take 25 years to pay for and probably be worth less at the end, buying stocks at huge risk or sticking their money in a bank to get less than inflation. Now they have another choice. They can save their money as bitcoin.

maybe bitcoin will become a failure and hit $0.. but one thing is for sure: it is not a ponzi scheme.

i really wish the people who accuse it of being so would actually look up the definition of what a ponzi scheme is, compare it to what bitcoin is, and then realize how ignorant a statement that is.

bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme so many things that could be done with bitcoins

I think bitcoin not ponzi, but it is a currency that is trying to created and finally accepted by the public  ;D

Certain aspects of Bitcoin do appear to have certain characteristics of a Ponzi scheme in so far, as early adopters (people on top of the typical Ponzi-pyramid or Ponzi-row) profit most from it, if they decide to hold their coins. But Bitcoin doesn't need new people in order to work or in order to remain functioning.

If you are trying to compare it to a pyramid scheme it most certainly does need new people to work. Without new members in the market to drive the price up there would be nothing for the early adopters to sell. The value would drop to zero quickly and their wouldn't be enough buyers to sell all your coins to. If you think about it, in order for say Satoshi to sell the first million mined coins at just $1,000 it would likely take millions of buyers buying coins at the same time to keep the price stable. If Bitcoin has millions of buyers and users of coins daily then the adoption is large enough that it's not a pyramid scheme but a working economy.

It's not a Ponzi (finite supply of coins) or a Scheme (it's an open-source project).  So Bitcoin is not a Ponzi Scheme.  And you are using the word "inherent" incorrectly so it's definitely not "a inherent Ponzi Scheme".

Ok maybe using the term Ponzi is a bit too much. Certainly saying Ponzi like might imply a lot more. But no one's disagreeing that bitcoin, with its finite supply is a speculative goldmine, just like oil, housing and other natural resources, except for that it does not have any inherent value - that it can't really be used for anything other than trade with someone else who also deems it valuable. Doesn't its speculative properties render it obsolete as an viable form of currency for trade, which is it's supposed primary purpose. Or is bitcoin made for speculative purposes? Satoshi made something else for people to speculate on, just like those dutch tulips. Forget Ponzi, think man made speculative bubble

You are contradicting yourself. You state that it has no value because it cannot be used for anything, but you note that it does have a use! It has a use and that gives it value. If someone wants to trade with bitcoins, they must obtain bitcoins from someone else. That gives it value.

Your basic argument is based on the Mises Regression Theorem and there are two points to be made about that. First, the Theorem is not proven -- it is more of a generalization or a hypothesis. Second, the evidence for the Theorem is historical (and anecdotal), and that doesn't preclude a new currency from proving it wrong.

You're wrong, you have been corrected :D!

I cant believe OP is in media publication.

hey OP, what sort of education you have? You're the exact reason why media is a joke.

You should never write about something you dont have a clue.

Ppl here have given you info yet you're still fcking stupid enough to say " inherent value"

There is no such thing as "inherent value" dumb ass. All resources in the world are worthless until human can find their utilities.

Silicon was worthless, until human discovered its semiconducting feature.

Ok people, I'm talking about a man made resource with a finite supply being supposedly used as a currency. I admit I have phrased some things incorrectly, I don't have a degree in economics, only journalism. I'm addressing a problem that I see with using something like bitcoin as a currency and no one, in this 4 page thread has really given me a solution, just run arounds like 'read up on it yourself.' So far there has not really been a stable price, which is essential for a currency of trade. From the useful posts, people seems to be denying that Bitcoin is a Ponzi (fair enough, I agree) but haven't denied its speculative nature, that there is a finite supply and obtaining it raw will get increasingly more difficult. Doesn't having such highly speculative features render its primary objective - being a self-regulating currency - useless? I think this resonates even in the current trend where more people are using it for price speculation rather than trade and sustaining an mobile economy.

Can someone please explain to me how this problem might untangle. That somehow these speculative features will balance out over time and a stable price could be achieved. Because otherwise there really is no financial revolution and it is just like every other speculative bubble like the Dutch tulips.

I draw a distinction between Bitcoin and natural resources because I believe there is a inherent value in natural resources. You can use it to do something else. Silicon was traded because people found a use for it, otherwise it would just lie on the ground worthless! People only traded for natural resources, not traded in.

Would be great if someone can actually help me because I am trying to write as accurately as possible and I haven't found any online resources that discuss this issue.

Then dont bother trying. Understand what it is first.

The fact that you keep saying "man made resource" makes me think you dont even give this any fcking thought and just spilling stuff.

Man made material such as carbon fiber are all processed from natural resource. Do you think its coming from thin air? Only fiat money comes from thin air (hence the term "fiat"). Bitcoin supply is from mining. You used energy and computer resources to "mine" bitcoin. The supply rate of bitcoin is known and by design. Its finite number of quantities is not an issue for using it as currency because 1 btc is dividable in 8 decimals (more than all the fiat currencies in the world--combined). As a form of money, we never had a deflationary money ever so you cant say it wont work.

As for you point of "speculative feature", bitcoin economy is small, ofcourse it will be speculative. In fact every commodities in this world is being speculated by various investors. It seems you keep talking this garbage because you still dont understand the value (not price) of bitcoin.

Does email protocol has any value to you? just because you're using it freely (hence no price), doesnt mean it has no value (otherwise, no1 will offer email service for free ....cough gmail, hotmail...). What if i told you in near future, there will be financial services offered from institutions that utilize bitcoin network? You as a customer use this service at free(or very low fee) and you dont even have to own a single bitcoin. Creditcards are free to you right? guess what? nope, merchants paid for it so its passed right to you. You're just fooled by thinking its free!

Using bitcoin as currency isnt very practical right now due to lacks of legit exchanges around the world. However the network will grow so does the popularity of bitcoin.

BTC (cryptocurrency)Blockchain ... is a momentous technological development 
it is not ponzi scheme !

okay then, i guess stocks are a ponzi scheme. also oil futures, or any other traded assets.

benefiting early adtopers is not a quality uniquely inherent to bitcoin.

Ok, I think people are still missing my point. That bitcoin has a finite supply like a natural resource, but can't really be used for anything else except for 'storage of wealth." I get that it takes computer energy to mine a bitcoin, and it will take more and more energy, but that doesn't take away from the fact that you can't do anything else with the bitcoin made, except for the market dictated value that people believe in. This market value, will inherently increase as there is a finite supply of Bitcoins. Isn't this a economical problem for the currency, as its purpose is trade and not speculation.

I'm finding that people who think they know really don't know how an economy works.

Yes, these things are all speculative bubbles that if applied to a currency will cause a lot of financial damage to people. People use money day to day and can easily be caught out whilst not even speculating.

But because a lot of people using Bitcoin, Bitcoin has value. If Bitcoin loose userbase, it loose value. The same with any natural resource, once some natural resource is not used anymore, it loose value.

I think this feature makes Bitcoin an ideal store of wealth. What is wrong with a currency whose buying power does not diminish over time? When the gold standard was in place the US dollar was both a good place to park your money and use to conduct international trade and commerce. Now the USD is no longer a good store of long term value.

At this point in time the value of Bitcoin is still unstable, a lot of this due to speculative forces. However once Bitcoin is widely used and has a larger market cap then its speculative appeal will lessen and price will stabilize. There is really nothing wrong with a currency whose value gradually increases over time, which is what you seem to be asserting, so long as the day-to-day fluctuations remain small.

I think people who claim bitcoin to be a ponzi either A don't understand bitcoin or B don't know what a ponzi is.

The USA's Social security program has to be the biggest ponzi scheme of them all. If all users stopped paying into the program, there would be no money left to pay the senior citizens. if it werent a ponzi, there would be plenty of money in the accounts to cover everything Thats why the government is letting some companies opt out of the social security program.My son in law has to pay 12 percent into his own program, but doesn't pay into the national social security program. why? because it wont be around for him when he need it. If your under 40 years old, soc. security wont be around for you. If your 40 or older, well be lucky if its there for us..

There are so many ponzi schemes out there. I dont see any hint of bitcoin being a ponzi at all. I dont see how people can even accuse of bitcon being a ponzi. I got into it early, i paid for the coin, or mined it. no promises, etc. just something to give an excuse to not use bitcoin.

Usually people who think that bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme are newbies who doesn't know how bitcoin works.

This is the truest thing said yet. Please change Bitcon to Bitcoin in the second paragraph. Freudian slip?

Then for God's sake fix the grammar in you're subject line!   

Actually, I can't believe you are a journalist based on just that.   No way you graduated.

This is very old question. Google is your friend :)

And BTC isn't ponzi scheme lol.

big difference is that a ponzi scheme is centralized bitcoin, isn't, one could argue that the mining aspect of bitcoin is a bit like a "ponzi", it could be true only with a 51% attack

It is now,give me a standing proof that it is and I would handover all my bitcoin to you.Bitcoin is a change,bitcoin is a new game we must trust

I think it was likely a pun to try to get people to think of bitcoin as a ponzi/scam. This may be a "freudian slip" if this is what that is.

Definitely not a ponzi...

With OP's exact same arguments one could also call gold a Ponzi  ::)

So --> bullshit  >:(

Fiat money is a Ponzi: fiat money is created from thin air when somebody takes out a loan. Newly created loans  are beneficial to the receiver of the loan, while everyone else (those who already hold fiat money, as savings or future salary paymnents etc.) suffers. Everyone elses purchasing power drops a little bit due to the new money brought into circulation.

The newly created dollars or whatever, dilute the already existing money.

So fiat is a pyramid game where those who take out loans, dilute the existing money supply, but benefit from the loan. In many cases the loan is then even used to enslave someone else! Example: mortgage for rental property.

Bitcoin is different because mining requires real work, Bitcoins are not created from thin air, and their supply is limited, very similar to natural resources like gold or silver.

DEBT BASED MONEY IS HIGHLY CRIMINAL AND JUST AS BAD AS SLAVERY!

The post above sums it all very nicely. This has been explained a million times already tho.

Ok finally something useful, THANK YOU. It took a while but finally a useful piece of information. Really proves how useless a majority of people posting online is. Lets just hope that it gains widespread use. But I still reckon unless some countries seriously goes south, then it still be a speculators game. More people are involved for speculative purposes than actual trade. It's impossible for companies to accept bitcoins if the price is highly speculative and can drop any second. The risk is too high and then it becomes a chicken and egg problem. Will people stop speculating so that companies can accept and hold onto bitcoins, or will companies accept bitcoins first so that widespread use can be achieved, discouraging speculation. I know companies like Dell are accepting bitcoins but its a completely different to what you would think. Dell accepts BTC but cashes it straight away. This does not help the Bitcoin economy as purchases through the currency are immediately dumped.

I never thought it was a ponzi scheme, but I will tell you why I never did.
A ponzi scheme requires a constant influx of new investment dollars, not only for the early folks in to make money, but for later folks in not to lose money. This requirement is eternal; as soon as new investment capital stops coming in, someone (usually the overwhelming majority of investors to date) will lose money and the scheme will usually collapse

I would argue that bitcoin is essentially a bet on the failure of the Euro as a currency. If the Euro were to be stopped being used and countries would go back to their old national currencies then the demand for bitcoin would be much greater then it is today. The price of bitcoin went up to bubble levels when there were serious questions about the health of many European banks (and the future of the Euro). People in Europe are already used to using a currency that is not linked to their specific government, so they would be less uncomfortable using bitcoin if the Euro was no longer available.

For all the good arguments that BTC is not a ponzi scheme, the number one objection we hear from the general public is that it is a ponzi scheme.
When we ask them how they know that, they say they heard it on the news somewhere.

We have heard this so often (on presenting an altcoin to the user community), that we no longer relate it to bitcoin

To see more about typical user community objections, see this post, bitcointalk.org - Re: How we crypto-geeks get it wrong & the reality of altcoin success (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=687900.0)