Is Bitcoin a Pyramid or Ponzi scheme & what are the ramifications?

[AnonyMint]

Okay done. Whew need a cold shower! So freicoin's demurrage is the "hamster tax".

Now I remember that demurrage is not socialist, because no one gets the tax, it is sent to ether. It is taking away a little bit of coin from everyone who doesn't spend the money regularly. The point is to keep the velocity high, and it penalizes savers and rewards the spenders. And not spending from debt, so don't conflate this with Walmartization and overconsumption.

Whereas I proposed continuing the coin rewards and making proof-of-work only work on CPUs.

Actually both concepts could be combined.

They both help deconcentrate distribution in different ways. Demurrage by pushing the coin to move, which means more people being paid in the coin, and my idea means more people can download the miner and generate coins on their PC.

Actually appears my idea is more important initially, because we can't spend the coin if there aren't many merchants and thus we need to widely distribute the coin as first.

Btw, I recently wrote that I expect we need both fiat and decentralized coin. I will find my post and quote it back here.

Edit: can't find that post. My reason is that we can't always be anonymous and a decentralized coin will never survive if it isn't anonymous, because the government is going to destroy it by attacking the people using it if they can identify them. There will be two parallel economies, the anonymous one and the fiat one that you pay taxes on.

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[Hawker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation..."

Since the motivation behind Bitcoin is not fraudulent, it fails to meet the definition of a Ponzi scheme.  You may have grave doubts about the wisdom of investment in Bitcoin.  You may regard the anti-state idealism of its early adopters as unwise.  But you can never call it a fraud so its not a Ponzi scheme.

[AnonyMint]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation..."

Since the motivation behind Bitcoin is not fraudulent, it fails to meet the definition of a Ponzi scheme.

That isn't logical.

It is like saying since the motivation (idealism) is to reach the top of Mt. Everest, that you can necessarily do it barefoot. Bitcoin is like barefoot, it doesn't get you to your ideals.

Come on guys. Use your noggin.

You may have grave doubts about the wisdom of investment in Bitcoin.

It has nothing to do with the investment. It has to do with destroying our only chance to defeat the NWO.

The Bitcoin pyramid+ponzi is going to hand everything to the elite (government) on a silver platter.

You may regard the anti-state idealism of its early adopters as unwise.

That doesn't make any sense. I want to have a decentralized coin that will accomplish the idealism. Bitcoin is a Trojan horse designed to fool you into thinking it will, but in reality it is designed to destroy all of you and your idealism.

Read the entire thread and learn.

But you can never call it a fraud so its not a Ponzi scheme.

I proved it is fraud. Read the thread.

[Hawker]

Its clear that you believe in the NWO nonsense.  I don't.  To me, Bitcoin is an interesting social experiment.  I mined a couple of thousand in 2011 just to see what could be done.  I got the cost back with a tax write off so its been lucrative as well as being interesting.  The whole idea that there is a shadowy group that already controls the world economy and politics decided to overturn the existing economic order with Bitcoin is just laughable.

[AnonyMint]

Its clear that you believe in the NWO nonsense.  I don't.  To me, Bitcoin is an interesting social experiment.  I mined a couple of thousand in 2011 just to see what could be done.  I got the cost back with a tax write off so its been lucrative as well as being interesting.  The whole idea that there is a shadowy group that already controls the world economy and politics decided to overturn the existing economic order with Bitcoin is just laughable.

That is not an argument against whether Bitcoin is a ponzi or pyramid. You are going off-topic (although I'm guilty of mentioning).

Pyramid schemes are interesting social experiments? Would you like to tell that to the judge when asks why you were promoting a pyramid scheme here?

I see you got coin rewards from mining in 2011 when it was CPU-only (i.e. not required to buy extra hardware), so you don't care that others can not do the same now because mining is now ASIC-only.

You got yours, so screw the rest of the world. You haven't addressed the point that Bitcoin is not a currency, because the coins can't be reasonably distributed throughout the population. Thus it can't have an intrinsic value, and thus it is a pyramid scheme with apparently you as one of the early adopters who is profited on it and promoting it.

Nothing wrong with profit and promotion, if not a pyramid scheme. Can you refute the logic presented?

[AnonyMint]

I am now deleting new posts which repeatedly ignore Impaler's posts and the thread subject, which clearly state Bitcoin is a pyramid or ponzi.

If you only argue it is not a ponzi, you are repeating what has already been debated several times in the thread already.

Your challenge is to argue how it is not a pyramid scheme.

We don't need more "me too" noise posts. We need solid objective debate that hasn't been already covered upthread.

[glub0x]

Your aggressivity does n t help any debate and makes you look like a overconfident-i m right kind of fools....
Now when i send 10 000€ to a foreign contry and pay 600euro charges with fiat, and almost 0 with bitcoin some wealth is saved along the way that justify a valuation for the all system?
When i save my monney into a currency that is inflated to hell only to serve the ambitions of a few politician/bankster wishes i feel quite bad.
When i save it to a neutral network like bitcoin i feel much better and richer, the sadness saved along the way justify some valuation.

What you describe with your joe exemple is the how arbitrary a market valuation is but i still fail to understand how this is different to fiat valuation or stock valuation...
But maybe my king fail to understand it too.

[AnonyMint]

Your aggressivity does n t help any debate and makes you look like a overconfident-i m right kind of fools....

Quote me being aggressive? I think I am just refuting and agreeing depending where I see the facts to be. That is called debate.

Now when i send 10 000€ to a foreign contry and pay 600euro charges with fiat, and almost 0 with bitcoin some wealth is saved along the way that justify a valuation for the all system?

Agreed that is nice, but transaction fees won't necessarily stay low in Bitcoin. Undoubtedly they must increase as coin rewards diminish, and if coin rewards did not diminish and Bitcoin was CPU-only, then the pyramid problem would be solved and transaction fees would remain low forever.

So why not fix it? Why are you defending an inferior coin design?

And this is rarely used feature (as a portion of Bitcoin's market cap) is not a reasonable justification for running a pyramid scheme that will destroy most of the investors.

When i save my monney into a currency that is inflated to hell only to serve the ambitions of a few politician/bankster wishes i feel quite bad.

Me too! Damn it!

When i save it to a neutral network like bitcoin i feel much better and richer,

You won't feel richer when the pyramid scheme collapses and you lose all your value.

the sadness saved along the way justify some valuation.

What about the future sadness you are going to feel when the pyramid scheme collapses and your only chance to main a solution was wasted on the wrong coin design?

What you describe with your joe exemple is the how arbitrary a market valuation is but i still fail to understand how this is different to fiat valuation or stock valuation...

Because stocks have an intrinsic value. See point #4 in my post on page 1.

Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. Yeah maybe those occasional transfers are nice, but they are not something you do every day. Every day you are still using that dirty, nasty fiat. And Bitcoin can do nothing to change that. And Bitcoin will waste the chance to change that. And instead make all us of bankrupt in a pyramid collapse of epic proportions exceeding the Tulip Mania.

But maybe my king fail to understand it too.

I hope I can convince you to change your vote and support a better coin design. And help us save the world and improve the world.

[AnonyMint]

Its clear that you believe in the NWO nonsense.  I don't.  To me, Bitcoin is an interesting social experiment.  I mined a couple of thousand in 2011 just to see what could be done.  I got the cost back with a tax write off so its been lucrative as well as being interesting.  The whole idea that there is a shadowy group that already controls the world economy and politics decided to overturn the existing economic order with Bitcoin is just laughable.

That is not an argument against whether Bitcoin is a ponzi or pyramid. You are going off-topic (although I'm guilty of mentioning).

Pyramid schemes are interesting social experiments? Would you like to tell that to the judge when asks why you were promoting a pyramid scheme here?

I see you got coin rewards from mining in 2011 when it was CPU-only (i.e. not required to buy extra hardware), so you don't care that others can not do the same now because mining is now ASIC-only.

You got yours, so screw the rest of the world. You haven't addressed the point that Bitcoin is not a currency, because the coins can't be reasonably distributed throughout the population. Thus it can't have an intrinsic value, and thus it is a pyramid scheme with apparently you as one of the early adopters who is profited on it and promoting it.

Nothing wrong with profit and promotion, if not a pyramid scheme. Can you refute the logic presented?

Pyramid schemes are not illegal.  The London property market, the fine art market, most metal markets are all fine examples of pyramid schemes in that they rely on demand tomorrow being higher than demand today to set the price today.  Adding Bitcoin to that list does not bother me at all.

Pyramid schemes are indeed illegal when they promote something with no intrinsic value. Do you want me to cite convictions for you?

The difference is (and this is the 10th time I've repeated this!) is that Bitcoin has no significant intrinsic value if is not a currency.

Those other tangible assets you mentioned do have an intrinsic value.

I have businesses that accept payment in dollars, sterling and euros.  I also accept payment in Bitcoin.  To me, that clearly makes bitcoin a currency.  It will always be a niche currency rather than an alternative to sterling but its nonetheless a currency.

Agreed that is neat. And I want to keep that. But we could improve the coin design so that it actually becomes a real currency and not just niche.

Why not do that?

Bitcoin is a non-state creation with no support other than the free market and it works as a currency. It has potential to revolutionise parts of society.  If you don't that is one of the most interesting social experiments going on today, you are blind to the wonder of how humanity develops.

An altcoin could do that. Bitcoin can't, it has no intrinsic value for the reasons I have detailed in the OP and in my numerous posts in the thread.

[AnonyMint]

Its clear that you believe in the NWO nonsense.  I don't.  To me, Bitcoin is an interesting social experiment.  I mined a couple of thousand in 2011 just to see what could be done.  I got the cost back with a tax write off so its been lucrative as well as being interesting.  The whole idea that there is a shadowy group that already controls the world economy and politics decided to overturn the existing economic order with Bitcoin is just laughable.

That is not an argument against whether Bitcoin is a ponzi or pyramid. You are going off-topic (although I'm guilty of mentioning).

Pyramid schemes are interesting social experiments? Would you like to tell that to the judge when asks why you were promoting a pyramid scheme here?

I see you got coin rewards from mining in 2011 when it was CPU-only (i.e. not required to buy extra hardware), so you don't care that others can not do the same now because mining is now ASIC-only.

You got yours, so screw the rest of the world. You haven't addressed the point that Bitcoin is not a currency, because the coins can't be reasonably distributed throughout the population. Thus it can't have an intrinsic value, and thus it is a pyramid scheme with apparently you as one of the early adopters who is profited on it and promoting it.

Nothing wrong with profit and promotion, if not a pyramid scheme. Can you refute the logic presented?

Pyramid schemes are not illegal.  The London property market, the fine art market, most metal markets are all fine examples of pyramid schemes in that they rely on demand tomorrow being higher than demand today to set the price today.  Adding Bitcoin to that list does not bother me at all.

Pyramid schemes are indeed illegal when they promote something with no intrinsic value. Do you want me to cite convictions for you?

The difference is (and this is the 10th time I've repeated this!) is that Bitcoin has no significant intrinsic value if is not a currency.

Those other tangible assets you mentioned do have an intrinsic value.

I have businesses that accept payment in dollars, sterling and euros.  I also accept payment in Bitcoin.  To me, that clearly makes bitcoin a currency.  It will always be a niche currency rather than an alternative to sterling but its nonetheless a currency.

Agreed that is neat. And I want to keep that. But we could improve the coin design so that it actually becomes a real currency and not just niche.

Why not do that?

Bitcoin is a non-state creation with no support other than the free market and it works as a currency. It has potential to revolutionise parts of society.  If you don't that is one of the most interesting social experiments going on today, you are blind to the wonder of how humanity develops.

An altcoin could do that. Bitcoin can't, it has no intrinsic value for the reasons I have detailed in the OP and in my numerous posts in the thread.

Of course you are right.  If Bitcoin were to disappear, Litecoin would be worth $600 or whatever today's value is.  But apart from a spelling difference, there would be no real change.

That is not what I mean by an altcoin. Litecoin does nothing to fix the currency distribution problem, because it is not CPU-only (being dominated by GPUs) and coin rewards diminish and transactions fees will rise. All the same stupid design decisions that are in Bitcoin.

We would need an altcoin specifically designed to be better.

Bitcoin was first and as such it will take something extraordinary to defeat the ntwork effect.

It would need to be better, and also probably extraordinary.

But we refuted that networking effects nonsense already in the The Problem with Altcoins thread.

What network effects? Bitcoin ain't a currency. And given a liquid exchange, the altcoin can do everything Bitcoin can do, even seamlessly with a single click for FX and spend in one step.

the difficulties you are worried about will be fixed if the community starts to care about them because we all are invested in the success of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin community will never agree to perpetual coin rewards that never diminish.

Sorry Bitcoin can't be fixed.

The whole concept of a Ponzi is that at some point it collapses.  Because of the community being invested in Bitcoin, it is far more likely to adapt than to collapse.  And if it fails to adapt, that in and of itself is interesting.

Bitcoin developers refuse to change the coin supply curve and make transaction fees low forever.

And the ASICs existing miners will never let Bitcoin be changed to CPU-only. Impossible to fix that in Bitcoin. Too late.

They will not listen.

Sorry.

Ponzi is locked in by the developers who control Bitcoin.

Also the community doesn't understand this. And so the community doesn't know to rally for this change.

Much easier to just make an altcoin.

Those who mine and buy that altcoin will become incredibly rich when the BTC runs to the altcoin as it becomes clear that the altcoin is becoming a currency faster.

[AnonyMint]

...snip...

Ponzi is locked in by the developers who control Bitcoin.

Also the community doesn't understand this. And so the community doesn't know to rally for this change.

Much easier to just make an altcoin.

Those who mine and buy that altcoin will become incredibly rich when the BTC runs to the altcoin as it becomes clear that the altcoin is becoming a currency faster.

You called it a Ponzi and I demonstrated its not a Ponzi as its not intended to collapse.  Please don't go in circles.

I wrote Pyramid, not Ponzi since Impaler corrected me upthread.

You agreed it is a pyramid didn't you?

If your altcoin that makes me incredibly rich comes along, I will ofc invest.  But you have not offered such an altcoin.  Let me know...meanwhile I continue to buy Bitcoin.

Changing your vote would be motivational to the people who are developing that altcoin.

Is Bitcoin a pyramid or not objectively?

[AnonyMint]

...snip...

Ponzi is locked in by the developers who control Bitcoin.

Also the community doesn't understand this. And so the community doesn't know to rally for this change.

Much easier to just make an altcoin.

Those who mine and buy that altcoin will become incredibly rich when the BTC runs to the altcoin as it becomes clear that the altcoin is becoming a currency faster.

You called it a Ponzi and I demonstrated its not a Ponzi as its not intended to collapse.  Please don't go in circles.

I said Pyramid, not Ponzi since Impaler corrected me upthread.

You agreed it is a pyramid didn't you?

If your altcoin that makes me incredibly rich comes along, I will ofc invest.  But you have not offered such an altcoin.  Let me know...meanwhile I continue to buy Bitcoin.

Changing your vote would be motivational to the people who are developing that altcoin.

Is Bitcoin a pyramid or not objectively?

Actually you said Ponzi - I've bolded your quote for clarity.

Okay my mistake. I get lazy to type "Pyramid+Ponzi" because of the Pyr is slower for me to type.

"A pyramid scheme is an unsustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme

If you accept that definition, then Bitcoin can't be a pyramid scheme as it is actually working as a currency.

Actually I wrote in the OP it is amalgamation of Pyramid+Ponzi. It has the decentralized participants of the pyramid and the later investors providing all the gains for earlier investors of the ponzi, with no income and no intrinsic value.

Pyramid schemes usually don't sell the stock of the pyramid, but I think some do. So that is why it is a ponzi-pyramid.

It seems to me that you see Bitcoin as something other than an alternative currency for people who are locked out of the mainstream economy.

I see it can never scale as a currency, thus it has no value to you once the gains stop. Thus you and everyone else will exit and the value will go to near 0. Because only a very small fraction of the market cap is using it for spending.

This can't change, because Bitcoin isn't designed to distribute out to the masses to get them involved in spending it.

Its used for drugs, gambling and remittances.  Even if something better comes along, it will still be used for drugs and gambling as it works just fine.

And also for a zillion other things that masses use currency for, because once you put in their hands, you've created a market for the merchants to sell to.

Bitcoin can never do this, see the distribution concentration table in the OP. Then note that all mining is ASICs only. And coin rewards are diminishing. Which means you can't get coins out to the masses in exchange for securing the network.

And the double-whammy is this means transactions fees will rise, thus killing off the few uses as currency.

Thus NO INTRINSIC VALUE WHATSOEVER going forward.

If you want to replace the dollar or some such, Bitcoin will always be a disappointment.  But as a standalone currency, its as good as it gets.

No we can do much better.

Why are you so defeatist?

You are not a programmer (?) so you don't realize what we can do.

[glub0x]

So what back twitter? If everybody wants to sell their tweeter stock, what would be the value of a tweeter stock?
Tweeter as more debt than asset then would the value be 0 as your exemple sugest? Clearly not. A tweeter bond would have NO value as if nobody sells, nobody buys!
Would tweeter stop to be if nobody was
Willing to buy a tweeter bond? No idea, maybe

[AnonyMint]

So what back twitter? If everybody wants to sell their tweeter stock, what would be the value of a tweeter stock?

I wrote on page 1:

4. ... This is why ponzi schemes are so incredibly evil and dangerous. This is different from a stock, because a stock has intrinsic value to due earnings, profit, cash-on-hand, talent of management, talent of employees, contracts, etc..

Tweeter as more debt than asset then would the value be 0 as your exemple sugest? Clearly not. A tweeter bond would have NO value as if nobody sells, nobody buys!
Would tweeter stop to be if nobody was
Willing to buy a tweeter bond? No idea, maybe

Investors see value in their existing software. That have a huge codebase already.

Their huge userbase which can be marketed to, because Twitter is not decentralized. You can't market to Bitcoin users from the public ledger.

Etc..

No way for Bitcoin to generate an income. It must be a currency, else it has no intrinsic value.

[AnonyMint]

Um what?

Look at my sig - I am a programmer.  In my little niche of MMO bots, my products are considered the best in the world.

So then why do you assume we can't program a better coin design?

You know that software is highly unlimited.  The creative mind is the only limit.

My business is illegal in China.  Our last Chinese agent was arrested and is awaiting trial.  We now use Bitcoin to sell in China.  As such, Bitcoin is a currency and my business falls into the "locked out of the mainsteam economy" as far as exporting to China is concerned.  The value of Bitcoin could fall back to less than $1 and it would not affect my use of it as a currency.

Okay good you found a niche use of Bitcoin. But that is not helping make Bitcoin a currency for the masses who need a currency to buy food, to pay bills, etc.. every day stuff.

We have looked at the definition of Ponzi and of Pyramid Schemes.  We are agreed that Bitcoin is neither as its used as a currency right now and works fine.

No we don't agree. 99% of the market cap of Bitcoin is for investment gains and not for spending.

Thus there is only 1% intrinsic value as a currency (or something roughly in that range, maybe only 0.01%).

What exactly are you hoping an altcoin will do for me to justify setting up new shops and trying to persuade Chinese users to use it to buy my software?

It will prevent the future price from collapsing to a low intrinsic value which in Bitcoin is 1% or 0.01% of its current value.

By distributing the coin to the masses for mining, to drive merchants to accept it for everything.

And it will do one more thing which helps you.

Bitcoin is sending the coin rewards for mining to 0 over time. Thus transaction fees must rise a lot to compensate for the loss of coin rewards. Thus in the future, you may not be able to cost effectively use Bitcoin for transactions, because the fees will be so high.

I propose to keep the coin rewards (but not too high) forever and don't allow ASICs to mine only PCs (personal computers), so that we distribute the coin to the masses who already have a PC. And so the merchants will become so numerous.

And so we replace the dollar. And we make a beautiful world.

Actually I think more of parallel economy to the dollar, not replace it, but replace much of it. Much more of it than Bitcoin can.

[glub0x]

So what back twitter? If everybody wants to sell their tweeter stock, what would be the value of a tweeter stock?

I wrote on page 1:

4. ... This is why ponzi schemes are so incredibly evil and dangerous. This is different from a stock, because a stock has intrinsic value to due earnings, profit, cash-on-hand, talent of management, talent of employees, contracts, etc..

Tweeter as more debt than asset then would the value be 0 as your exemple sugest? Clearly not. A tweeter bond would have NO value as if nobody sells, nobody buys!
Would tweeter stop to be if nobody was
Willing to buy a tweeter bond? No idea, maybe

Investors see value in their existing software. That have a huge codebase already.

Their huge userbase which can be marketed to, because Twitter is not decentralized. You can't market to Bitcoin users from the public ledger.

Etc..

No way for Bitcoin to generate an income. It must be a currency, else it has no intrinsic value.

Then we agree to disagree if you think investor invest in tweeter for any other reason than increasing or protecting their wealth.

[JackMehoff]

So what back twitter? If everybody wants to sell their tweeter stock, what would be the value of a tweeter stock?

I wrote on page 1:

4. ... This is why ponzi schemes are so incredibly evil and dangerous. This is different from a stock, because a stock has intrinsic value to due earnings, profit, cash-on-hand, talent of management, talent of employees, contracts, etc..

Tweeter as more debt than asset then would the value be 0 as your exemple sugest? Clearly not. A tweeter bond would have NO value as if nobody sells, nobody buys!
Would tweeter stop to be if nobody was
Willing to buy a tweeter bond? No idea, maybe

Investors see value in their existing software. That have a huge codebase already.

Their huge userbase which can be marketed to, because Twitter is not decentralized. You can't market to Bitcoin users from the public ledger.

Etc..

No way for Bitcoin to generate an income. It must be a currency, else it has no intrinsic value.

You assume that Bitcoins are actually/ will be mined to be spent.

One would argue by recent hoarding by Chinese, Bitcoins will end up more like a digital gold, a wealth hoarder, a finite supply yet ability to transact at low cost, so with built in benefits.

Gold has no intrinsic value either per se, it is not valued by how much electricity it conducts, however for something to have intrinsic value, it needs to carry moral value first, imo.

You could argue the mere fact the bitcoin has no interference from the Government (at this stage) that it morally has substance, therefore it does have intrinsic value to the current holder/hoarder.

 

 

 

[AnonyMint]

So what back twitter? If everybody wants to sell their tweeter stock, what would be the value of a tweeter stock?

I wrote on page 1:

4. ... This is why ponzi schemes are so incredibly evil and dangerous. This is different from a stock, because a stock has intrinsic value to due earnings, profit, cash-on-hand, talent of management, talent of employees, contracts, etc..

Tweeter as more debt than asset then would the value be 0 as your exemple sugest? Clearly not. A tweeter bond would have NO value as if nobody sells, nobody buys!
Would tweeter stop to be if nobody was
Willing to buy a tweeter bond? No idea, maybe

Investors see value in their existing software. That have a huge codebase already.

Their huge userbase which can be marketed to, because Twitter is not decentralized. You can't market to Bitcoin users from the public ledger.

Etc..

No way for Bitcoin to generate an income. It must be a currency, else it has no intrinsic value.

Then we agree to disagree if you think investor invest in tweeter for any other reason than increasing or protecting their wealth.

I didn't disagree with that.

I said the value can't go to 0, because there is a significant intrinsic value backing it up.

If the estimates of its intrinsic value are too high, then the investors are wrong.

The Bitcoin investors are egregiously overestimating the intrinsic value of Bitcoin. The currency use is a very tiny fraction of the market cap, and can't increase as fast as the market cap is increasing.

Whereas Twitter has billion users I think, and can send display advertising to all of them to generate revenue. That is a significant intrinsic  value, despite being in debt to develop that.

[AnonyMint]

So what back twitter? If everybody wants to sell their tweeter stock, what would be the value of a tweeter stock?

I wrote on page 1:

4. ... This is why ponzi schemes are so incredibly evil and dangerous. This is different from a stock, because a stock has intrinsic value to due earnings, profit, cash-on-hand, talent of management, talent of employees, contracts, etc..

Tweeter as more debt than asset then would the value be 0 as your exemple sugest? Clearly not. A tweeter bond would have NO value as if nobody sells, nobody buys!
Would tweeter stop to be if nobody was
Willing to buy a tweeter bond? No idea, maybe

Investors see value in their existing software. That have a huge codebase already.

Their huge userbase which can be marketed to, because Twitter is not decentralized. You can't market to Bitcoin users from the public ledger.

Etc..

No way for Bitcoin to generate an income. It must be a currency, else it has no intrinsic value.

You assume that Bitcoins are actually/ will be mined to be spent.

I can actually prove they will be spent if they were mined with CPU-only instead.

1. Masses will download and mine even when the coins returned are worth much less than the electricity consumed. Because it will be too small to notice on their electric bill.

2. Thus professional miners will be gone.

3. Masses spend because they don't have much. Even if they save it for a while, eventually the value is large enough they spend it. Middle class spend a much higher % of their income on personal needs than rich businessmen investors do.

One would argue by recent hoarding by Chinese, Bitcoins will end up more like a digital gold, a wealth hoarder, a finite supply yet ability to transact at low cost, so with built in benefits.

Indeed that is the problem with Bitcoin. You are making my point for me.

Gold has no intrinsic value either per se, it is not valued by how much electricity it conducts, however for something to have intrinsic value, it needs to carry moral value first, imo.

Everything tangible has some intrinsic value. Gold has properties that are extremely unique and can't be replicated out of thin air.

Altcoins can be created every day, and if one is better than Bitcoin, it will expand Bitcoin's effective supply of coins. THis hasn't happened yet, but it will soon. Mark my word.

You could argue the mere fact the bitcoin has no interference from the Government (at this stage) that it morally has substance, therefore it does have intrinsic value to the current holder/hoarder.

Fuzzy perceptions are made to be disappointed.

Government is only going to allow Bitcoin if they can control it. And they can control it. I have even explained how they can take it over using Amazon.

And they can take it over because they can control every person who buys and sells it via AML and KYC and taxation.

And other ways...

Pipe dreams are made to be broken.

There are solutions to those issues, but Bitcoin does not and will not have the solutions.

[paratox]

I have to agree, that bitcoin has dynamics which resemble a pyramid scheme. But that would change, as soon as you are able to pay all your bills and taxes with bitcoin and earn them directly without the need to convert to fiat somewhere along the transaction chain.

For this there needs to be mainstream adoption, so IMO the only possibility for BTC to survive as currency is that all participants follow the mentality "One for all, all for one".

Honestly, I would like to believe it, if there wasn't so much greed in human nature....