How do I convince people that Bitcoin isn't a financial pyramid?

[Trinx01]

It is hard to explain to people about cryptocurrency if they don't want to know things about it, there are a lot of people who don't believe in bitcoin because of thinking that for us to earn money, we have to work it hard, we have to work in real life so we could get paid, that is what the people in our country believe in their lives. So if you are going to explain to them about bitcoin and how can we go with bitcoin, they sometimes get uninterested in it, I know this because I already notice and recognized some of my friends about it when I am talking about cryptocurrency to them.

You can't argue with a no-coiner or one who does not believe in what the good and bad of crypto can do for the current economy.

That's true, it is hard to argue with that kind of people, those who don't even try to listen to other's side.

[Distinctin]

It is hard to explain to people about cryptocurrency if they don't want to know things about it, there are a lot of people who don't believe in bitcoin because of thinking that for us to earn money, we have to work it hard, we have to work in real life so we could get paid, that is what the people in our country believe in their lives. So if you are going to explain to them about bitcoin and how can we go with bitcoin, they sometimes get uninterested in it, I know this because I already notice and recognized some of my friends about it when I am talking about cryptocurrency to them.

You can't argue with a no-coiner or one who does not believe in what the good and bad of crypto can do for the current economy.

That's true, it is hard to argue with that kind of people, those who don't even try to listen to other's side.

And that is more likely not believable if they don't see it with you. It sometimes to think that many people ask you back, does it gives you a better life? They are eying you at first before they will believe you and that is why we should have to prove to them that they wrong and so they change their mind, otherwise, they keep negative and tells you it was just a scam thing.

That is why I don't tell them and I don't give them a reason to blame me if the situation will fail or when are in crisis. Let's wait for the moment that they will come to us, and have them explain as this is a sign that they show some interest and willing to listen to us.

[qwertyup23]

Based personally from my experience, you actually don't convince them in the first place.

People who are closed-minded, usually the elderly who are used to the traditional methods, can be a pain in the ass to convince about cryptocurrencies. Even if you show them actual results and data, if they choose not to listen, then they wouldn't really do anything about it. The only way that you can convince them is if they personally stake or try investing into such in order for them to realize the potential of investing into bitcoin.

Again, you cannot convince someone who is not interested in the first place as it would only result to a waste of time. Just let them be and let them personally be interested into it.

[Altcoinsintel]

Way back 2013 or 2014, I also believed that it is something of pyramid scam as there are many personalities that says so, and I'm a dumb high schooler that time so I believed it. But I think we passed that age as many High-end personalities who are new to btc that invests in BTC. So I think that investments speaks to it itself. If it is a pyramid then those Billionaires are part of the bottom part of the pyramid or something?, it doesn't fit right.

I think that in most adaptations of the pyramid scheme it is the wealthy that are targetted the most, as the machine requires more investors and more funds on each level. Without accessing funds from the wealthiest or reaching a worldwide scale this kind of scheme collapse very early. Being a billionaire doesn't mean they are smarter and more intelligent to recognize a scam. I would say that the main trait of billionaires is being ruthless and not highly intelligent as you suggest.

Having said that, just because someone may try to put words I didn't say, I don't think that Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme. Having fixed supply means that as long as it will keep having interest and adoption it will keep having investors joining just for the price, it will then create a temporary parabolic rise and a top that will take a few years to climb back again, after it will have proven it deserves it. If investors find nothing interesting in Bitcoin during that time, then it will not be easy to recover. Until now it did that many times, going from zero to hero and always makes yearly higher lows.

[dohh]

Firstly, please fix your quotations. You're doing your best to make your posts look smart and can't even place proper code tags.

Secondly, you're in denial. When you first read about Bitcoin it looked like a scam to you, so you tried hard to prove it is a scam, while it was growing and becoming more popular, but then you thought to yourself: it's too late to change my mind now, I'll keep going, it can't be real. Now you're stuck in this awkward situation where famous people are investing in Bitcoin and you're that grumpy guy in the corner who refuses to join the party or leave and find other entertainment. Instead, you're standing there alone, mumbling: you're all stupid, you'll all lose, I'm the only one who sees through it all.  

Thirdly, who is scamming here? It's a free market where people are free to buy and sell at any point. Ask people who bought a month ago and sold this week if they feel scammed. Ask people who bought a year ago if they feel scammed, ask people who bought 3 years ago if they feel scammed... I could go on.

You, guys surely love to abuse logic in your arguments.

Firstly: you bring a new statement into the argument, then you fall in love with Ad Hominem. While you were right about me using the tags incorrectly, pointing this out does nothing for the argument, just buckle it up. If you wanted to make a good argument, you could have explained, how does halving NOT guarantee the pyramidal distribution of the coins. Or if it does, how it is not the same or at least very similar to a pyramid scheme.

Secondly: You just make an accusation. Based on my argument only, you have no information about whether I am in denial or not. You just abuse that your kind here outnumbers me and you focus to put a label on me: "in a denial". Instead, you could have shown me, how much of BTCs are really used or how else did the people who are happy with BTC get their REAL bucks out of it? Please note, I am taking off of the premises, that the majority of BTCs price is "produced" by moving coins around between one´s own wallets and using USDT, not real USD when "pricing" it. Do you understand what I claim? I claim, that people are fooled into the scheme with their real money. BTC itself is pumped and dumped all time. And communities like this do their share in pumping.

Thirdly: That is a philosophical question and is based on a backward knowledge. There was another assumpion about me, by someone else here, that was similar. He assumed, I must have suffered with bad decisions and now I am just salty. Let me ask this: if you were offered to join into a pyramid scheme early on and you were guaranteed to make money out of it with no risk, would you do it? Your backward look at the price of BTC asks the same question. Would you be OK with, if I was right, BTC was a scheme and you just turned out to make money out of it? If your answer is "YES", then I am okay with that and we can call it a day. If your answer is "NO", then we can take a deeper look into the statements, how we can prove that BTCs price is here: https://coin360.com/coin/tether-usdt

And then we can see how we prove, that "institutional investors" DO NOT buy Tether to buy BTC. USDT is just printed, because more of it is needed to keep the transactions between one and himself going.

[CarnagexD]

first, let them be educated about how supply and demand works, basic economics type of stuff. And then tell them more about the technology and the discipline behind bitcoin's existence, basically explaining to them that this is digital money, that just happened to be very expensive and so is then used to earn, I used this type of lecture and so far people with prejudice about bitcoin within my family are now open to learn about it while some are already buying their bitcoins.

I stopped convincing people that Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme. I used to that when I was new in crypto and when I started earning through bounties and trading. However, the more you convenience and try to explain to other people, it always falls into deaf's ears. If they will not believe it, it is their loss and not mine. Some of the friends that I introduced BTC to as early as 2013 are now sending me DMs on how to start. Well, it may not be too late but you have missed a couple of years of income if you would've started a while back.

There's that, however. I am as eager convincing people as I was way back in 2017, there's will definitely be people who are close-minded, but just like sales, you can just simply cross them out and then carry on with letting people know about bitcoin, especially now that more and more million dollar companies are investing in it, we would need a lot of small-time investors like us to counterbalance this.

[Yatsan]

You do not have to certainly do too much effort on convincing people that Bitcoin is not a financial pyramid for once they have decided or get curious about Bitcoin itself, surely they will get to know more the reality behind Bitcoin. Certainly the best way on how you can deal with people's doubt is to simply make them understand the real concept of Bitcoin by educating them and showing them proofs based on your experience of what Bitcoin is really all about. Then it is up to them if they will believe you or not. Do not push convincing other people to think the same way we are doing. Just educate them and they can further discover the reality about it.

[MoneyJ]

With its value , people thinks bitcoin is mainly a financial thing . But REALISTICALLY, it is a network security that is govern by thousand of decentralized miners. It is a pretty hard and expensive to hack a system like that.

[MCobian]

I once tried to convince my friends that Bitcoin is not a financial pyramid. But sometimes people don't accept input from other people, and stubborn
that his opinion is the most correct. My advice if we find the type of person like my friend, don't force it. We just need to convey the correct
information about Bitcoin, and most importantly use a good way of conveying it. Maybe we can't instantly change the minds of those who think
negatively about Bitcoin, sometimes we need time and patience to convince them.

[yazher]

If a person who has a sound mind will definitely understand if you say those words to them and they will not think anymore about Bitcoin being something like a Ponzi scheme that they've been scared of. However, some people don't really understand or they don't want to understand even though you explained it all to them. They just don't want to get involved that's all. We just need to tell them the truth if they want to know it and we will give them some honest reviews about Bitcoin the easiest way to understand as possible. After we gave them the information they needed, the rest is up to those guys if they want to invest or not.  

[Silberman]

Don't get me wrong, but I personally don't think you need to convince anyone that Bitcoin is this or that - because there is the internet and all information is public, anyone who wants can be informed at any time. Any attempt to explain Bitcoin to someone can actually act as if you are doing it for your own financial gain.

I think the same, if someone wants to think negatively of bitcoin then they are free to do it, it does not affect me at all, at the end the ones that are losing are them and not me, I am still holding my coins and I do not care what others may think about it, in fact over the years I have seen many people reversing their opinion but for the most part this only happens because they take a look at the growth of bitcoin and they want some of it and they try to get information out of me but when that happens I just tell them to look information online as I am not going to waste my time with those people.

[cheezcarls]

Usually this is what most of the misinformed people are thinking about Bitcoin as a financial pyramid. I wonder why my friend’s bank account was closed because he withdrew his Bitcoin without even aware about the bank’s rules. The reason why the bank closed his account is because whether he acquired Bitcoin in a legit or illegitimate way, they generalize Bitcoin as a scam and anyone who gets involved there will have their accounts closed and get blacklisted too. It’s because this certain bank believes that Bitcoin is a financial pyramid, not a currency.

It’s not my friend’s fault though. The bank that closed his account is kinda anti-Bitcoin. However, other banks are welcoming Bitcoin in open arms, as they rather joined the revolution than being against it.

Most of my contacts asked me about Bitcoin being a financial pyramid, and I just answer them that it’s just like stock market trading where there are no astronomical guaranteed returns, no promises of profits and the way we lose money is because of the market situation and not being exit scammed by a fraud company or so.

[mezzaluna]

2. There's no need for new recruitment
That's probably my favorite. The main reason why financial pyramids survive is that they constantly recruit new customers. Without that - the pyramid falls.
But there's absolutely no need to recruit new people for Bitcoin to function, am I right? Without new users, there'll be just redistribution of what there is among the current users, txns will still be going and the miners will have work to do. So there's no required amount of users for Bitcoin to function like there is in the pyramid. I see no potential flaws here.

This will be absolutely one of the best answers I could personally say to others. Even without recruitment, I can earn by myself but presented that being not a selfish person, I can also give the opportunity for them to earn if they want to and all they have to do is learn about Cryptocurrencies and do simple task that is easy to follow. Showing personal results of what you have gained through Cryptocurrency is another thing because seeing things can change the mind of a lot of people.

[uneng]

I just think bitcoin isn't a ponzi scheme because this product (the digital coin) has a real usage, different from ponzi schemes' products which can be an inexistent service or investment claimed as the source of the profit to be shared with others by the scammers controlling the scheme.

However I can't deny bitcoin needs large adoption to work in a sustainable way and that those on the top (early adopters and whales) are the main benefited. These are similar characteristics to ponzi schemes.

[Yamifoud]

Usually this is what most of the misinformed people are thinking about Bitcoin as a financial pyramid. I wonder why my friend’s bank account was closed because he withdrew his Bitcoin without even aware about the bank’s rules. The reason why the bank closed his account is because whether he acquired Bitcoin in a legit or illegitimate way, they generalize Bitcoin as a scam and anyone who gets involved there will have their accounts closed and get blacklisted too. It’s because this certain bank believes that Bitcoin is a financial pyramid, not a currency.

It’s not my friend’s fault though. The bank that closed his account is kinda anti-Bitcoin. However, other banks are welcoming Bitcoin in open arms, as they rather joined the revolution than being against it.

Most of my contacts asked me about Bitcoin being a financial pyramid, and I just answer them that it’s just like stock market trading where there are no astronomical guaranteed returns, no promises of profits and the way we lose money is because of the market situation and not being exit scammed by a fraud company or so.

And they are wrong telling that way because they're more scams happens in the stock market than Bitcoin. It is really hard to think how the banks hated Bitcoin so much and if they know that you are depositing money from crypto, they'll be suspected us as a sort of money laundering and fraud.
These people don't actually listen to us, they instead pushing us to accept that we are promoting a pyramid scheme. But for now, they have proven to be wrong, and besides, we've heard already some banks traded with Bitcoin.

https://www.offshorecompany.com/banking/banks-accepting-cryptocurrency/

[dohh]

With its value , people thinks bitcoin is mainly a financial thing . But REALISTICALLY, it is a network security that is govern by thousand of decentralized miners. It is a pretty hard and expensive to hack a system like that.

I´m not sure if you have understood the white paper correctly. On the final page, where the odds of cracking up the blocks are given, the numbers are not for one block, but for the hacker catching up the whole blockchain.

As you can not know, what happens inside the mining pools (they just share computing power), then REALISTICALLY there is no guarantee, that your coins stay with you. And it is far from being decentralized, by now, I would say, it is extremely centralized already.

[matjas]

I just think bitcoin isn't a ponzi scheme because this product (the digital coin) has a real usage, different from ponzi schemes' products which can be an inexistent service or investment claimed as the source of the profit to be shared with others by the scammers controlling the scheme.

However I can't deny bitcoin needs large adoption to work in a sustainable way and that those on the top (early adopters and whales) are the main benefited. These are similar characteristics to ponzi schemes.

Everyting needs a large adoption for value to grow, that shouldnt be a sign for ponzi.
As for the topic title, i wouldnt even ask that question, because usually if you have to convince someone that a project is NOT a pyramid, it usually is. I dont see a point in convincing people because i dont gain anything direclty form them.

[Pamadar]

I just think bitcoin isn't a ponzi scheme because this product (the digital coin) has a real usage, different from ponzi schemes' products which can be an inexistent service or investment claimed as the source of the profit to be shared with others by the scammers controlling the scheme.

However I can't deny bitcoin needs large adoption to work in a sustainable way and that those on the top (early adopters and whales) are the main benefited. These are similar characteristics to ponzi schemes.

Everyting needs a large adoption for value to grow, that shouldnt be a sign for ponzi.
As for the topic title, i wouldnt even ask that question, because usually if you have to convince someone that a project is NOT a pyramid, it usually is. I dont see a point in convincing people because i dont gain anything direclty form them.

Defending something that you really understand well is not hard.

Getting your point of view, sometimes people tried to expalin things with someone who are one sided, they already believing into something and they ain't willing to change thier mindsets, unlesss you are discussing thing with someone close to you and you also wanted them to benefits as how  you deal with it, giving them things to consider for the sake of learning much better.

[jerrison]

I think people are free to think whatever it is they decide to focus their energy on. Bitcoin being an alternative to regular fiat does not erase the existence of fiat (at least not immediately) as there is still financial institutions that deal with fiat rather than crypto. The idea of debating the structure of bitcoin as a pyramid scheme has no use at all. If people do not want to take advantage of the technology now, they still will in the nea future so why try to convince them. They have social media and other news media to consult in order to gather enough convincing facts.

[leea-1334]

Do not worry about convincing others. Just worry about yourself. And keep using Bitcoin and supporting it the way you would want people to use it. Really that is the best way you can go about it,,, just use it, keep using it, and when people see you doing that, then you need no other form of convincing:)