Bitcoin Ponzi scheme or not

[HYPERfuture]

Bitcoin is like a ponzi scheme.
No new comers, the price is falling ,right?

More new comers, the price is raising  same for HYIPs. they last as long there are new comers.
yes, the Bitcoin system itself can last but useless if nobody is using it.

Now, Bitcoin is used for cyber crimes and speculative investment(short period of time).

Seriously are you guys getting paid for this or something? I don't see why people would waste their life on a forum just to trash talk something all day.

There more people using bitcoin than ever before and the price of a bitcoin is irrelevant when it comes to the technology.

You seem vexed.

I'm not vexed just annoyed by all the sockpuppets here saying things that ARE NOT TRUE. If anyone represents something false as true it annoys me no matter what the subject matter is.

World Bank says bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/world-bank-bitcoin-not-ponzi-scheme/

...
When there will not be any new fouls to "invest" in Bitcoin, the system will collapse.
...

Bitcoin will not collapse if nobody "invests". It does not need investors. It works well regardless of the value of a bitcoin.

This is also true bitcoin is first and foremost a technology. People buying bitcoin has zero effect on the technology of the blockchain functioning as it should. The idea of blockchain is a primary technological innovation.

who said something about the Bitcoin tech? it's like you said "that HYIPs is using PHP for its website". So what? PHP is used for many application.

Bitcoin system is a bubble as it is now. Yes, there are a lot of interests around it because some people make a lot of money from new comers but it's a bubble in the end.

That's why "you" need to appear in the news, conferences and so on.

What would this "blockchain " without the new so called "investors", without money? why do you need the Bitcoin to be "traded"?
make  1 BTC = 1 USD and done. no price fluctuation

No, you need the price fluctuation in order to get new fouls otherwise will be like any other e-currency.

php is a relatively old technology and people who participate in HYIP's run from php script scam websites do not participate in php technology in the same way bitcoin users do with the blockchain. The blockchain has many uses and is still in its infancy. A php script scam website is not participating in changing technology in any way whatsoever. Bitcoin services, major investments in many bitcoin projects, and the blockchain itself is an unprecedented technology.

Charles Hoskinson says Bitcoin-related technology is about to revolutionise property rights, banking, remote education, private law and crowd-funding for the developing world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97ufCT6lQcY

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnvillasenor/2014/05/12/the-future-of-innovation-five-things-we-can-learn-from-bitcoin/

https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

There are much more articles out there but I am not going to waste any more time on this joke of a thread.

There are many uses for bitcoin blockchain.

I don't need to appear in the news at all. Bitcoin is a decentralized technology and no one individual owns it. If you are thinking of bitcoin as a company shows how little you understand it. It is nothing "like any other e-currency" at all.

The technology has everything to do with it. Bitcoin is at its core an unprecedented technology and even the World Bank agrees it is not a Ponzi but of course you must be right  

[mayax]

Bitcoin as technology is OK but Bitcoin advertisers want more than a software platform. They want to make money by saying that Bitcoin can replace money. How can replace money when Bitcoin is LIMITED?  what happens next?
2000 people own 75% of all the Bitcoins. Who are these people? tell me that are miners and "investors"  hahaha
Yes, "you" Bitcoin fans you need to appear in the news otherwise new comers won't come and where will you sell your "precious" Bitcoin?

A "currency" was created out of thin air and now people are spending funds for one reason: the belief that some other fool will pay more for it later.

Little by little it will just atrophy, because nobody is really using it. The big kids will get out, and the little guy sitting on one, two, or, sadly, many more bitcoins will lose it all.

[HYPERfuture]

Bitcoin as technology is OK but Bitcoin advertisers want more than a software platform. They want to make money by saying that Bitcoin can replace money. How can replace money when Bitcoin is LIMITED?  what happens next?
2000 people own 75% of all the Bitcoins. Who are these people? tell me that are miners and "investors"  hahaha

A "currency" was created out of thin air and now people are spending funds each for one reason: the belief that some other fool will pay more for it later.

Bitcoin is "attracting hundreds of startup companies and over $100 million in venture capital investments" http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnvillasenor/2014/05/12/the-future-of-innovation-five-things-we-can-learn-from-bitcoin/

This is because of its potential and use cases as an unprecedented technology.

Bitcoin is divisible down to a satoshi or 0.00000001 BTC so this problem has already been solved http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/114/what-is-a-satoshi It could even be divided down further if necessary

As adoption keeps growing I agree that hopefully bitcoin will, and should, become more evenly spread amongst more users. I am not sure of the exact statistics right now off the top of my head. But it is important to note that barely any of the coins Satoshi originally mined have been touched which seems to show he was not motivated by money.

The Internet was created out of thin air too and look at the role it plays in our lives now. Early risk takers who invested heavily in the Internet also received great rewards for their vision. For example Elon Musk and Paypal

[jbreher]

What is this crap? The whole forum has been over this many times, it is not a ponzi scheme. ...

Ironically, that 'Paybase' -- with which you are debasing your credibility by whoring out your sig space -- shows all the classic evidence of being a Ponzi.

[jbreher]

Answer: No.
Explanation: You're a fool.

Sorry, LaudaM. If I gotta bust kingcolex's chops for advertising a Ponzi in their sig, I gotta bust yours too. Have you really looked into the GawMiners empire that you are shilling, or do you really value your credibility that lowly?

[odolvlobo]

2000 people own 75% of all the Bitcoins. Who are these people? tell me that are miners and "investors"  hahaha
Yes, "you" Bitcoin fans you need to appear in the news otherwise new comers won't come and where will you sell your "precious" Bitcoin?

A "currency" was created out of thin air and now people are spending funds for one reason: the belief that some other fool will pay more for it later.

I agree that far too many people are spending too much time worrying about the price. Whether a bitcoin is worth $1 or $1000, it works the same way.

But, I would like to address the "created out of thin air" issue that people like to bring up. The fact is that all money is created out of thin air -- even gold. The difference between Bitcoin (and gold) and fiat currencies is that while they are all "created out thin air", the supply of bitcoins is not unlimited. This is an important advantage because the the value of a bitcoin cannot be diluted to nothing, unlike fiat currencies.

[mayax]

2000 people own 75% of all the Bitcoins. Who are these people? tell me that are miners and "investors"  hahaha
Yes, "you" Bitcoin fans you need to appear in the news otherwise new comers won't come and where will you sell your "precious" Bitcoin?

A "currency" was created out of thin air and now people are spending funds for one reason: the belief that some other fool will pay more for it later.

I agree that far too many people are spending too much time worrying about the price. Whether a bitcoin is worth $1 or $1000, it works the same way.

But, I would like to address the "created out of thin air" issue that people like to bring up. The fact is that all money is created out of thin air -- even gold. The difference between Bitcoin (and gold) and fiat currencies is that while they are all "created out thin air", the supply of bitcoins is not unlimited. This is an important advantage because the the value of a bitcoin cannot be diluted to nothing, unlike fiat currencies.

you should ask yourself who are those who are controlling Bitcoin. Make 1 BTC = 1 USD and nobody will use it. I know it has started from almost zero but these days are gone now.

The only thing that it gives Bitcoin value, it is the perception.

Someone owns "coins" and he wants that this Bitcoin to have value in order to sell it for USD.   it's very simple.

There is a gang who is controlling the system even it's saying it is decentralized

Bistamp is related with Ripple, Bitcoin Foundation and others. Their shareholders are shareholders for many other bitcoin companies.

i think they will cover the loss because the scandal will be TOO BIG and it will involve all these companies and Bitcoin will crush.

So, they are a gang who is manipulating the market how they want and each of them are taking a piece of the cake named Bitcoin.
Proofs are everywhere : fake transactions, bitcoin price is given by few companies who are controlled by the same people.

Bitfinex, Coinbase + other many small exchangers are related with Bitstamp. Bitstamp is processing their orders.

You must be blind to not see these facts OR you don't want to see because you take advantage of this situation.

Why do you need new comers and why all this buzz in media if you don't really need new comers with new funds?

[Flashman]

The only thing that it gives Bitcoin value, it is the perception.

That goes for anything. What's so fucking hilarious is that people think scraps of paper have innate value.

[mayax]

The only thing that it gives Bitcoin value, it is the perception.

That goes for anything. What's so fucking hilarious is that people think scraps of paper have innate value.

the paper money have intrinsic value. your gov give value,the assets, the whole economy is based on the paper money.

Who gives value to Bitcoin? Propaganda and the new fools.

Bitcoin is developed allowing the creator and his friends to easily mine approx 1/3rd of the total potential supply before going public.
Bitcoin start trading and immediately jump in price due to limited supply.
Many fools jump on the bandwagon buying expensive hardware to mine  given the high price per BTC.

Many websites appear that add the tag exchanges to them to give the air of authority that suck in entrants by producing graphs and data that gives the illusion of rising prices and volume of trading when in reality they are nothing more than Ponzi scams

[Aemon]

I don't understand how it could be a ponzi?  From what I understand about Ponzi's isn't it when you get people to invest, and pay people back with the invested money from other people?

On top of that, I don't understand why people like to do Ponzi's, they don't gain anything from them?  Technically speaking if they give back all of the money they invested to the early people, they don't gain anything from it.  Most of the time I realize they probably steal money from people but an honest ponzi the owner wouldn't make a dime.

[koshgel]

I don't understand how it could be a ponzi?  From what I understand about Ponzi's isn't it when you get people to invest, and pay people back with the invested money from other people?

On top of that, I don't understand why people like to do Ponzi's, they don't gain anything from them?  Technically speaking if they give back all of the money they invested to the early people, they don't gain anything from it.  Most of the time I realize they probably steal money from people but an honest ponzi the owner wouldn't make a dime.

That's the truth but greed and a quick buck/BTC is worth the crazy risk.

That greed is seen by the people who want to use Bitcoin to get rich quick but it's definitely not a ponzi scheme

[HYPERfuture]

The only thing that it gives Bitcoin value, it is the perception.

That goes for anything. What's so fucking hilarious is that people think scraps of paper have innate value.

the paper money have intrinsic value. your gov give value,the assets, the whole economy is based on the paper money.

Who gives value to Bitcoin? Propaganda and the new fools.

Bitcoin is developed allowing the creator and his friends to easily mine approx 1/3rd of the total potential supply before going public.
Bitcoin start trading and immediately jump in price due to limited supply.
Many fools jump on the bandwagon buying expensive hardware to mine  given the high price per BTC.

Many websites appear that add the tag exchanges to them to give the air of authority that suck in entrants by producing graphs and data that gives the illusion of rising prices and volume of trading when in reality they are nothing more than Ponzi scams

The first bitcoin developer Satoshi himself has barely touched his mined coins. So that doesn't really support your theory ...

The bitcoin ecosystem, as a decentralized phenomenon has grown organically over time.

I would say the growth of bitcoin can be seen as a process of emergence from complex adaptive systems theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

"Goldstein initially defined emergence as: "the arising of novel and coherent structures (e.g bitcoin), patterns (e.g blockchain) and properties (e.g uses of bitcoin and blockchain) during the process of self-organization (e.g growth of mining and bitcoin ecosystem) in complex systems (e.g internet and technological change)".

[galbros]

New investors do not pay off old investors to enter bitcoin, therefore it is not a ponzi scheme.

Something like the U.S. Social Security retirement program is a ponzi scheme.

[odolvlobo]

The only thing that it gives Bitcoin value, it is the perception.

That goes for anything. What's so fucking hilarious is that people think scraps of paper have innate value.

the paper money have intrinsic value. your gov give value,the assets, the whole economy is based on the paper money.
Who gives value to Bitcoin? Propaganda and the new fools.
Bitcoin is developed allowing the creator and his friends to easily mine approx 1/3rd of the total potential supply before going public.
Bitcoin start trading and immediately jump in price due to limited supply.
Many fools jump on the bandwagon buying expensive hardware to mine  given the high price per BTC.
Many websites appear that add the tag exchanges to them to give the air of authority that suck in entrants by producing graphs and data that gives the illusion of rising prices and volume of trading when in reality they are nothing more than Ponzi scams

Why should anyone listen to you? You have demonstrated that you don't know what a Ponzi scheme is, you don't know what "intrinsic value" means, and you really don't know very much about Bitcoin. What do you know about? Maybe you should stick to that.

[rax]

the paper money have intrinsic value. your gov give value,the assets, the whole economy is based on the paper money.

Lol. A jug of fresh, drinkable water has more "intrinsic value" than a ton of printed paper  

Who gives value to Bitcoin? Propaganda and the new fools.

Bitcoin is developed allowing the creator and his friends to easily mine approx 1/3rd of the total potential supply before going public.
Bitcoin start trading and immediately jump in price due to limited supply.
Many fools jump on the bandwagon buying expensive hardware to mine  given the high price per BTC.

Many websites appear that add the tag exchanges to them to give the air of authority that suck in entrants by producing graphs and data that gives the illusion of rising prices and volume of trading when in reality they are nothing more than Ponzi scams

Let me ask you a question. Do you think that stocks are Ponzi scams? What about IPOs, where the owners can "easily mine approx 1/3rd of the total potential supply before going public"?

[HYPERfuture]

the paper money have intrinsic value. your gov give value,the assets, the whole economy is based on the paper money.

Lol. A jug of fresh, drinkable water has more "intrinsic value" than a ton of printed paper  

Who gives value to Bitcoin? Propaganda and the new fools.

Bitcoin is developed allowing the creator and his friends to easily mine approx 1/3rd of the total potential supply before going public.
Bitcoin start trading and immediately jump in price due to limited supply.
Many fools jump on the bandwagon buying expensive hardware to mine  given the high price per BTC.

Many websites appear that add the tag exchanges to them to give the air of authority that suck in entrants by producing graphs and data that gives the illusion of rising prices and volume of trading when in reality they are nothing more than Ponzi scams

Let me ask you a question. Do you think that stocks are Ponzi scams? What about IPOs, where the owners can "easily mine approx 1/3rd of the total potential supply before going public"?

Stock market IPOs are actually a 100% premine in fiat   So far cryptocurrency is the only radically alternative wealth distribution model that has worked.

[rax]

the paper money have intrinsic value. your gov give value,the assets, the whole economy is based on the paper money.

Lol. A jug of fresh, drinkable water has more "intrinsic value" than a ton of printed paper  

Who gives value to Bitcoin? Propaganda and the new fools.

Bitcoin is developed allowing the creator and his friends to easily mine approx 1/3rd of the total potential supply before going public.
Bitcoin start trading and immediately jump in price due to limited supply.
Many fools jump on the bandwagon buying expensive hardware to mine  given the high price per BTC.

Many websites appear that add the tag exchanges to them to give the air of authority that suck in entrants by producing graphs and data that gives the illusion of rising prices and volume of trading when in reality they are nothing more than Ponzi scams

Let me ask you a question. Do you think that stocks are Ponzi scams? What about IPOs, where the owners can "easily mine approx 1/3rd of the total potential supply before going public"?

Stock market IPOs are actually a 100% premine in fiat  So far cryptocurrency is the only radically alternative wealth distribution model that has worked.

Lol, true that. In this light it really sounds like an awful proposition  

[mayax]

the paper money have intrinsic value. your gov give value,the assets, the whole economy is based on the paper money.

Lol. A jug of fresh, drinkable water has more "intrinsic value" than a ton of printed paper  

Who gives value to Bitcoin? Propaganda and the new fools.

Bitcoin is developed allowing the creator and his friends to easily mine approx 1/3rd of the total potential supply before going public.
Bitcoin start trading and immediately jump in price due to limited supply.
Many fools jump on the bandwagon buying expensive hardware to mine  given the high price per BTC.

Many websites appear that add the tag exchanges to them to give the air of authority that suck in entrants by producing graphs and data that gives the illusion of rising prices and volume of trading when in reality they are nothing more than Ponzi scams

Let me ask you a question. Do you think that stocks are Ponzi scams? What about IPOs, where the owners can "easily mine approx 1/3rd of the total potential supply before going public"?

are you happy if I use "speculative bubble or collective delusion"  instead of ponzi?

Bitcoin foundation is the key and its founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, who is estimated to have mined 1 million bitcoins in the currency’s early days. His stash is spread across many wallets. He pocketed the early bitcoins and laughed.. ha ha ha

47 individuals own 28.9% of the approximately 12 million Bitcoins in existence so far. Another 880 own 21.5%, meaning 927 people control half of the entire market cap of the digital currency. Another 10,000 individuals control about a quarter.

And the rest  (around a million) get the crumbs (700,000 are out of circulation, whether through government seizure or people losing their passwords).  

So, you are not so many people. around of 1 mil all together. With all your propaganda, advertising and many other things ONLY 1 mil. people. I think Zeek Rewards had more members without any conference and media )

Question: why didn't the Bitcoin foundation gave to any Bitcoin wallet a fix amount of bitcoins at the time they started this ....project? why do you need the fiat currency if you say that it's so bad?

[flipstyle]

Bitcoin is like a ponzi scheme.
No new comers, the price is falling ,right?

More new comers, the price is raising  same for HYIPs. they last as long there are new comers.
yes, the Bitcoin system itself can last but useless if nobody is using it.

Now, Bitcoin is used for cyber crimes and speculative investment(short period of time).

Seriously are you guys getting paid for this or something? I don't see why people would waste their life on a forum just to trash talk something all day.

There more people using bitcoin than ever before and the price of a bitcoin is irrelevant when it comes to the technology.

You seem vexed.

I'm not vexed just annoyed by all the sockpuppets here saying things that ARE NOT TRUE. If anyone represents something false as true it annoys me no matter what the subject matter is.

World Bank says bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/world-bank-bitcoin-not-ponzi-scheme/

...
When there will not be any new fouls to "invest" in Bitcoin, the system will collapse.
...

Bitcoin will not collapse if nobody "invests". It does not need investors. It works well regardless of the value of a bitcoin.

This is also true bitcoin is first and foremost a technology. People buying bitcoin has zero effect on the technology of the blockchain functioning as it should. The idea of blockchain is a primary technological innovation.

who said something about the Bitcoin tech? it's like you said "that HYIPs is using PHP for its website". So what? PHP is used for many application.

Bitcoin system is a bubble as it is now. Yes, there are a lot of interests around it because some people make a lot of money from new comers but it's a bubble in the end.

That's why "you" need to appear in the news, conferences and so on.

What would this "blockchain " without the new so called "investors", without money? why do you need the Bitcoin to be "traded"?
make  1 BTC = 1 USD and done. no price fluctuation

No, you need the price fluctuation in order to get new fouls otherwise will be like any other e-currency.

php is a relatively old technology and people who participate in HYIP's run from php script scam websites do not participate in php technology in the same way bitcoin users do with the blockchain. The blockchain has many uses and is still in its infancy. A php script scam website is not participating in changing technology in any way whatsoever. Bitcoin services, major investments in many bitcoin projects, and the blockchain itself is an unprecedented technology.

Charles Hoskinson says Bitcoin-related technology is about to revolutionise property rights, banking, remote education, private law and crowd-funding for the developing world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97ufCT6lQcY

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnvillasenor/2014/05/12/the-future-of-innovation-five-things-we-can-learn-from-bitcoin/

https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

There are much more articles out there but I am not going to waste any more time on this joke of a thread.

There are many uses for bitcoin blockchain.

I don't need to appear in the news at all. Bitcoin is a decentralized technology and no one individual owns it. If you are thinking of bitcoin as a company shows how little you understand it. It is nothing "like any other e-currency" at all.

The technology has everything to do with it. Bitcoin is at its core an unprecedented technology and even the World Bank agrees it is not a Ponzi but of course you must be right  

For every arbitrary youtube vid/article you quote in your one-sided shill argument, I could quote another 10 negative articles outlining why this is no more than a speculative bubble that will soon collapse.

Look.  I'm not doubting that the bitcoin fundamentals were quite impressive.  In an 'idealistic' society, it would have flourished 10-100 fold by now, and perhaps been the next 'tablet computer' of payment processing.

However, majority of the technology fell into the wrong hands, casting a negative cloud over it that could not and cannot be remedied.

Every single one of the biggest and supposedly most trusted exchanges all go down due to hacks/scams...new coin ipo scams galore, and basically every other perspective new start up involving some form of scamming in one way or another.

Then there's Silkroad 1 and 2. 

I'm not even going to include the amount of p2p scamming that goes on on an individual basis on forums either. 

With all this negative press, do you think any new large scale corporations are going to actually spend time and money to implement it? Come on dude, this is common sense.  Take off your rose colored blinders.  Without new adoption...it's going nowhere...unless you're happy with just trading worthless coins to joe bloe in India like hoarding Farmville money...maybe that's your thing.

You're in denial man.  It's a burning/sinking ship..and it will take you down with it.  So be it though.  So long as you're 'happy' with the fundamentals, it shouldn't matter if you lose every penny you spent, amirite? That's a great way of looking at things though  

[rax]

are you happy if I use "speculative bubble or collective delusion"  instead of ponzi?

Of course I am, because an speculative bubble and a Ponzi scheme are not the same thing. Like, at all.

Bitcoin foundation is the key and its founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, who is estimated to have mined 1 million bitcoins in the currency’s early days. His stash is spread across many wallets. He pocketed the early bitcoins and laughed.. ha ha ha

At the time Nakamoto pocketed his million coins he didn't laugh because guess what: they weren't worth a damned piece of shit. The only thing he did was launch an open experiment of a new kind of sound, digital money. He published a paper explaining how it all worked. He released the node's code. You could talk to him, spot bugs, send him patches. You could mine for worthless coins. At this stage just a handful of crypto-anarchists played with them as if they were exchanging peas or little river stones with each other. During roughly these first 2 years they were worth ZILCH, you can check it yourself. After all this time the coins started to gain some slight value due to sheer public interest, but before this point you could get a shitload of 'em for free using your crappy computer's CPU or simply asking "pretty please".

I don't know if he actually envisioned any of this and I guess we'll never know, but he was clearly not "premining valuable coins to dump them to idiots on day 1". Of course, this is actually the case of most other altcoins, whose creators just prey on fresh get-rich-quick fools who feel like they missed the Bitcoin train.

47 individuals own 28.9% of the approximately 12 million Bitcoins in existence so far. Another 880 own 21.5%, meaning 927 people control half of the entire market cap of the digital currency. Another 10,000 individuals control about a quarter.

And the rest  (around a million) get the crumbs (700,000 are out of circulation, whether through government seizure or people losing their passwords).  

So, you are not so many people. around of 1 mil all together. With all your propaganda, advertising and many other things ONLY 1 mil. people. I think Zeek Rewards had more members without any conference and media )

Question: why didn't the Bitcoin foundation gave to any Bitcoin wallet a fix amount of bitcoins at the time they started this ....project? why do you need the fiat currency if you say that it's so bad?

Why? Because SN was a God-like creature and not a dumbass troll as you are, that's why. If all wallets started with some coins in it then bitcoins would not be sound money and they'd still be worth nothing 6 years on (if they still existed at all). Alternatively, if only the X first wallets had coins in it then early adopters could have just created lots of them an claim most coins either way. Not that you can't create such an altcoin if you feel so inclined...