I originally gave this thread a miss as its Title was most uninviting. I see that
Wolfie has now answered the Title. But I now see that I was missing pure entertainment.
In my satoshi's worth I will not be expressing a personal view but rather interpreting what I believe would be the views of Professor Roubini, the gal who predicted the credit crunch etc.
He describes phenomena such as pump and dump, price manipulation, whales etc. but I don't think he has called it a Ponzi scheme because it does not tick all the boxes to be so indicted. Maybe it should be called a Tulip scheme though that to
@tecate would be like saying "pope" in the presence of Ian Paisley and in any event tulips actually did and still do have value. Maybe it should be called a Muskie scheme but that would be in danger of getting a legal rocket up the rear end. Maybe a Whaley scheme.
But I actually think that
@tecate would be comfortable with describing it as a dotcom scheme. With hindsight dotcom had a big difference with Tulipmania - there was the germ of a correct speculation there. The new technology has indeed transformed the world and has led to some enormous increases in certain assets, maybe not all or even a high proportion of the original stars but the premise behind dotcom was not entirely wrong.
As I understand the gal
@tecate sees parallels between crypto/blockchain technology and dotcom. The parallel goes that there will be many many losers and failures amongst the early players but there will be one or two monster winners. I would tend to agree that IF this parallel is borne out bitcoin is the strong favourite to be one of the big winners. It may not have the best platform but it has a huge edge in its network adoption.
BUT, I am with Professor Roubini. The parallel will be proven false.