Is it really that surprising? Take a look at this piece "No pension. No savings. No future. No wonder we’re betting the house on crypto". I suspect many of that cohort feel similarly.
Is it really that surprising? Take a look at this piece "No pension. No savings. No future. No wonder we’re betting the house on crypto". I suspect many of that cohort feel similarly.I was very surprised they went to Grafton St for a voxpop and found three or four people who HAD bought cryptocurrency - all of them under 30 by the looks of things.
Ok, then. Which attributes does it share exactly?It is not a Ponzi in the same way that a house burglary is not a shop robbery but it certainly shares many attributes.
I mention 'open decentralised' because it's a protocol. It may have been coded by a person or persons but we can all see what that code is. We can all read the whitepaper. Here is the bitcoin whitepaper ->You mention "open decentralised" as if it were an Immaculate Conception incapable of being used for evil or naughty purposes.
I had no idea anyone referred to cash as the 'holy of holies'...who knew.I read somewhere that the criminal classes have a particular penchant for this holy of holies.
If you think its unusual that incumbents in any field talk down a new innovation and claim that it wouldn't/couldn't/won't work - I'd have to ask you how many examples of that sort of behaviour have we had? The main cohort left in opposition are those connected directly with central banking and Keynesian economics.Anyway you have made it abundantly clear that your rejection of all mainstream academic views on crypto is based on a credo that they are hopelessly compromised by the "Turkeys don't vote for Christmas" syndrome. I admit that it is a lot easier than actually challenging their reasoned and informed arguments.
Read McAuley. Last in the big losers. Okay, it is not fulfilled...yet.Ok, then. Which attributes does it share exactly?
Please point out the offending parts that identify bitcoin as a ponzi, please.
Yep, you're consistent.If you think its unusual that incumbents in any field talk down a new innovation and claim that it wouldn't/couldn't/won't work - I'd have to ask you how many examples of that sort of behaviour have we had? The main cohort left in opposition are those connected directly with central banking and Keynesian economics.
I know you have all my posts in your library so the absence of a concrete reply had me searching. This is what a search of Duke+Ponzi throws up:Secondly, why would we even begin when you've conveniently forgotten yourself that you don't believe that bitcoin is a ponzi! - which is this guys claim (with an added twist).
DOM 5/01/21 said:Taxpayers’ money should not be sucked into a Ponzi scheme.
DOM 5/01/21 said:When I pass on the assertions of learned observers that crypto is a Ponzi scheme, I am not suggesting it was started by an Italian gentleman. You know what is meant - when it blows up it will be the last suckers in who will be badly burnt. Along the way the manipulating whales will have performed a spectacular fraud.
If it is this latter reference that informs your opinion that I "don't believe that bitcoin is a ponzi", I have to ask is your real name Boris?DOM 23/07/21 said:He (Prof Roubini) 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
As per McAuley but not yet delivered, I admit. At the moment you have pole position.@Duke - you've stated above that bitcoin has the attributes of a ponzi scheme ( or some of the attributes). Can you please outline what those attributes are?
As per McAuley but not yet delivered, I admit. At the moment you have pole position.
The main attribute is that when it all ends in tears it will be the last in who will be the losers.
Another attribute is that the "winners" will be unscrupulous pump-and-dump merchants and whales.
I am not accusing Saint Satoshi of any underhand motivation. Her main objective was to be the human race's salvation in a medium of exchange decentralised, censorship free blah blah blah.Ok, so you say 'pump and dump merchants', 'whales' and 'last in = losers' means bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. Lets stay with that then. Can you point out to me where I can see these elements enabled in the bitcoin whitepaper?
For convenience, here's a copy of the whitepaper -> https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
OP said:Investors buy in the expectation of profits. That expectation is sustained by the profits of those that cash out. But there is no external source for those profits; they come entirely from new investments.
Investors buy in the expectation of profits. That expectation is sustained by the profits of those that cash out. But there is no external source for those profits; they come entirely from new investments.
I ignore the crap-coins and don't participate in them.On an optimistic day I can just about conceive of Bitcoin having some value (I don't really believe it but I've been wrong often enough to concede that I may be mistaken again) but how on earth can the vast majority of the other crap-coins ever be anything other than a total con? If you are a crypto believer how do you square this aspect of the whole crypto-mania?
After a brief scratch of the head I conclude that it is differentThis is so general that any commodity market meets the definition.
Bitcoin holders have that expectation/hope of bitcoin, which is why we see it as just another commodity market. I guess we'll never agree on that, and that's ok.An investment in a commodity is similarly an expectation that it will continue to have a utility that will command a price,
Yes, it comes down to has bitcoin a utility/intrinsic value?And now we're back to the intrinsic value argument of course because that's at the root of this whole thing - thinking bitcoin is a mirage and working backwards from that to crowbar it into a ponzo/pyramid scheme definition that isn't accurate. That's what I meant when I said you may not like what is being traded in the market, but it remains simply a market none-the-less.
Bitcoin holders have that expectation/hope of bitcoin, which is why we see it as just another commodity market. I guess we'll never agree on that, and that's ok.
Ok, and was that a pyramid scheme?The closest parallel we found is tulip bulbs in Holland in the 17th Century.
What does that mean? There are currently c. 2,000,000,000,000,000 satoshis in existence. How many ounces of gold? Or are you referring to atoms? Be a bit more precise.- bitcoin on the other hand is scarcer than gold.