How exactly bitcoin resemble a Ponzi scheme? It kinda sounds like you mean pyramid scheme, rather than Ponzi scheme. (Not that bitcoin is a pyramid scheme either...)
People often get confused between Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes. Bitcoin could be described as a pyramid scheme in that it relies on new money constantly coming in so that people who previously committed money can cash out.
You're describing a pyramid scheme, not a ponzi scheme. They are not the same thing. A ponzi scheme has someone claiming an investment has abnormally high returns and strings people along by paying them those returns out of pocket (or rather, from the investment of people convinced by prior returns) and then at some point runs away with the growing amount of money being reinvested by the marks.
A pyramid scheme is where each person who buys in sells parts of their own share to the next mark, usually kicking up a fee to the person who sold their share to them. The returns at the top come from the exponential growth of fees from the bottom.
Bitcoin is only really superficially like either of them, mostly because there is no direct kickback aspect of it. If it's any kind of scam it's an asset price bubble.
Bitcoin is INDEED a ponzi/pyramid scheme.
The main hallmark of a pyramid scheme is that is produced no significant net wealth but somehow makes a minority richer, much richer!
How can this be? Because a pyramid scheme is designed to transfer wealth from the base of the pyramid (new recruits) to the upper layers of the pyramid (earlier entrants) and this is exactly what bitcoin has been doing and is the very main reason for it being promoted.
I don't know why you're being downvoted: You've hit the nail on the head - Bitcoin is a Pyramid scheme, not a Ponzi scheme.
I've been seeing comparisons to Ponzi schemes a lot in the last few weeks. AFAICS "Bitcoin as Ponzi scheme" is a useful strawman for pro-bitcoin arguments because it's so easily defeated. Bitcoin as Pyramid scheme is a much stronger argument, with far fewer articles dedicated to it.
An actual pyramid scheme involves you giving a cut of your profits to the person who signed you up, and getting a cut of profits from people you sign up. Nothing remotely like this happens with bitcoin.
Similarly it's not a Ponzi scheme because it doesn't involve the fraudulent transfer of new capital into fictional profits. Nothing remotely like this happens with bitcoin.
If we alter the definition of pyramid scheme so that Bitcoin qualifies, that definition would match every successful startup company.
A Ponzi Scheme is a very particular type of scam. A Ponzi Scheme is where the sum of all investor's reported account values exceed the total value of assets held by the institution.
It is totally valid to claim that Bitcoin is a scam, or that scammers are targeting Bitcoin, or scammers are using Bitcoin to scam people. You can say that the price is a pump-and-dump (but that's a factor of the price and promotion, not of Bitcoin), you can say that it is a low-liquidity market-manipulation scam (more a function of allowing leverage on exchanges). You can even call it a pyramid scheme, although, once again, you have to be careful because a pyramid scheme is a particular type of scam, which, on closer inspection, this is obviously not. Please stop saying Ponzi. You're besmirching the good name of a perfectly cromulent scam.
You don't have a clue about what a ponzi scheme is if you think bitcoin is one.
Whether some people who invested in bitcoin advocate for it, share similarities with other people who invested in other things and advocate for those other things, including pyramid schemes, is completely unrelated.
A pyramid scheme implies there's future payments to be expected if one were to aggressively recruit people into the scheme. A Ponzi scheme implies there's a central orchestrator extracting value out of the scheme and keeping it functioning just well enough to maximize personal profits before it all crumbles down.
There's no such central authority with Bitcoin and there aren't further expectations of payment either- value fluctuates but you're always going to have the same amount of coin unless you personally do anything about it. If Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme, then every penny stock is also a pyramid scheme.
I do wish these kind of posts that appeal to the lowest common denominator were less prevalent on Hacker News, as they're particularly found whenever there are big price swings so it's nakedly obvious what they're truly about.
A Ponzi scheme is an investment operation where the founder pays returns to initial investors with the funds from new investors, and fraudulently keeps this fact from investors. So Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme.
Explain to me how Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme. There is no buy-in, there is no exit strategy, no dividends, no recruiting, there is nothing that makes it look like a pyramid scheme of any kind.
Maybe you mean that the early holders of Bitcoin have gained more wealth than later adopters or something? I'm not sure what you mean, actually. But that is just how a market works.
No Bitcoin is not a Ponzi. A Ponzi scheme has a very particular set of characteristics. Bitcoin is not even a pyramid scheme. It does not require new buyers for its value to increase.
It currently is highly speculative and manic market, possibly a bubble.
The quality of your link speaks for itself, it reads like schizoid scribbles.
It may also not be correct that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme is, strictly speaking, one wherein the latest investors are used to pay out interest and withdrawals to earlier investors.
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