[waytogo]

How often was Bitcoin called a Ponzi scheme? When it was at 50, at 100 or at 1,000? Always.

If I look at my stock portfolio there are so many strange stocks and funds I once invested in. They feel much more like Ponzi schemes or pump and dump, especially the riskier funds.

If I look at my angel tickets into early stage ventures (done with FIAT) even worse.

And if I look at the countless ICOs based on Ethereum, this is the real pump and dump Ponzi Disney Land.

But Bitcoin? Seriously? I highly doubt that Bitcoin's founder or its early adopters intended Bitcoin as a Ponzi scheme.

[lawn]

To be fair the developers of Bitcoin seem to have abandoned the original vision of Bitcoin, peer-to-peer digital cash, and has moved towards being purely a store of value.

As transaction costs increase and Bitcoin's usefulness diminish it is becoming more and more like a ponzi scheme, a pyramid scheme or a game of greater fools.

For what is the use of Bitcoin when other cryptocurrencies can be a store of value and peer-to-peer digital cash? I see none thus I see no value with Bitcoin.

[baddox]

Couldn’t the store of value thing just be temporary, while Bitcoin gets well-known? To be clear, I don’t think vanilla Bitcoin is very viable as a widely-used consumer-level p2p transaction system (like cash or credit cards), but I think the volatility and meteoric rises in price would have happened even if that were the case, simply because the value of such a network depends heavily on the number of people and organizations who know about it and trust it enough to use it. It’s a massive chicken and egg problem that would be faced by any currency or payment system that isn’t forced upon a population by a government.

[lawn]

> Couldn’t the store of value thing just be temporary, while Bitcoin gets well-known?

Sure it's possible but we're already seeing a massive growth in altcoins which can actually be used for everyday payments while Bitcoin's relative marketcap is shrinking rapidly. For example Steam recently dropped Bitcoin support. BitPay, the payment processor Steam used, recently announced they will start supporting Bitcoin Cash (which have transfer fees of < $0.01) despite being Bitcoin maximalists until now.

This is why I predict Bitcoin will be surpassed by other coins with more user adoption.

[runeks]

> To be fair the developers of Bitcoin seem to have abandoned the original vision of Bitcoin, peer-to-peer digital cash, and has moved towards being purely a store of value.

How, exactly, has this “original vision” been abandoned? By supporting a maximum block size?

[lawn]

By making it clear that being able to use Bitcoin to pay for stuff isn't prioritized.

And yes forcing a 1MB blocksize totally destroys Bitcoin being usable as digital cash. When average and median fees are $30 - $100 it simply doesn't make sense.

[waytogo]

> destroys Bitcoin being usable as digital cash.

So what? I value the use as store of value much higher than a cash system and I don't care if this was the initial use case. Go and find a better store of value (won't be easy) but it's easy to find another cash system (FIAT-based ones likes CCs or new upcoming ones like Stellar).

[lawn]

> Go and find a better store of value

Monero is far superior as it's fungible and private.

Bitcoin Cash is also technically the same as Bitcoin while being cheaper to use and by virtue of being actually useful as cash has more uses which helps price growth and liquidity.

[tambienben]

The transaction costs will hopefully come down once Lightning Network is implemented.

[UncleMeat]

And be replaced by a user limit, even if people agree to use lightning transactions.

[tambienben]

Do you have a reference for that claim? This is the first I've heard of your scenario.

[waytogo]

> Bitcoin's usefulness diminish

No, you mentioned it yourself: Bitcoin is a store of value. Moreover, it's one with a high liquidity, strong brand, limited supply, available in 180 countries, without banks involved and super reliable (gold doesn't have that features and please show me any other asset that has these features). So, it has a use and value.

That it has evolved to this is no one's fault and btw this might change (the cash part) with the lightning network again.

> more like a Ponzi scheme

That would mean that all operators of Bitcoin, so everybody who is just investing or running local wallets with full nodes deliberately intend Bitcoin as a Ponzi scheme?? This is utter nonsense. If I launch an ICO tomorrow. Just a landing page and a BS white paper, you could allege that I deliberately plan my ICO/coin/token to be a Ponzi scheme. But you can't allege millions of BTC investors that they intend a Ponzi scheme eight years after this things started. Maybe you should check the definition of a Ponzi scheme again.

However, do you own or did you ever own any BTC?

[thevardanian]

> No, you mentioned it yourself: Bitcoin is a store of value. Moreover, it's one with a high liquidity, strong brand, limited supply, available in 180 countries, without banks involved and super reliable (gold doesn't have that features and please show me any other asset that has these features). So, it has a use and value.

As I've said before Bitcoin is absolutely a garbage "store of value". It's not going to exist for decades, let alone for centuries, because of the nature of technology. As you yourself have pointed out there's nothing inherent about Bitcoin other than a network effect that's made it a brand. It isn't backed and guaranteed by a government, there are no organization that are demanding to be paid only in Bitcoin as America demands to be paid only in dollars.

Furthermore There will be better technologies that will emerge and supplant Bitcoin. Land, Dollar, precious metals all far exceed as stronger "stores of value", both because of their historicity, and also because of their technology, that is a technology that is stable.

Not to mention the complete and utter lack of privacy of Bitcoin because of it's public ledger. Everyone knows everyone else's entire transaction history, and any large enough actor can find that out. Traditional stores of value don't have that problem, or rather not nearly as publicly visible.

Cryptocurrencies, and digital currencies do have place, but I don't think we've come to any sort of equilibrium as to what its role will be in society, which is why I don't think Bitcoin will succeed as "store of value", or currency.

[waytogo]

> It's not going to exist for decades, let alone for centuries, because of the nature of technology

How do you know, did you found a time machine??

> It isn't backed and guaranteed by a government

Even better. So many countries (basically 70% of all countries) have governments I wouldn't trust a single cent.

> there are no organization that are demanding to be paid only in Bitcoin as America demands to be paid only in dollars.

Exchanges?

> precious metals all far exceed as stronger "stores of value"

Go and try to buy some gold, it's not that easy and also, oh which surprise, also volatile.

> Everyone knows everyone else's entire transaction history,

Pipe it through exchanges and it get anonymous again. Not that I like this feature but if you need it...

You didn't really convinced me.

[thevardanian]

I don't care if I can convince you or not. That doesn't matter. Realistically only time will tell which one of us is right, and give either one of us the satisfaction of saying "told you so".

With that said are you saying that there will be no other competitors, or technological advancements that will improve on Cryptocurrency technologies, and supplant Bitcoin? If so, I think that's a more irrational position.

If Bitcoin gets large enough you'll just have cryptocurrency legislation that will regulate it to oblivion, and make what are relatively private transactions today into Big Brother is watching. Perhaps that's the goal anyways.

Physical cash is still king in terms of privacy, but a poor long term store of value if that cash isn't invested.

Metal is difficult to buy, and it is tracked, but that information isn't public. The value of a precious metal isn't in its liquidity, but rather its theoretical long term value so volatility isn't necessarily a factor. Land is better because it actually has uses, but similarly it too is volatile, and as such viewing it as a long-term 20+ year investment is better. Again the current value of it doesn't matter so much.

I'm not saying Cryptocurrencies have 0 value, just that we haven't reached a consensus of what exactly the value of a cryptocurrency is, or its role in society, let alone having achieved a technological stasis to make a cryptocurrency a long term store of value. There are in reality no true long-term store of value, just that some are better in way than others.

In general though, I think, the problem is what we as humans consider "value". So far I think the only real value of anything is what a State actor demands, and enforces as valuable. Not land, not precious metals, not cryptocurrencies, or dollars, but whatever a government deems officially as valuable becomes magically valuable.

If tomorrow congress makes Bitcoin the official currency of the USA, and buys up all the Bitcoins then Bitcoin will become infinitely valuable in comparison today. On the other if it's made illegal to make Bitcoin transaction it won't be worth a penny.

[baddox]

I don’t follow your argument that Bitcoin won’t be around for long because of the nature of technology. What exactly do you mean? Of course advancements will be made, but those can be merged into Bitcoin or even forked off of Bitcoin.

[lawn]

> No, you mentioned it yourself: Bitcoin is a store of value. Moreover, it's one with a high liquidity, strong brand, limited supply, available in 180 countries, without banks involved and super reliable (gold doesn't have that features and please show me any other asset that has these features). So, it has a use and value.

I said Bitcoin's usefulness is diminishing by becoming less useful due to the high transaction time and price. Other coins are taking over the exact use case you're refering to.

> Maybe you should check the definition of a Ponzi scheme again.

It's more a greater fools game at this point and I only mentioned ponzi scheme as it was what I was responding to.

> However, do you own or did you ever own any BTC?

Yes I've owned and used BTC a while but recently stopped using it since it doesn't make sense for me anymore as it's too expensive.

[waytogo]

> I said Bitcoin's usefulness is diminishing by becoming less useful due to the high transaction time and price.

If I want to store my assets I don't care about high transaction prices.

> It's more a greater fools game at this point and I only mentioned ponzi scheme as it was what I was responding to.

But you still used it in the wrong context. Bitcoin can't be a Ponzi scheme because the founder and the early adopters clearly didn't have this intent.

[lawn]

I guess you didn't address my main point: Why would Bitcoin be a sane store of value if other coins can fulfill the exact same niche while also being p2p digial cash? Why would you pay very high fees when you get the same features with a coin with very low fees?

For now Bitcoin is valued higher and has better liquidity than other coins but with use cases quickly moving away from Bitcoin this is changing. The only thing Bitcoin has going for it by that point is FOMO and selling to greater fools.

[waytogo]

You gave the answer yourself. Brand and popularity might change over time. But at the moment it is BTC. Just go to Google Trends and no other coin is that mainstream. The search volume for Bitcoin is 50% of 'iphone' which is massive itself.

Re other coins: There are just two which are scalable because of their semi-central nature (XRP, XLM) but they have to get there first which will take time. The other millions of coins are usually decentral (and slow) tech and often they are shaky not working or don't have any own blockchains while valued in the billions (eg EOS). And you should not forget the upcoming lightning network for BTC.

But why do I try to convince you, at the end of 2018 BTC is at 100K, you missed another opportunity and you come again here and tell us the same FUD.

[funnelsgun]

In what sense does Bitcoin have high liquidity?

[waytogo]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_liquidity

[funnelsgun]

I know what market liquidity is, but if I were to purchase or sell large amounts of Bitcoin I think it would definitely affect the price. I don't think Bitcoin has high liquidity at all.