Oh wow, I didn't know the scamming went back that far. On the other hand... With Ponzi schemes, isn't it obvious from the start what they are? Maybe I give humanity too much credit.
I think the what a lot of people don't realize about ponzi schemes or pyramid schemes, or scams in general, is they don't rely purely or necessarily on fooling the 'victim'. Very often greed is enough of a motivator.
I've experienced at least one really big country-spanning pyramid scheme where lots of people participated, completely aware that it was a pyramid scheme. They just figured they'd be able to 'get out' before the thing would collapse. Obviously that often didn't work out...
Not always; I can imagine with MtGox they slowly became one, after becoming insolvent and figuring out they could pay their customers by getting more money in.