[nostrademons]

24h trading volume for BTC/USD (excluding BTC/USDT and all non-USD fiat currencies) is over $500M [1], and has been at that rate or higher since last December. That's over $90B in real money that has exchanged hands for Bitcoin.

It's not quite the same as the Madoff Ponzi scheme, because in that, all the money went into Madoff's firm, and relatively little came out as redemptions. In a trading market, every dollar that comes in from a buyer goes out to a seller (minus exchange fees, which reportedly have netted Coinbase close to $1B this year, again supporting a >$100B trade volume). They can then be used to purchase more crypto later, and show up in the volume statistics again.

But this alone indicates that Bitcoin may be a bit more resilient than Madoff's ponzi scheme; when multiple people get rich off it, there's much less of a single point of failure for the scheme to collapse.

[1] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets

[headsoup]

That would assume that it is 'different' money changing hands would it not?

I.e. that %500M and $90B is unique dollars being transacted and not just promises being passed back and forth.

[nostrademons]

It does, and that's an assumption that probably doesn't hold.

Most things in the economy work that way though - the total supply of hard currency in the economy is only $3.6T, so when you speak of the $18T US GDP or the $20T US national debt or the $524T value of the derivatives market, it necessarily accounts for the same dollar changing hands multiple times. That's what makes it a currency, that it can circulate and change hands while holding its value.

[sserrot]

Saying the 'value' of the derivatives market is $524T is disingenuous. The notional value - sure, but that's like saying the value of the lottery 'market' is the jackpot times all the outstanding tickets - http://www.newsweek.com/600-trillion-derivatives-market-9227...

[nostrademons]

That's my point though - that there are a lot of things in the economy where the total dollar value may be high but it's largely the same participants trading amongst themselves, and the contracts net out to some much smaller value. Bitcoin volume and Bitcoin market cap are not unique in this regard.

[solotronics]

No exchanges are collapsing so its about as real as you can get. You might ask 'What if everyone withdraws to fiat at once?' I think if you posit that of any stock market the answer would be the same. Cryptos are a pretty pure free market, if it didnt have real utility or value for people the markets would collapse.