[gillesjacobs]

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.

[thendrill]

Uhh.. Where do you think this number that you call "value" comes from?

It comes from the crypto exchanges. The value. Is the latest settled sale. So when someone sets a sell price and someone buys at that btc, is when the value is set.

So yeh. You absolutely need new buyers for its value to increase.

[gillesjacobs]

Needing new buyers for price to increase is not the definition of a Ponzi scheme. Because that is true for any speculative asset due to the price setting mechanism. Your argument entails that the price of Bitcoin is highly inflated over its fundamental value, i.e. that it is a speculative bubble. Speculative bubbles are very different from Ponzi schemes. A Ponzi scheme has the following definition according to the SEC:

>“A Ponzi scheme is an invest­ment fraud that pays existing investors with funds collected from new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often promise to invest your money and generate high returns with little or no risk. But in many Ponzi schemes, the fraud­sters do not invest the money. Instead, they use it to pay those who invested earlier and may keep some for themselves."

Ponzi schemes require a central fraudster to pass on money directly from old to new investors with the underlying asset obfuscatedly held on promise by the fraudster.

With cryptocurrency the buyer has control of the commodity, you actually have control of the crypto, there is no promise of a consistent return with little risk, there is no central entity defrauding targets with promises that hold the asset in reserve passing on money directly from new to old investors.

What we do have is a speculative bubble which will no doubt be devastating for new investors when it collapses. But the definition of a Ponzi scheme is not met.

[thendrill]

What about the bit coin whales?

The btc-e money the Mt gox coins. Satoshish original coins and all the gpu miners pre 2012?

There are plenty of people walking around with btc wallets with hundreds to thousands of coins that are basically funny money to them.

For every btc price cycle there is more usd and less coins in circulation.

Selling off 10 btc at the moment on any exchange would tank the price with about 10k usd....

[gillesjacobs]

> Selling off 10 btc at the moment on any exchange would tank the price with about 10k usd....

That's just not true and I don't even see any reason how it could be. I am looking at the Binance BTC order book and depth chart and 24 BTC sell orders at 56500 just went through. Price is not crashing.

Mining and whale centralisation are huge problems and downside in crypto depending on how prevalent it is. I am not saying that Bitcoin is not a dangerous investment, that there it is not a speculative bubble. I am just saying that it does not meet the definition of a Ponzi scheme.

There is indeed a lot to critique about the current crypto market but at least make sure the arguments are founded on facts.

[jcpham2]

Coinbase moved 400+ BTC in 15 minutes this morning at 7 am ish central time.

I know because I had to move my sell orders higher.

Y’all are crazy. This is not accurate.