[bena]

Forget "central actors" or whatever.

A ponzi scheme is a description of a certain type of fraud. We can reduce it to it being the fraud of claiming new capital as investor dividends. It's a little more complex, but at its heart, that's what you got to do.

If there is no lie about the source of the money, it's not technically not a ponzi scheme.

[perl4ever]

If that's your definition, fine, but lots of people use it in a looser sense and have forever.

Nobody wins in an argument over which definition of a word or phrase is correct.

Whatever happened to the debates over whether something was ironic?

[bena]

That argument can be used in a lot of contexts where people wouldn't. Regardless/irregardless, literally, gif, decimate, etc.

And I'm not saying don't say it's like one, I'm just saying it's technically not one.