[tim333]

Yeah but with a Madoff/Ponzi scheme the thing collapses, Madoff goes to jail, it ends. Bitcoin seems more like other assets that don't make things, stuff like fiat money, gold, fine art and so on.

[immibis]

Yeah, it's the world's first decentralized Ponzi scheme. There's nobody to put in jail - its value just drops to 0.

[DarylZero]

It literally is just fiat currency. Bitcoin is a way to make fiat currency independent of government.

[hypertele-Xii]

...but dependent on the price of electricity and computers.

Guess which governments have the most of both.

[it_does_follow]

> stuff like fiat money, gold, fine art and so on.

This comment is a great example of how little bitcoin enthusiasts tend to understand about investing. One of this things is very much not like the others.

"Fiat currency" is virtually never used as an investment asset. Even in the FOREX market you purchases pairs of currency rather than just a big pile of dollars. In your 401k when you want to go all "cash" you very often end up choosing investment vehicles that track cash.

The entire function of a currency is as a medium of exchange, it only has value in the process of exchanging. It makes no sense, at the individual investor level, to 'hold' dollars.

If you don't understand how a fiat currency differs from gold and fine art then you absolutely should not be "investing" in bitcoin.