[peyton]

It’s not a Ponzi scheme. It’s a bubble—the belief is that prices will rise on the open market.

You get tokens for putting money in the box. You can sell the tokens on an exchange later for cash. The cash comes from exchange participants, not box people. All the box people receive the tokens they expect. They don’t receive tokens from new box people.

If it’s 1995 and Toys R Us is giving away Beanie Babies to the first 250,000 Elmo buyers, that’s not a Ponzi. If somebody buys lots of Elmos to flip Beanie Babies knowing 250,000 Beanie Babies are going to hit the market, they are delusional. It’s still not a Ponzi. It’s a bubble.

[scotty79]

Bitcoin is a bubble. Protocol that arbitratily rewards holding is what makes this Ponzi.

Awarding tokens without efficient mechanism to destroy them causes inflation when speed of printing exceeds the speed of raising demand for them. And there's no way to correct it so inflation can turn into hyperinflation and run on bank and collapse of the whole scheme.

[tim333]

If bitcoin is just a bubble why is it still here after 'popping' like five times. And if the protocol that rewards the token holders is a Ponzi who is the Ponzi schemer?

It seems to me much more like the beanie baby thing.

[scotty79]

> If bitcoin is just a bubble why is it still here after 'popping' like five times.

Because it is built to be infinitely reinflatable. Bitcoin bubble popping changes nothing about Bitcoin and human greed.

> And if the protocol that rewards the token holders is a Ponzi who is the Ponzi schemer?

People who create the protocol and set the rewards for themselves and others and cash out before the whole thing collapses.