[mk89]

I think it's because it was promised or sold as something beyond national currencies, that offers some sort of anonymity, a way to make money relatively fast (or at least not lose any), etc.

Finally, most of it turned out to be just plain marketing made by those who needed more and more people in the system/scheme.

At least this is what my take is on this.

[2muchcoffeeman]

I’m no economist. But even without any training, all crypto including Bitcoin sounds like a scam. No regulation. Waste all that effort solving nothing of value. Can’t do refunds.

And it wasn’t just Luddites or the uneducated not understanding what was going on, but really smart people weren’t convinced and the benefits of the technology never solidified. In fact, turns out everything really was a scam.

There’s probably a bit of smugness from Making correct predictions, and there’s also probably a bit of regret that we didn’t jump on the gravy train and sell at the peak even though we didn’t believe in it.

[roenxi]

So far there is no evidence that it is a scam. The cryptographic promises are rock solid, it has on average done a better job of preserving value than the USD [0].

There is a brief window (2021-2022) where it was a bad time to buy and even that might not be the final word. The last time this happened was in 2018 where the price of bitcoin peaked at half it'd current value.

If anything, it is starting to look like Bitcoin is a respectable asset. It has outlasted several allegedly-reputable banks and is weathering a difficult credit environment quite solidly. It is still very risky, but it is hard to dismiss it.

[0] Over the last decade, say. Not much to hang an argument on, but it is the opposite of a scam.

[2muchcoffeeman]

No evidence it’s a scam except all the pump and dump schemes and the exchanges collapsing?

And Bitcoin is an asset now? Back in my day we were trying to buy pizzas and beer with it. Bitcoin illustrates the point very well. It’s was supposed to facilitate transactions. Except, there was never ever a plan, or a plan I understood anyway, on how that could be achieved.

And now people hoard it like gold.

[roenxi]

> No evidence it’s a scam except all the pump and dump schemes and the exchanges collapsing?

That isn't evidence that bitcoin is a scam either. You can still buy and sell it. None of the crypto I own was effected by the exchanges going bust. The exchanges may well all be scams for all I know, and that would be very bad ... for the people who own exchanges.

Hell, I've even been used Tether - which is clearly a scam - and still gotten a valuable asset out the other side of the transaction. One of the promises of crypto that is holding is nobody has to trust the infrastructure even a little bit for the system to hang together.

Crypto + scam exchanges is more trustworthy than fiat + reputable banks. The reputable banks often turn out to be cardboard cutouts in front of corruption.

> And now people hoard it like gold.

I'm not sure what you're trying to imply with this but yes, people do. They are treating it like an asset. It doesn't matter what people intended for something to do, what it does is what counts. If someone owns a bitcoin they own an asset currently worth around $20k, and with pall the evidence suggesting that it will go on being worth around that much for the next 2 years. Your incredulity doesn't change that.

[unixhero]

Bitcoin is still this