[Someone]

For me, the main thing that says "more like a pyramid scheme than like a currency" is that the number of BitCoin in circulation is limited.

Suppose that BitCoin becomes so popular that a country wants to join in. The normal way to do that is to have the central bank exchange your current currency with newly minted 'new' currency. With BitCoin, that isn't possible. The only way to join in is to somehow get BitCoin from existing owners. That will make the BitCoin exchange rate go up. The ones benefitting from that are those who already are 'in'.

Another way to look at this: if this becomes the world's currency, that 1 BTC you mined years ago for $1 of electricity on that $500 PC will be worth 1/21M-th of the wolrd's wealth, and will keep its worth forever.

[Andrew_Quentin]

No different than the person who discovered a gold mine.