Ponzi schemes are intentional frauds. You can be as mad as you want at the idea of Bitcoin. You can even be mad that you didn't buy it early. But "Satoshi Nakamoto" has been sitting on 1.1m BTC since like 2009 or so which as of this very moment is about $55b worth. That's around the GDP of Croatia or Uruguay. Now granted - that is, in fact about $10b less than Madoff scammed but I mean, Madoff didn't publish a whitepaper or source code. And most bitcoin doesn't move. Contrary to your author's definition, here's what a Ponzi scheme actually is: The initial promise of Bitcoin was that it would overturn the world financial order. It was described as extraordinarily risky. The idea wasn't secret at all - there's a developer page. And nobody has ever gotten "paid" - the buying and selling of Bitcoin is entirely within the power of the individual, rather than the manager. So I mean... be mad? And to be clear, I own zero bitcoin. But the more time you spend being angry for the wrong reasons the less time you can spend being angry for the right ones.In a Ponzi scheme, a con artist offers investments that promise very high returns with little or no risk to his victims. The returns are said to originate from a business or a secret idea run by the con artist. In reality, the business does not exist or the idea does not work. The con artist actually pays the high returns promised to his earlier investors by using the money obtained from later investors. In other words, instead of engaging in a legitimate business activity, the con artist attempts to attract new investors in order to make the payments that were promised to earlier investors.
The genesis block cannot be sold because it's not in the transaction database. Regardless if it was intentional, or not, it would require a hard fork in order to change the code base, which won't happen. https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/10009/why-can-t-the-genesis-block-coinbase-be-spent
I'm not angry.. the mere existence of exploiting-worldwide-user's google anger me, losing money doesnt: I'm used to it. Crypto is just so absurd and damaging.. at least NTF pretend to be art, and defining art is just another can of worms. Dont we all agree, that Satoshi is that french engineer turned mobster who is in jail since 2009? Or he would have cashed out long ago. 2nd counter argument from the article : A definition of "TV" a few decades ago could be "a device that converts electrical signals into an image on a cathode ray tube (CRT) screen." But when flat screen TVs appeared, it would have been silly to say "those are not TVs,because they have no CRT." Instead, people would have seen that the mention of CRT in that definition was spurious, and that a useful definition should capture the effect of the device, regardless of the technology. The point stay: the only value of BTC is from flux of new investor.... oh! and the service of anonymously buying drugs. THAT might be the thing that let crypto stay relevant for so long. Any business model based around some type of physical addiction, is always a good idea. Still a scam But "Satoshi Nakamoto" has been sitting on 1.1m BTC since like 2009
here's what a Ponzi scheme actually is:
That is not the definition of ponzi from source X. Indeed there are many variants of the definition, and they may include other spurious requirements (see below). But those requirements were incidental features of almost all ponzis before bitcoin, not essential features. They are not the reason why investing in a ponzi is a very bad idea, nor the reason why ponzis are frauds rather than just bad investments.
Let's not move the goalposts. Your author can argue that there are "many variants of the definition" until he's blue in the face, it doesn't make him correct. The fact of the matter is, there are legal definitions of fraud. Every country with a legal system has one. They all hinge around an intentional action taken to cause financial harm to another. You'd have an easier time arguing that Pepsi Points are a Ponzi scheme than that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme. But since people enjoy being mad at cryptobros, furries and social justice warriors, you can call'n'response "Ponzi" "Rabble rabble" on Wordpress all day long. MONEY is absurd and damaging. It isn't limited to crypto. Why is "X" worth "Y?" Because someone makes it so. This is why the Chinese were able to invent paper currency in 1100BC while the Europeans were at "whoa, fractional reserve banking" during the Medicis: if the Emperor is literally god on earth, he can say pigeon feathers are worth two peasants and poof it's true. Meanwhile it took until the Renaissance for the Europeans to realize that you don't need 1:1 reserves of precious metals in order to get the economy moving. Know why I linked this? I did it for this graph: Compare and contrast. The EU has a ONE PERCENT required reserve ratio while BinanceCoin is at NINETY FIVE PERCENT. I fully agree - Paul Calder LeRoux is Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin hasn't evolved since 2012 'cuz he's been in jail. Satoshi's bitcoin hasn't moved 'cuz he's under proffer, which means legally, any money he's got belongs to the US Government. But LeRoux didn't invent Bitcoin to defraud people, he invented it to move money without taxation. It's a virtual bearer instrument. It functions very well for that purpose, presuming technology stands still in 2012. This is the reason it was adopted so heavily in China: the underworld economy in China is substantial and very wink,wink nudge,nudge and BTC allowed the Nomentklatura to tuck their profits away in a better instrument than offshore holdings, precious metals or jewelry. It's also the reason China jumped into surveillance currency so hard: as soon as things get dicey you attack whoever threatens you the most, which in this case is the Nomenklatura. I don't like Bitcoin. I think it was a good starting point twelve years ago. But I don't think it's a scam, either. You absolutely do and part of it is that you steadfastly refuse to understand something you don't like.Crypto is just so absurd and damaging.
