Crypto isn't a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme is form of fraud where funds from recent investors are used to pay (fictitious) profits to earlier investors. Say the ringleader claims a 10% profit. An early investor had deposited $100 and wants their $100. The ringleader had blown that investor's $100 on coke and hookers and gives him $110 from new investors.
Crypto is more accurately a pyramid scheme. But then so are precious metals and fiat currency.
But at least gold has some inherent value, crypto is just math that is worth whatever the buyers/sellers think it should be. Stock in a company that stays in business will never go to zero as the company always has some value due to having revenue, but crypto has no real world floor (though unlikely to actually get to zero since someone will always buy).
The value of crypto is the access to the underlying network, which lets the users of that network transfer a known supply of tokens in a manner that's not forgeable, repudiable, confiscable, etc. or reliant on the permission of outside authorities. Final settlement takes an hour. It's worth whatever people will pay for that access.
It's neither. A defining feature of both pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes is centralized control of the ledger and who is allowed to participate. And a defining feature of cryptocurrencies is, at least theoretically, the lack of such centralized control.
I understand that people feel like there's something fraudulent going on with crypto. Given the sheer density of fraud and scamming surrounding crypto, it's hard to argue with that. But trying to make one's argument seem more concrete by picking the name of some well-known class of fraud and blithely using it to describe crypto in general is counterproductive. It muddies the waters, and makes it more difficult to have an organized discussion by removing clarity from the language we have to discuss these things.
The urge to do so should be resisted for the same reason that we should resist the urge to try and make arguments involving statistics seem more authoritative by just guessing at numbers when we're not sure of them. False precision is, well, false.
coldcode|4 years ago
sendbitcoins|4 years ago
Stubb|4 years ago
fny|4 years ago
You can't use discounted cash flow. You can't use comparables. You can use raw materials. It's a straight up rock that people price.
arcticbull|4 years ago
inter_netuser|4 years ago
phist_mcgee|4 years ago
mumblemumble|4 years ago
I understand that people feel like there's something fraudulent going on with crypto. Given the sheer density of fraud and scamming surrounding crypto, it's hard to argue with that. But trying to make one's argument seem more concrete by picking the name of some well-known class of fraud and blithely using it to describe crypto in general is counterproductive. It muddies the waters, and makes it more difficult to have an organized discussion by removing clarity from the language we have to discuss these things.
The urge to do so should be resisted for the same reason that we should resist the urge to try and make arguments involving statistics seem more authoritative by just guessing at numbers when we're not sure of them. False precision is, well, false.