In a little more than 10 years, Bitcoin has become a ubiquitous part of everyday life, and the community around Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) has grow...
The Monero devs are quite proud of the fact that it's the best cryptocurrency for scamming. It doesn't surprise me it's propped up by even more illicit work.
There are plenty of other shitcoins, like Ethereum, which started out with the creators giving themselves free coins during the early mining stages just so any popularity of the coin would make them rich. The incentive to be an early adopter definitely applies (as well as an incentive to be the creator that gets a mining head-start), and that aspect of Ponzi schemes is relevant for most shitcoins.
Whether it's a hype bubble or an explicit Ponzi scheme, Gravel is right about the need for more people to buy in all the time to fuel the speculation. It's a bit misleading, as Bitcoin wasn't designed to be a speculative bubble from its outset. It's still important to describe Bitcoin by what it has become: a devastating international pump-and-dump scheme with a benign beginning.
the upside to calling it a ponzi scheme is that lots of people know how ponzi schemes work and they get the gist that bitcoin could "leave them holding the bag" in the future
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The Monero devs are quite proud of the fact that it's the best cryptocurrency for scamming. It doesn't surprise me it's propped up by even more illicit work.
There are plenty of other shitcoins, like Ethereum, which started out with the creators giving themselves free coins during the early mining stages just so any popularity of the coin would make them rich. The incentive to be an early adopter definitely applies (as well as an incentive to be the creator that gets a mining head-start), and that aspect of Ponzi schemes is relevant for most shitcoins.
Whether it's a hype bubble or an explicit Ponzi scheme, Gravel is right about the need for more people to buy in all the time to fuel the speculation. It's a bit misleading, as Bitcoin wasn't designed to be a speculative bubble from its outset. It's still important to describe Bitcoin by what it has become: a devastating international pump-and-dump scheme with a benign beginning.
deleted by creator
the upside to calling it a ponzi scheme is that lots of people know how ponzi schemes work and they get the gist that bitcoin could "leave them holding the bag" in the future