Thanks, this one makes sense to me. I see the ponzi scheme criticism levied against crypto a lot, and I don't really see how that's any different from the stock market or our retirement funds or like... the economy in general. It's just one giant over-leveraged ponzi scheme held together by duct tape and massive amounts of debt.

But I do see how this provides a more efficient method of robbing the working class, and you're right, that is a big problem. I don't think it's unique to crypto, but crypto is uniquely enticing due to all of the lottery ticket type stories, the tech evangelism and the Twitter guys talking about how easy it is to get rich. There's also a much lower barrier to entry, with lots of coins being valued like penny stocks, so people are more likely to jump in without doing their research. I can see how that would lead to an environment rife with pump and dumps.

It's also worth noting that the same folks sitting on the boards of our banks are sitting on the boards of exchanges like CoinBase, so they clearly see the opportunity to fleece some suckers.