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> Crypto is a Ponzi scheme. I've never heard anybody educated on the matter make this statement. It's always from someone that doesn't understand it and theref

> Crypto is a Ponzi scheme. I've never heard anybody educated on the matter make this statement. It's always from someone that doesn't understand it and therefore thinks it's a scam.

orasis 6y ago
There is no crypto economy. It doesn’t create value so it should not be considered an asset.
- ajmadesc 6y ago
  Do contract lawyers add value?
  - imtringued 6y ago
    If everyone was honest then no. Unfortunately we don't live in such a world so we have to trust a third party.
throw0101a 6y ago
What purpose, exactly, does crypto serve? What problem does it solve? It has failed as a payment system, as a currency, as a reserve currency, a remittance channel, a timestamping service, a settlement layer, a bank for the "unbanked", a cypherpunk liberator, a money laundering tool, a drugs-by-mail tool, a unit of accounting, a store of value, and as a "disruptive" fintech technology. What exactly is the value in holding Bitcoin (or whatever)? My only hope is having someone in future come along and take it off my hands at a higher value than I bough it. When I think of crypto/Bitcoin, I am reminded of Warren Buffett's view on gold: > Today the world’s gold stock is about 170,000 metric tons. If all of this gold were melded together, it would form a cube of about 68 feet per side. (Picture it fitting comfortably within a baseball infield.) At $1,750 per ounce – gold’s price as I write this – its value would be $9.6 trillion. Call this cube pile A. > Let’s now create a pile B costing an equal amount. For that, we could buy all U.S. cropland (400 million acres with output of about $200 billion annually), plus 16 Exxon Mobils (the world’s most profitable company, one earning more than $40 billion annually). After these purchases, we would have about $1 trillion left over for walking-around money (no sense feeling strapped after this buying binge). Can you imagine an investor with $9.6 trillion selecting pile A over pile B? […] > A century from now the 400 million acres of farmland will have produced staggering amounts of corn, wheat, cotton, and other crops – and will continue to produce that valuable bounty, whatever the currency may be. Exxon Mobil will probably have delivered trillions of dollars in dividends to its owners and will also hold assets worth many more trillions (and, remember, you get 16 Exxons). The 170,000 tons of gold will be unchanged in size and still incapable of producing anything. You can fondle the cube, but it will not respond. * https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2011ltr.pdf https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2011ltr.pdf
saint_abroad 6y ago
Since crypto pays no return on profits it cannot meet the definition of a Ponzi. It is more akin to tulip mania, dependent on inflated futures with diminishing utility. Presently though, it's better than cash, which finds itself in a similar position.

> Crypto is a Ponzi scheme. I've never heard anybody educated on the matter make this statement. It's always from someone that doesn't understand it and therefore thinks it's a scam.

orasis 6y ago

There is no crypto economy. It doesn’t create value so it should not be considered an asset.

ajmadesc 6y ago
Do contract lawyers add value?
- imtringued 6y ago
  If everyone was honest then no. Unfortunately we don't live in such a world so we have to trust a third party.

throw0101a 6y ago

What purpose, exactly, does crypto serve? What problem does it solve? It has failed as a payment system, as a currency, as a reserve currency, a remittance channel, a timestamping service, a settlement layer, a bank for the "unbanked", a cypherpunk liberator, a money laundering tool, a drugs-by-mail tool, a unit of accounting, a store of value, and as a "disruptive" fintech technology. What exactly is the value in holding Bitcoin (or whatever)? My only hope is having someone in future come along and take it off my hands at a higher value than I bough it. When I think of crypto/Bitcoin, I am reminded of Warren Buffett's view on gold: > Today the world’s gold stock is about 170,000 metric tons. If all of this gold were melded together, it would form a cube of about 68 feet per side. (Picture it fitting comfortably within a baseball infield.) At $1,750 per ounce – gold’s price as I write this – its value would be $9.6 trillion. Call this cube pile A. > Let’s now create a pile B costing an equal amount. For that, we could buy all U.S. cropland (400 million acres with output of about $200 billion annually), plus 16 Exxon Mobils (the world’s most profitable company, one earning more than $40 billion annually). After these purchases, we would have about $1 trillion left over for walking-around money (no sense feeling strapped after this buying binge). Can you imagine an investor with $9.6 trillion selecting pile A over pile B? […] > A century from now the 400 million acres of farmland will have produced staggering amounts of corn, wheat, cotton, and other crops – and will continue to produce that valuable bounty, whatever the currency may be. Exxon Mobil will probably have delivered trillions of dollars in dividends to its owners and will also hold assets worth many more trillions (and, remember, you get 16 Exxons). The 170,000 tons of gold will be unchanged in size and still incapable of producing anything. You can fondle the cube, but it will not respond. * https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2011ltr.pdf https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2011ltr.pdf

saint_abroad 6y ago

Since crypto pays no return on profits it cannot meet the definition of a Ponzi. It is more akin to tulip mania, dependent on inflated futures with diminishing utility. Presently though, it's better than cash, which finds itself in a similar position.