3 ms·

The distinction is that any investor can form their own opinion about the technology equally well. We don't, and can't dictate to investors what technologies th

• graeme 6y ago
  > The mechanism you are describing is the mechanism by which every speculative investment works. That’s not true. Most speculative investment promise revenues if they succeed. For your last sentence, why would that be true? In the case of bitcoin, the early investors have been led to believe that later investors will need to invest. But this can easily be false.
  • shawnz 6y ago
    > That’s not true. Most speculative investment promise revenues if they succeed. That wouldn't be speculative then (at least not completely) > For your last sentence, why would that be true? Because it's not a Ponzi scheme unless you are lying about the origin of the returns which you are giving to investors.
    • graeme 6y ago
      > That wouldn't be speculative then (at least not completely) Can you give an example of non crypto speculative investments which are not expected to produce revenues? That’s how 100% of business promise to eventually provide returns. Even real estate is rents. Collectibles such as sports cards and art are the one exception category I can think of. > Because it's not a Ponzi scheme unless you are lying about the origin of the returns which you are giving to investors. Yes that was my point. Bitcoin could be a distributed Ponzi, where people make representations about bitcoin’s eventual value through network value, but it turns out there is nothing to it. There’s no single agent telling a lie but it has the same effect. To make the limit argument: if bitcoin was run by a single person selling coins and claiming their value would go up because of network value, but this claim was not true, this would be a ponzi correct? Assuming the proferred proof was reported coin value appreciation to date. (I.e. the returns)
      • shawnz 6y ago
        > Can you give an example of non crypto speculative investments which are not expected to produce revenues? How about any commodity or foreign currency? Gold, oil, etc. > That’s how 100% of business promise to eventually provide returns. Exactly. Since Bitcoin obviously isn't a business, it couldn't be a Ponzi scheme (because investors in Bitcoin aren't being mislead into believing that the returns are coming from a business activity). > To make the limit argument: if bitcoin was run by a single person selling coins and claiming their value would go up because of network value, but this claim was not true, this would be a ponzi correct? Assuming the proferred proof was reported coin value appreciation to date. (I.e. the returns) No, that couldn't be a Ponzi scheme because the person isn't lying about the origin of the returns. They really do come from other investors. That might be considered a pyramid scheme, though.
      • mumblemumble 6y ago
        > where people make representations about bitcoin’s eventual value through network value, but it turns out there is nothing to it. That's not a Ponzi scheme, that's a market bubble. There's nothing gained by misappropriating existing jargon just to try and lend more credence to an assertion that a thing is bad. Imagine if someone were trying to argue that a MacBook's motherboard is just one big integrated circuit because it's a circuit (natch), and solder has been used to integrate it all together. On the one hand, sure I can why someone who isn't a computer techie might see it that way. On the other hand, that's simply not what that term means.