I think of a Ponzi as a scheme where someone is managing the game I agree, but there's also not really a better word to describe something that is like a Ponzi

I think of a Ponzi as a scheme where someone is managing the game I agree, but there's also not really a better word to describe something that is like a Ponzi scheme in every respect except the lack of central coordination. Having a distributed hive mind of people all collectively trying to pump the value of a coin basically yields the same end result as a conventional Ponzi scheme, but makes it much harder to regulate or shut down. Even worse is the fact that many of the people involved truly believe in their own evangelism, and don't realize that they're part of a negative-sum game. With the amount of value destroyed via mining, and the lack of any new value being created by the people investing in crypto, there will inevitably be more losers than winners in the long run, but that doesn't stop people from spouting HODL memes because they genuinely think that value is being created from nothing and that everyone is somehow going to get rich off of this stuff.