This is very specifically not the definition of a ponzi scheme. actually it meets literally none of the criteria of a ponzi scheme except maybe the fact that mo

This is very specifically not the definition of a ponzi scheme. actually it meets literally none of the criteria of a ponzi scheme except maybe the fact that money is involved and somebody loses money. if there is a real asset involved in the scheme its just called speculation. not all speculation has anything to do with a ponzi scheme. it would be a ponzi scheme if you advertised this investment as a service and then never bought the actual underlying asset but just shuffled funds through to payout investors. so yeah, literally zero overlap with a ponzi scheme. another angle: by your definition, all investments in commodities where you don't plan to take physical delivery are ponzi schemes and all zero dividend stocks are ponzi schemes (which is wrong)