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>But sorry to be that person, just a timely reminder of the truth: All cryptocurrencies and 'DeFi projects' are ponzi scams including Orchid. Seems like just a

>But sorry to be that person, just a timely reminder of the truth: All cryptocurrencies and 'DeFi projects' are ponzi scams including Orchid. Seems like just an opinion to me, and a poorly opinionated one at that.

colesantiago 5y ago
Can you name any examples of cryptocurrencies being used that are not scams, ponzi schemes or for speculative purposes? All I see are people holding coins and not using them at all for anything else other than 'I want coin to go up'.
- pg5 5y ago
  Helium has practical uses - a cheaper alternative to cellular data for stuff like Lime scooters.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    The only practical uses of Helium are for weather balloons and for making your voice hilariously squeaky.
  - colesantiago 5y ago
    This can be done without the need for a blockchain. Adding a new technology + blockchain + a coin still makes it ponzi scheme scam, even worse when the price of this coin comes crashing down.
    - kristofferR 5y ago
      Why would individuals buy relatively expensive equipment, set it up and manage it, without the potential for return on their investments? The only reason Helium's LoRaWAN coverage is expanding rapidly is due to the crypto aspects of it.
      - colesantiago 5y ago
        So basically a ponzi scheme that is expensive to join with guaranteed diminishing returns in mining. If I would like to lose my money in style this would be it.
        vmception 5y ago
        > If I would like to lose my money in style this would be it. Well get in line, the backlog for receiving hotspots across all distributors is 6-9 months long.
    - vmception 5y ago
      Nobody wants a corporatecurrency And there is no human coordination mechanism without the freely convertible currency Blockchains provide the open source rails of all the account management and distribution, easing development costs. The infrastructure is already built compared to alternate ways of attempting to do this have fun doing that without a blockchain
  - pshc 5y ago
    I was looking into Helium yesterday due to news coverage. "Proof of coverage" is a bunch of hot air, sorry. It's not resistant to Sybil attacks and GPS location is easily forged. Seems like a scheme to push hardware units that will topple once the token value runs out.
    - vmception 5y ago
      Sort of, Helium no longer sells hardware and the community votes on third party manufacturers to be approved for authorization on the Helium network. This has helped distributed hardware delivery more than any single organization was prepared to do, with the semiconductor and supply chain issues. There is definitely an opportunity to sell overpriced hardware into the community then. There are some other antenna-blockchain systems out there that look more like "schemes to sell hardware", such as Match X. There is a big and burgeoning market for these "passive income" things, people install hardware to earn a cryptocurrency. It is definitely worthwhile to sell the hardware if you can.
      - CRConrad 5y ago
        > antenna-blockchain systems And earlier: >>> GPS So is this the Charlie Stross blockchain scheme?
- tenuousemphasis 5y ago
  Speculative investment is not the same as a Ponzi scheme. Not so subtle goalpost moving there.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Isn't most speculative investment in the end a Ponzi scheme?
  - colesantiago 5y ago
    The are used for both.
- birracerveza 5y ago
  https://thegraph.com https://thegraph.com is one example. Tokens are used to have a stake as an indexer (data provider) and to pay for query fees (data consumption), and if indexers tamper with the data they lose their stake. It was released last year and has a long way ahead to mature, but it's an amazing product and tokens/blockchain is essential to its decentralized nature. Simply put, there is no way to accomplish this if the network didn't adopt its own cryptocurrency.
  - colesantiago 5y ago
    Again, this can be done without using a blockchain. Just like all the other coins, the only use case is burning up the planet by using Ethereum, BTC, etc, racking up high fees and being used by speculators while everyone else who invests in the ponzi scheme lose their money when it all crashes. Nothing has changed.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - birracerveza 5y ago
      >Again, this can be done without using a blockchain. How so? I won't bother with the rest of the post as it's your usual crypto bad spiel that has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion we're currently having and has absolutely nothing to back up its claims (as do the rest of your posts, which I'm surprised aren't flagged/dead yet considering their low quality, but I guess HN is ok with them since they're anti crypto), but I'm curious to see how you would build a decentralized system that lets developers build data indexing programs, allows anyone to join the decentralized network as a data provider to run those programs, and lets consumers query that data from the network while also ensuring that the data is valid and hasn't been tampered with by the providers without blockchain/tokens. Please, do enlighten me, I'm curious.
      - birracerveza 5y ago
        Yep, that's exactly what I thought.
NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
I think it's a bit pointless to argue about whether cryptocurrencies are Ponzi schemes or not. What I would say is that most cryptocurrencies have no fundamental value, and are therefore bubbles. I don't know what the term is for when someone deliberately creates an asset bubble with the intention of profiting from it. It's something like a very long-form, deliberative pump-and-dump.
- birracerveza 5y ago
  I agree that the majority of cryptocurrencies are vaporware at best and deliberate scams at worst, but to claim that "All cryptocurrencies and 'DeFi projects' are ponzi scams including Orchid" is outright wrong.

colesantiago 5y ago

Can you name any examples of cryptocurrencies being used that are not scams, ponzi schemes or for speculative purposes? All I see are people holding coins and not using them at all for anything else other than 'I want coin to go up'.

pg5 5y ago
Helium has practical uses - a cheaper alternative to cellular data for stuff like Lime scooters.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  The only practical uses of Helium are for weather balloons and for making your voice hilariously squeaky.
- colesantiago 5y ago
  This can be done without the need for a blockchain. Adding a new technology + blockchain + a coin still makes it ponzi scheme scam, even worse when the price of this coin comes crashing down.
  - kristofferR 5y ago
    Why would individuals buy relatively expensive equipment, set it up and manage it, without the potential for return on their investments? The only reason Helium's LoRaWAN coverage is expanding rapidly is due to the crypto aspects of it.
    - colesantiago 5y ago
      So basically a ponzi scheme that is expensive to join with guaranteed diminishing returns in mining. If I would like to lose my money in style this would be it.
      - vmception 5y ago
        > If I would like to lose my money in style this would be it. Well get in line, the backlog for receiving hotspots across all distributors is 6-9 months long.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Nobody wants a corporatecurrency And there is no human coordination mechanism without the freely convertible currency Blockchains provide the open source rails of all the account management and distribution, easing development costs. The infrastructure is already built compared to alternate ways of attempting to do this have fun doing that without a blockchain
- pshc 5y ago
  I was looking into Helium yesterday due to news coverage. "Proof of coverage" is a bunch of hot air, sorry. It's not resistant to Sybil attacks and GPS location is easily forged. Seems like a scheme to push hardware units that will topple once the token value runs out.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Sort of, Helium no longer sells hardware and the community votes on third party manufacturers to be approved for authorization on the Helium network. This has helped distributed hardware delivery more than any single organization was prepared to do, with the semiconductor and supply chain issues. There is definitely an opportunity to sell overpriced hardware into the community then. There are some other antenna-blockchain systems out there that look more like "schemes to sell hardware", such as Match X. There is a big and burgeoning market for these "passive income" things, people install hardware to earn a cryptocurrency. It is definitely worthwhile to sell the hardware if you can.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      > antenna-blockchain systems And earlier: >>> GPS So is this the Charlie Stross blockchain scheme?
tenuousemphasis 5y ago
Speculative investment is not the same as a Ponzi scheme. Not so subtle goalpost moving there.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  Isn't most speculative investment in the end a Ponzi scheme?
- colesantiago 5y ago
  The are used for both.
birracerveza 5y ago
https://thegraph.com https://thegraph.com is one example. Tokens are used to have a stake as an indexer (data provider) and to pay for query fees (data consumption), and if indexers tamper with the data they lose their stake. It was released last year and has a long way ahead to mature, but it's an amazing product and tokens/blockchain is essential to its decentralized nature. Simply put, there is no way to accomplish this if the network didn't adopt its own cryptocurrency.
- colesantiago 5y ago
  Again, this can be done without using a blockchain. Just like all the other coins, the only use case is burning up the planet by using Ethereum, BTC, etc, racking up high fees and being used by speculators while everyone else who invests in the ponzi scheme lose their money when it all crashes. Nothing has changed.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - birracerveza 5y ago
    >Again, this can be done without using a blockchain. How so? I won't bother with the rest of the post as it's your usual crypto bad spiel that has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion we're currently having and has absolutely nothing to back up its claims (as do the rest of your posts, which I'm surprised aren't flagged/dead yet considering their low quality, but I guess HN is ok with them since they're anti crypto), but I'm curious to see how you would build a decentralized system that lets developers build data indexing programs, allows anyone to join the decentralized network as a data provider to run those programs, and lets consumers query that data from the network while also ensuring that the data is valid and hasn't been tampered with by the providers without blockchain/tokens. Please, do enlighten me, I'm curious.
    - birracerveza 5y ago
      Yep, that's exactly what I thought.

NovemberWhiskey 5y ago

I think it's a bit pointless to argue about whether cryptocurrencies are Ponzi schemes or not. What I would say is that most cryptocurrencies have no fundamental value, and are therefore bubbles. I don't know what the term is for when someone deliberately creates an asset bubble with the intention of profiting from it. It's something like a very long-form, deliberative pump-and-dump.

birracerveza 5y ago
I agree that the majority of cryptocurrencies are vaporware at best and deliberate scams at worst, but to claim that "All cryptocurrencies and 'DeFi projects' are ponzi scams including Orchid" is outright wrong.