> Any rising investment, if seen in a proper timeframe(with proper rationale) could appear to be a Ponzi scheme. I know you're not disagreeing with the grandpa

> Any rising investment, if seen in a proper timeframe(with proper rationale) could appear to be a Ponzi scheme. I know you're not disagreeing with the grandparent post here, fundamentally, but this really irks me. A Ponzi scheme is a particular type of scam that is pretty well defined. > ... it would appear that older investors are being paid off at the expense of the newer investors I guess this is the core of it; the definition uses the passive voice and thus is open to this interpretation. I think it's clear, both historically and looking at examples, that the definition would be more clear as: A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation, where the operator pays returns to its investors from existing capital or new capital paid by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the operator. Operators of Ponzi schemes usually entice new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. Here I've modified the language slightly (and I've edited the wikipedia page as well, but we'll see if that holds up). In the Apple example, there is no operator, so there's really no chance that it is a Ponzi scheme. Similarly for the Bitcoin case. You can make the argument that Bitcoin (or Apple stock) is a scam of some sort; a "pump and dump" seems the most apt analogue. Calling it a Ponzi scheme seems an invitation to this exact kind of semantic tomfoolery that I'm posting here.