Re:Dissecting Ponzi schemes on Ethereum: identification, ana...
by fivestar on Friday June 02, 2017 @09:27AM
(#14469684)
None of what you say negates the fact that it is a Ponzi. Plenty of Madoff's customers did the same things--they were "lucky" in the sense that they weren't at the last layer of the Ponzi. Someone will be. There was research done about Ponzi schemes and I don't remember all the details except that none get past 11 levels because it would require more people to invest than exist on the planet.
Re:Dissecting Ponzi schemes on Ethereum: identification, ana...
by someSven on Friday June 02, 2017 @02:09PM
(#14472101)
Ponzi systems end. A speculative asset might drop hard, but then it stabilises. There is simply no reason to stop using or holding BTC when the price increase stops.
That Bitcoin is speculation, a brand, and useful in some ways - that is why it can be sustained ... because the network of speculators/investors is global, and people with $100 or people with $10s of millions that want to gamble can join in on.
The 'single issuer' could also be considered the Bitcoin blockchain itself.
Years ago I met someone who sold off $20MM+ of Bitcoin, bought real estate for rentals, then bought more Bitcoin when low to rinse and repeat. How many people are doing this which keeps Bitcoin going, while slowly increasing the price? It could easily be 50%+ of money, of course everyone with Bitcoin is incentivized to increase adoption - so their Bitcoin doesn't become worthless, and so in fact it becomes worth 100x.