Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf]

Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by pavlov on Thursday November 30, 2017 @11:36AM (#15817075)

The bad news is that Diamond was able to correlate to status, a strong (if subjective) value that is part of humanity since always. BTC only appeal is its value as money ...

Startup idea: Bitcoin wedding rings.

A beautiful gold ring with a private key engraved on the inside. Give your loved one the gift of BTC! Your commitment to each other, eternalized on the global blockchain.

Gentlemen may prefer blondes, but the modern woman prefers Bitcoin to carats of squeezed carbon. Status, store of value, it's all there.

(This is satire, but now I'm worried it will actually happen if the coinmania doesn't subside soon.)

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by realPubkey on Thursday November 30, 2017 @11:47AM (#15817167)

Where I come from your nickname would soon be "4-fingers"

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by pavlov on Thursday November 30, 2017 @11:52AM (#15817214)

Same risk with a $10k diamond ring, right? Yet people buy those from Tiffany's.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by chockZ on Thursday November 30, 2017 @12:16PM (#15817428)

Doesn't a diamond ring lose value once it is sold, though, in terms of re-sell value? A ring worth one bitcoin is not going to lose value once it is sold (aside from market volatility).

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by jjoonathan on Thursday November 30, 2017 @12:44PM (#15817709)

Yeah, but it's business as usual for petty thieves to cause 10x (or 100x, or 1000x) damage for a 1x payoff.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by usrusr on Thursday November 30, 2017 @02:28PM (#15818728)

1000× times the diminutive likelihood that this nicely immutable paper wallet hasn't already been spent.

(A paper wallet is a paper wallet even if it is written on gold in tengwar runes that only appear when subjected to fire)

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by thaumasiotes on Thursday November 30, 2017 @04:39PM (#15819800)

Yes, a diamond ring cannot be resold, since the price of diamonds has been decoupled from the difficulty of getting them. You're not paying that jeweler for the diamond on the ring; you're paying him a special fee for being a De Beers recognized diamond merchant. A bitcoin doesn't have that problem.

However, a ring inscribed with a private key controlling one bitcoin will lose its value immediately, because whoever comes into possession of (or ever sees) the ring will move the bitcoin.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by tlrobinson on Thursday November 30, 2017 @02:27PM (#15818719)

Shrem wears a ring engraved with the code that gives him access to the Bitcoin "wallet" on his computer.

"They started calling me four-finger Charlie“

http://www.businessinsider.com/charlie-shrem-arrested-bitcoi...

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by paulddraper on Thursday November 30, 2017 @11:53AM (#15817220)

Is that also true for diamond ring wearers?

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by TaylorGood on Thursday November 30, 2017 @12:47PM (#15817738)

Just watched a movie on Netflix yesterday called Bitcoin Heist.

A B-grade fictional movie focused around "Ghost" who has the QR code to his wallet on his ring. Worth a watch if you're sick in bed.

Fun anecdote: the movie is depicted when $BTC is $250 and they're chasing after 30k and 40k bitcoin.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by PetoU on Thursday November 30, 2017 @11:58AM (#15817261)

I think that jewelry should have a property of showing off, so hidden private key wouldn't work that well. You need to have some mechanism how to show status. And that nicety factor was driven mostly by women decorum.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by cocmongler on Thursday November 30, 2017 @01:23PM (#15818123)

Simple, have an embedded device in the ring with a tiny display that gets and displays the real time value of the wallet.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by pavlov on Thursday November 30, 2017 @12:03PM (#15817305)

That's just a question of recognizable design and enough marketing spend, i.e. branding.

It's well known that people pay a major premium for things solely because they have words printed on them like "Calvin Klein", "Guess?" or "YSL". Jewelry branding is actually easier to make visually recognizable than clothes.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by Retra on Thursday November 30, 2017 @08:14PM (#15821185)

People don't pay a premium for the label, they pay a premium for the middlemen who host the label, because that is a presumably exclusive group and culture that they have access to.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by lordnacho on Thursday November 30, 2017 @01:17PM (#15818060)

Well you can easily sign stuff with your key and people can easily verify how much coin is in the account.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by tlrobinson on Thursday November 30, 2017 @02:35PM (#15818791)

I predict at some point we’ll see a rap music video where they “make it rain” QR codes of high value Bitcoin addresses.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by ianopolous on Thursday November 30, 2017 @12:19PM (#15817463)

You could make it able to sign transactions from the account with something like a Java ring: https://www.javaworld.com/article/2076641/learn-java/an-intr...

Though for a wedding ring you'd clearly need a different look.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by tlrobinson on Thursday November 30, 2017 @02:38PM (#15818810)

The problem is how do you get the private key engraved without sharing it with the jeweler or whoever?

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by dumbfounder on Thursday November 30, 2017 @12:13PM (#15817409)

I had this idea a few weeks ago. I think it would sell, but how do you tie the ring to the bitcoin effectively?

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by jacquesm on Thursday November 30, 2017 @01:05PM (#15817928)

Engrave the key on the inside of the ring.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by runeks on Thursday November 30, 2017 @03:14PM (#15819101)

The key is information. One glance at it, by the wrong person, and it becomes worthless.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by dumbfounder on Thursday November 30, 2017 @03:05PM (#15819011)

Then you can't get your ring professionally cleaned.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by pjmorris on Thursday November 30, 2017 @11:49AM (#15817182)

Generalization: Bitcoin jewelry.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by pavlov on Thursday November 30, 2017 @11:56AM (#15817247)

And bitcoinjewelry.com seems to be taken -- somebody's already on the case. I'm not looking forward to it.

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by cjbenedikt on Thursday November 30, 2017 @12:45PM (#15817713)

Love the idea...;-)

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Re:Is Filecoin a $257 million Ponzi scheme? [pdf] by igorgue on Thursday November 30, 2017 @01:21PM (#15818098)

For Christmas, I'm giving books and I'll write a paper wallet seed in a page with some BTC in it already.

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