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A comment on Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say. Parent comment

Re:Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Rese... by GuB-42 on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @12:28PM (#17304575)
If anything, Bitcoin is closer to the even older Tulip-mania than to a Ponzi scheme.

A Ponzi scheme is a specific kind of fraud based on the promise of an unreasonably high return on investment which is actually payed by late adopters. Bitcoin doesn't make promises and it doesn't have a cover story to hide the source of the money. It may be a bubble, but it is not a Ponzi scheme.

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Re:Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Rese... by jrochkind1 on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @12:49PM (#17304794)
As good a story as tulip-mania is, it seems it may not quite have been what we think.

https://theconversation.com/tulip-mania-the-classic-story-of...

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Re:Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Rese... by joosters on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @01:08PM (#17305011)
The South Sea bubble is by far a better comparison. It even had ICOs (sort of) and token trading!
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Re:Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Rese... by joshuahedlund on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @03:09PM (#17306080)
See "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" (public domain on Gutenburg[0]) for both of these and more!

[0]http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518

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Re:Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Rese... by notahacker on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @06:54PM (#17307706)
Someone really needs to do a "For carrying-on an undertaking of great advantage but no-one to know what it is!" ICO
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Re:Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Rese... by joosters on Thursday June 14, 2018 @12:25AM (#17309272)
Hey, some ICOs even make it clear that you won't get any of the profits, so perhaps the description can be reduced to just 'For carrying-on an undertaking but no-one to know what it is!'
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Re:Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Rese... by Spooky23 on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @02:33PM (#17305813)
Bitcoin doesn't make promises? It is supposedly rendering money obsolete!

The primary market force was pretty obvious -- fraud like cryptolocker and money laundering. Shockingly, fraudulent exchanges and practices were/are pervasive.

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Re:Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Rese... by arisAlexis on Wednesday June 13, 2018 @07:05PM (#17307781)
could you explain how tulips had a technological innovation? i can't understand how people can even bring it up as a legit comparison
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Re:Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Rese... by zrobotics on Friday June 15, 2018 @11:36AM (#17320515)
One of the innovations that drove the tulip prices was new strains/the newness of tulips in general.

>>A university study in 1593 led to the discovery that tulips could withstand the harsh northern-European climate... With their intensely colorful petals, tulips were unlike any other flower popular in Europe at that time [0]

Additionally, another innovation that drove the bubble was the widespread introduction of futures trading, allowing year round trading, as well as traders to speculate without needing to take delivery of the crop.

[0]http://www.thebubblebubble.com/tulip-mania/

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