Are you talking about your trite dismissal of my stating it's a global MLM scheme - which it fits the pattern for precisely? And also a Ponzi scheme because the final latest adopters are left holding the bag - meanwhile wealth was unnecessarily transferred weighted towards the earliest adopters.
Blockchain is a promising technology, designing it like Bitcoin to align people through financial gain (of an MLM) has unavoidable-unfixable pitfalls. You're welcome to go through my comment history to read more about the actual solution. You're making assumptions too that my stating it's an MLM scheme isn't backed up.
I find it hilarious, the irony, of you claiming my comment is a trite dismissal - as yours has exactly the same depth as mine, with the only truth you state is that blockchain is a "promising technology."
Your holier-than-thou defensive comments, articulated almost poetically, is getting more common though - as the more intelligent sucked into the MLM scheme get defensive and their guard goes up - feeling the need to defend their position, needing the price of Bitcoin to go up and up and up; while you're financially incentivized to write and spend energy, and others like myself with counter-narratives aren't financially incentivized to do so.
How many companies and technologies is this true or? Does this make them all MLM schemes?
Nothing about your response indicates you're giving me a generous interpretation at all, especially given how much of this response is you dumping rhetoric on me. Being snarky and in the same breath elaborately calling me "holier-than-thou" seems like we're just going to have a name calling arms race.
Similarly, the notion that more intelligent people are 'sucked in and defensive' is the true explanation, and you don't seem receptive to another interpretation to intelligent people thinking a technology is promising...it seems we may as well just leave it here. Thanks for your time.
Companies exist to make a profit and many of them do so by providing a service or by selling goods. The profit is paid out through dividends or stock buy backs. As an owner of a stock you have to do absolutely nothing to extract value from that stock. The company is automatically paying out money to you. There is no need to worry about finding a future buyer of your stock because you are assuming that people are analyzing the value of the company and buying it based on that analysis, because if the company keeps doing stock buybacks forever eventually your shares will be the only ones left and if you sell your shares you have cashed out your money without selling to a different investor.
With Bitcoin there are no dividends or buybacks. The only way you can realize value from Bitcoin as an investment is by hoping another investor is buying it from you. These complaints apply to gold as well. It doesn't generate revenue, it produces little value beyond industrial uses, all it should do is track inflation and tracking inflation is a very low bar and in practice cryptocurrencies and gold are outpacing inflation. Stocks too but if you were to invest based on fundamentals there will be a day in the future when your analysis will be spot on. Fundamentals would tell you to stay away from Tesla stock.
But this isn't where problems end, it's where they start. Currencies are not supposed to appreciate. They are supposed to stay the same over long periods of time with a small amount of inflation (around 2%). Bitcoin failed to become a currency and that's why it's worthless.
>you don't seem receptive to another interpretation to intelligent people thinking a technology is promising
I know you are not talking about me but I specifically stated that literally any other cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin is fine, even Ethereum is better than Bitcoin. The insistence that a single specific flawed cryptocurrency is worthy of defense is what really irritates me. There is no need to defend Bitcoin. Stop defending it. You can talk about any other cryptocurrency. You can talk about decentralized apps, you can talk about lightning, you can talk about defi, you can talk about uniswap or rubic, you can talk about prediction markets. Please, talk about anything other than Bitcoin and if you do talk about Bitcoin recognize its flaws and weaknesses.
The analogy was simply because GP posited that the pattern of wealth transfer from late to early adopters indicated an MLM scheme and that's clearly a shared trait among companies which are not MLM schemes.
It is not at all the defining trait of an MLM scheme.
I'm not trying to be rude, but the rest of your comments have nothing to do with anything I've said. I'm not taking a maximalist position, and I also don't agree that we should "stop talking about Bitcoin". It's evolving, so whatever you think or observe about it is on some level subject to change.
The unfortunate reality is that Bitcoin advocates all sound like people who bought into an MLM scheme. They desperately convince others that it has value and should go up.
That doesn't make it an MLM scheme any more than Tesla is.
And the counter balance I see generally are similar to the other commenter, people who will unload angry rhetoric but demonstrate no understanding of the Nakamoto Consensus algorithm much less address any of its merits.
What I'll say is that the absurdity of this trite dismissal presents a large undertaking for anyone to begin to try and teach you what cryptocurrencies are.
Most of the silicon valley billionaires acknowledge it as a promising technology, if that doesn't warrant some serious (read: many hours of difficult reading) consideration than expecting strangers on a message board to help you do it seems a bit entitled.
I'll grant you that trite dismissal of cryptocurrencies in general is quite common on HN.