Re:Bitcoin pyramid schemes wreak havoc on Brazil's 'New Egypt'
by cinntaile on Sunday January 23, 2022 @10:39AM
(#30046934)
I replied to a statement claiming bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. Bitcoin doesn't have such a promise. Sure someone can come and claim this for dollars as well, but that doesn't make the dollar a ponzi scheme either.
Of course there is, that's what the Brazilian guys in the article we're commenting on were arrested for. Schemes worth 5 billion in total that included false promises of delivering monthly returns of 10% on bitcoin 'investments'.
Pretty much the entire value of countless of coins, nfts or other largely imaginary financial products is a game of bigger fool. People paying tens of thousands for NFTs of pictures or tweets makes no more sense than that old scam of buying an acre of land on the moon or of an imaginary country.
And of course the other big similarity is the shared psychological reaction. Rather than people waking up to the fact that they're entangled in increasingly bizarre financial transactions, the rationalizations for the behavior become weirder and weirder.