Craig Wright is so obviously not the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin ("satoshi") that the only people who maintain this typically have a financial interest, viz. the failed "BSV" fork.

Whatever you think of them, it's extremely important to note that Craig Wright was absolutely not the inventor of Bitcoin.

The Times is the newspaper whose headline Satoshi referenced in his genesis block: "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks". So I would have thought even though all newspapers do a terrible job of reporting on Bitcoin, they might be a little more inclined to do it well.

And yet here they are uncritically repeating the claims of known plagiarist and con artist Craig Wright.

"the inventor of bitcoin" hah. Don't believe everything you read, just like this post from OP.

I am 100% a crypto skeptic and don't own any coins, but it is incorrect to call them a Ponzi scheme[1], which is an investment fraud that uses funds from new investors to pay existing investors. You can make a very credible case that many coins were designed for pump and dump scams, but that is not a Ponzi scheme.

The crux of Bitcoins is that its value is derived from people's belief in its value. Lot's of assets and to an extent fiat moneys work this way. The "magic" of bitcoin et.al. is that they are finite, have clear chain of custody, and can be traded peer to peer. Those features can and do inspire confidence, but at the end of the day these coins have limited real world utility outside of money transfers and holding wealth. Those uses are directly tied to the faith of the market for those coins.

If someone asked me if they should buy and hold these coins, I would say no. However, speculation is somewhat in the eye of the beholder and turns on the risk of losing the investment. It's nearly impossible to predict future changes in asset prices, especially when an asset has been steadily increasing in value for years, but has a limited history.

TL;DR you're misusing the phrase "Ponzi scheme" which means something else.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

I disagree. You are right that the characteristic of a ponzi is that funds from new investors are used to pay existing investors.

But that is also a characteristic of crypto. You cannot buy anything for crypto without exchanging it for fiat, and for that you need a new investor to give you fiat for your cryptos. If all exchanges (incl. informal ones) close tomorrow, any crypto you hold is worthless.

Now, you could say that the same holds true for shares or real estate. But that is wrong. You can hold shares you bought ad infinitum, even if all stock exchanges close tomorrow, and would still receive your money's worth (approximately) in the form of dividends of the underlying company, or proceeds from the sale of said company, without ever selling those shares. You can live in a house or rent it out, and get your money's worth, without ever selling the house to someone else.

I don't see how you can get your money's worth with crypto without ever selling it to someone else.

> I don't see how you can get your money's worth with crypto without ever selling it to someone else.

Which is a characteristic it shares with fiat currency. Of course, fiat currency has people with guns making you accept it as payments for debts.

Yes, and everyone must pay their taxes in fiat, which renders it valuable. Unlike crypto.

>> everyone must pay their taxes in fiat

Colorado is different. https://thehill.com/changing-america/resilience/smart-cities...

Bitcoin is more like holding a piece of gold. If all gold exchanges are closed you can still trade your gold with someone in person. You don’t get your money without ever selling your piece of gold to someone else.

You can also make jewellery and tooth fillings and platings for electric contacts with gold. Not with crypto.

> You can also make jewellery and tooth fillings and platings for electric contacts with gold. Not with crypto.

Most of gold's value is because it's perceived as valuable. The industrial uses, etc, are small. Jewelry is a way to flaunt this value as ornamentation.

The parent post was about trading/selling crypto for money without exchanges. Gold has indeed some other use cases.

It is however not possible to send physical gold over the internet. Gold is also difficult to verify. You'll probably need to rely on a broker/shop and their tools to test if it's real. Bitcoin is relatively easy to verify with software anyone can download for free.

> crux of Bitcoins is that its value is derived from people's belief in its value

brave, but .. fail. The crux of BTC is that it is secure to attacks while moving assets that are represented digitally. In order to succeed in that, the integrity of the chain is required. Popularism is a "nice to have."

> crux of Bitcoins is that its value is derived from people's belief in its value brave, but .. fail. The crux of BTC is that it is secure to attacks while moving assets that are represented digitally.

Assets whose value is derived from peoples' belief in their future value.

A perfectly secure chain moving around assets that no one values isn't very interesting.

gp > “belief in its value”

p > “assets that are represented digitally”

Those seem equivalent to me.

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm saying.

You're technically correct. But I think the label Ponzi scheme is colloquially used for a broader concept where initial players gain and later buyers lose. Buying stuff and investing in stuff is semantically very close. But you're right.

Yes, most people (even kids!) now use cryptocurrencies for speculation. Which is just a lottery in disguise, except now it funds criminal activity and harms the climate. And the winners somehow have bragging rights which means more advertising. This is a very sad development.

> But I think the label Ponzi scheme is colloquially used for a broader concept

Yes, incorrectly. It does nothing to clarify the topic and obscures the risks of actual Ponzi schemes.

> harms the climate

This seems dubious at best. It seems like a lot of mining is happening on hydro and solar power, and only shifts to carbon intensive electricity when the price is booming.

> This seems dubious at best. It seems like a lot of mining is happening on hydro and solar power, and only shifts to carbon intensive electricity when the price is booming.

You're still warming the planet. And total energy use is so large that even carbon intensive part is significant.

What is the comparison of BTC energy use v. top-5 global militaries?

And military engines delete emission controls.

By this definition of ponzi scheme, isn’t USD also a ponzi scheme?

"hot potato" asset is possibly a better description. sell it while it's still hot before it goes cold and nobody wants to buy it.