What's the difference if you are getting payout from a bigger fool?

There's no such thing as "payout" in free markets—someone buys your thing for money (sometimes less money than you paid for it, sometimes more money than you paid for it). So, while it might be a speculative bubble (like Beanie Babies, or Tulips, or whatever), it's certainly not a Ponzi. Also, the bigger fool theory (which is what you're conflating it with) is also not a Ponzi.

This might be confusing, because many other crypto products are very Ponzi-like. For example, Voyager literally paid new "stakers/depositors" (a.k.a. investors) with old "stakers'/depositors'" (a.k.a. investors') money to reach the insane return rates they were advertising.

Who the hell cares. If it's a pump and dump of fundamentally worthless stuff relying on bigger fools, it's all the same.

I care. You made a claim, were given a thoughtful explanation why your claim was wrong, and you don't care. Not cool.

I made no claim. I asked whats the difference and got a pedantic explanation of what a ponzi scheme technically is, like anyone whose been in one of these threads hasn't already heard that same pedantic explanation. Who cares? It really doesn't matter if its a ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme or some other scheme. What is transparently obvious is there is nothing there there and eventually the music stops and leaves the bigger fools holding the bag.

Fair enough. My bad.

> there is no new deposits paying previous depositors

Huh? Every time somebody buys a coin with fiat that's a new deposit paying a previous depositor.

A ponzi is any system in which the only way for older buyers to cash out is at the expense of later investors. How is 'supply is fixed' relevant?