Bitcoin - Part 2

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psionl0 said:
Did you really think that you could sneak that thoroughly and totally discredited argument in as if it were an established fact?
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What level of proof would be appropriate?
There is no barrier to entry to running a ponzi scheme, nor to launching a crypto currency.
This is the essential argument that will be trotted out when they all crash to curiosity value like the pet rocks I recall.
 
Samson said:
There is no barrier to entry to running a ponzi scheme, nor to launching a crypto currency.
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That is what you call an "appropriate" level of proof? :jaw-dropp

Wake up! The two things are chalk and cheese and there are thousands of posts in this thread that explain why.
 
psionl0 said:
That is what you call an "appropriate" level of proof? :jaw-dropp

Wake up! The two things are chalk and cheese and there are thousands of posts in this thread that explain why.
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I realised we had a problem when Globex and CME launched derivatives, and they seemed legitimised, so far you are winning the debate, I like to be fair.
 
Many types of derivatives may well be described as Ponzi schemes. Banks could also be said (with a bit of licence) to be running Ponzi schemes since they rely on others making deposits (or loan payments) to fund withdrawals.

But I have never heard of buying something in the hope of flipping it for a profit being described as a Ponzi scheme. That would make all the supermarkets in the world Ponzi schemers.
 
I think that is a false analogy. Roger was saying what may be true, history will call cryptos ponzi schemes. I see this as a legitimate forecast.
Will Warren Buffet or Charlie Munger disagree with Roger?
 
Samson said:
I think that is a false analogy. Roger was saying what may be true, history will call cryptos ponzi schemes. I see this as a legitimate forecast.
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I don't see that. Ponzi schemes provide an income for the holder of the asset. The income is not derived, as the investor supposes, from earnings of the asset, but from investments by later victims. However there is an income. Bitcoin produces no income of any kind. It is therefore not a Ponzi scheme. It is a speculative bubble.

The bubble Burst in December, and since then prices have remained in a range up to about half the December peak.

By post bubble standards it's doing quite well, but the heady "days of wine and tulips" have gone - at least for now. And I think for ever.
 
Craig B said:
Bitcoin produces no income of any kind. It is therefore not a Ponzi scheme. It is a speculative bubble.
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That is a fairer assessment of bitcoin.

Craig B said:
By post bubble standards it's doing quite well, but the heady "days of wine and tulips" have gone - at least for now. And I think for ever.
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That is a bit premature. Bitcoin has not had a good month with the gains of the previous month all but reversed. However, the story is far from over.
 
Massive theft.

The price of bitcoin slumped more than 7% after South Korea's Coinrail announced that it had been targeted by cyberthieves. In a statement Monday, the exchange said that it had a suffered a security breach in which hackers stole about 30% of its virtual currencies.

The theft was of less well-known cryptocurrencies rather than bitcoin itself. Still, the news sent shock waves through virtual currency markets. As well as bitcoin, prices for other commonly traded digital currencies like ethereum also plunged. Nearly $30 billion in cryptocurrency wealth was wiped in about seven hours of trading, according to data provider Coinmarketcap.com.
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Craig B said:
I don't see that. Ponzi schemes provide an income for the holder of the asset. The income is not derived, as the investor supposes, from earnings of the asset, but from investments by later victims. However there is an income. Bitcoin produces no income of any kind. It is therefore not a Ponzi scheme. It is a speculative bubble.
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Actually it's both. Cryptocurrencies are a new kind of Ponzi scheme that anyone can get in on. In the early days you didn't need a particularly powerful computer to mine bitcoins, so it was possible to create 'money' out of thin air. Then all you had to do was sit back and watch it's 'value' grow as more suckers poured money into it. The entity calling itself 'Satoshi Nakamoto' did exactly that, 'mining' thousands of bitcoins when they were worth practically nothing. He/it knew that if bitcoin became popular the price would necessarily skyrocket, since that feature is built into it.

Unlike a physical commodity Bitcoin has virtually zero fundamental worth, so the price is almost entirely determined by how much hard currency has been traded for it. This is similar to a Ponzi scheme which has no actual earnings but is fueled solely from investor input, but since anyone can buy and sell bitcoin it is also a vehicle for speculation.

The bubble Burst in December, and since then prices have remained in a range up to about half the December peak.
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Not exactly a 'range', more a series of dead-cat bounces, each one peaking lower than the one before. This is classic bubble behavior. But who knows? Perhaps one day Bitcoin will find its element and take off to the Moon!

By post bubble standards it's doing quite well,
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If by 'quite well' you mean acting like any other bubble then yes, it is...
 

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Roger Ramjets said:
Actually it's both. Cryptocurrencies are a new kind of Ponzi scheme that anyone can get in on. In the early days you didn't need a particularly powerful computer to mine bitcoins, so it was possible to create 'money' out of thin air. Then all you had to do was sit back and watch it's 'value' grow as more suckers poured money into it. The entity calling itself 'Satoshi Nakamoto' did exactly that, 'mining' thousands of bitcoins when they were worth practically nothing. He/it knew that if bitcoin became popular the price would necessarily skyrocket, since that feature is built into it.
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Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.

All you need to add to this psychic ability of the early investors is the plotting with the NWO to destroy national currencies and you have re-created the CT that has been sprouted since the beginning of the bitcoin threads and repeated and refuted ad-nauseum.
 
Armitage72 said:
Massive theft.
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And once again the price drop is blamed on some 'anomaly' rather than a flaw in the product itself.

But not everyone agrees on the cause.

Bitcoin's Price Is Below $7K And (Some) Hodlers Aren't So Happy About It
The price of bitcoin hit a two-month low over the weekend – and social media is alight with speculation about it.

While pundits don't quite agree on the circumstances behind the plunge (with some blaming reports of a widening manipulation crackdown, the hack of South Korean crypto exchange Coinrail or just some pre-week selling), what's clear is that the price move has acted as a kind of social thunderbolt for the community, spurring commentary from all sides.

Investor Alistair Milne ran a Twitter poll on Sunday soliciting input on what people thought sparked the dip – in perhaps a sign of the times, half of the roughly 3,700 respondents blamed "aliens"...
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An exchange is hacked, a government clamps down, a celebrity comes out for or against it, a butterfly flaps its wings. There will always be something to blame for the latest disturbance. But the real cause is the nature of Bitcoin itself.

When you have an unstable system with positive feedback any small perturbation becomes greatly amplified at the output. The response tells you more about the system itself than the nature of the disturbance, which can be considered 'noise'. For bitcoin the 'energy' in the system is the amount of money invested, the driving force or 'amplifier' is investor sentiment, and social media provides the positive feedback. But the wild oscillations that result can't hide the fact that energy is leaving the system. Unless bitcoin can some find way to generate real income the slide will continue.
 
psionl0 said:
All you need to add to this psychic ability of the early investors is the plotting with the NWO to destroy national currencies
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I am willing to entertain the idea that 'Satoshi Nakamoto' was simply an idealistic hacker with a limited understanding of economics, who though he was doing the World a favor by kick-starting a 'digital currency' which (he thought) was desperately needed to avert global catastrophe. But if so then he was either hopelessly naive or blinded by conspiracy theories himself.

And perhaps the reason he hasn't 'de-cloaked' is that he doesn't want to admit his naivety and take responsibility for the monster he created. Or perhaps he saw how much money could be made from it...

But while he/it remains anonymous there will always be a question mark around his/its motives. A Ponzi scheme may not start out as deliberate fraud, but it becomes one when its creator realizes that the investment has no legs - and yet continues to promote it.
 
Roger Ramjets said:
And perhaps the reason he hasn't 'de-cloaked' is that he doesn't want to admit his naivety and take responsibility for the monster he created. Or perhaps he saw how much money could be made from it...
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Or perhaps the entity known as "Satoshi Nakamoto" came to a bad end and that is why their wallets haven't been touched nor has anybody heard from them for a long time.

Speculation is not knowledge and hope is not a forecast. Your posts belong strictly in the CT section - as do all the other posts of the same vein that preceded yours by many years.
 
psionl0 said:
Or perhaps the entity known as "Satoshi Nakamoto" came to a bad end and that is why their wallets haven't been touched nor has anybody heard from them for a long time.

Speculation is not knowledge and hope is not a forecast. Your posts belong strictly in the CT section - as do all the other posts of the same vein that preceded yours by many years.
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Brilliant. Oratory, I wish I had thought of that. I am actually impressed.
 
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