If Bitcoin is a Ponzi, then surely we have to add the mighty US Dollar (or any fiat currency) into the conversation. Fiat money, issued and controlled by the banks is the quintessential definition of a pyramid scheme. [COLOR=rgb(209, 72, 65)]The "mighty" dollar's value is freely accessible by anyone wishing to know and is handled openly on all exchange markets - along with all the other freely exchangeable moneys of the world. [/COLOR]
Fiat is controlled by a very small group of insiders. Without exception, banks have manipulated the supply and distribution for their own benefit.
There is no transparency to speak of and users have no say in policy. [COLOR=rgb(226, 80, 65)]Some people seem to be just born to believe bullshit! Which "small group of insiders" are you talking about? All the exchange handlers in the world? All the companies that freely buy and sell future contracts and value assessments hedging against wild fluctuations in their currency of choice? Dude if tomorrow every exchange handler decides the dollar isn't worth shit then - hey! Presto! It aint worth anything. Pray tell what controls are there on the almighty PonziCoin? How many PonziCoin exchanges have been robbed of their contents? Could you lose half a billion dollars in a hard disk on a land fill sight? [/COLOR]
But back to Bitcoin, I really don't think it is a Ponzi. Bitcoins are essentially a commodity with a fixed rate of issuance. It is not a ponzi because after you've acquired bitcoins, there is no promise extended that you can redeem them for any value and there are no dividends paid to those who hold bitcoins. Bitcoins are traded, so the exchange rate can rise or fall, so there are those who will buy or sell bitcoins to speculate on the price.
Here's the worst thing of many bad things about PonziCoin: Bitcoin’s electricity usage is enormous. In November, the power consumed by the entire bitcoin network was estimated to be higher than that of the Republic of Ireland. Since then, its demands have only grown. It’s now on pace to use just over 42TWh of electricity in a year, placing it ahead of New Zealand and Hungary and just behind Peru, according to
estimates from Digiconomist. That’s commensurate with CO2 emissions of 20 megatonnes – or roughly 1m transatlantic flights.
If the fools that want to believe in something that only exists on the hard disk, server or cloud of a computer has any external value then may the power be with them but I would rather bet on pigs flying.
Further: Burning huge amounts of electricity isn’t incidental to bitcoin: instead, it’s embedded into the innermost core of the currency, as the operation known as “mining”. In simplified terms, bitcoin mining is a competition to waste the most electricity possible by doing pointless arithmetic quintillions of times a second.
This is a winner-takes-all game, where the prize is guaranteed to be paid to one, and only one, miner every 10 minutes. Burning more electricity increases your chances of winning, but correspondingly decreases everyone else’s – and so they have a motivation to burn more electricity in turn.
PonziCoin indeed?! It should be banned and I'm sure it will be in our Green New World - this idiocy has no place. None!