Topic: Any counter-proof that Satoshi Nakamoto did not design a ponzi scheme on purpose - page 4. (Read 7693 times)

I guess it never occurred to you that a gambling site takes a pool, awards it to the winner, and gives the house a percent.

This is nothing like a system where greater fools are funding the sales of earlier fools.

What separates a stock from a ponzi is:

1. There is some intrinsic value that is growing as fast or faster than the increase in valuation. Or at least not diverging exponentially.

2. AND, there is not some white lie using asymmetric knowledge to fool or manipulate the psychology of investors.

Who is the idiot here? 


I already explained this up thread. Since you did not bother to read, I will tell you again, that Satoshi is profiting and his centralized promotion about magical quality of "gold" has been there from day 1 until now:

http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf#page=3

When in fact, he made the debasement decline so fast that it is nothing like gold at all. And this hoodwinked the philosophy of investors. They do indeed think it will go up forever.

Satoshi did not create an honest platform. He used a trick to fool everyone. And you are still fooled by it. That just shows how clever he was. Even I tell you, and you can't see it right in front of you face.


BS! You are so fucking ignorant, I shouldn't even bother replying to you.

Currency gets its FLOOR value from the government, or in the case of gold because it is held by central banks and the kings.

Currency gets its real value from the M and V in the equation:

M * V = P * Q

Quantity Theory of Money.

STFU ignoramus.

I wasn't really familiar with the name of their band. I remember seeing something on Mark's blog, but didn't memorize the name. Yes I have spoken with Mark recently on his blog and it was going well, but the last communication was my dislike of Apple's "walled garden" for apps, so I might have hit a nerve I don't know.

Did you work at Fractal Design Corp?

Afraid to tell us your real name? I am Shelby Moore III. What is your real name?

Not any time soon, when dormancy is not improving it means more and more people are just piling in because they want to profit on others piling in.

They do think they are going to hold until the spenders finally come.

But so far the spenders are not coming in at the same rate as the speculators, i.e. it is diverging not converging (means can only end up as a blowoff peak and crash)

And the more the price goes up, the more people are going to get jealous and come piling in.

The merchants and spenders economy can't possibly develop as fast.

After the ponzi scheme crashes, then if only the spenders and merchants hang around, then maybe it can stabilize. The lack of debasement will be a negative, but not as much so as now, if there is a larger installed base of spending by then.

So what ever it will be later, for now it is not that. For now, it is a divergent system, with ponzi scheme qualities.



By the time we get to that future, the governments will probably have co-opted it already any way. It really only makes sense to talk about what it is now.


Differences are:

1. My Proof-of-Work is more level playing field, everybody already has a hard disk. They can jump in.

2. The award won't get less fair over time.

Yes capitalism will still be in play. I want meritocracy, not socialism. The difference is I remove the ponzi flaw (#2) and the monopoly miners flaw (#1).

The way we are headed now with ASICs, the users of the currency (the spenders) won't mine. In my system, they earn the debasement.


We can't look into the future and say anything. Futures contracts are inherently socialism (but that is too deep to discuss).

We can look only at what is now.

We have no idea what it will do after it crashes.

We know it will crash, for as long as speculation is diverging from value. We just don't know when. Depends how many fools are coming in.

It is ponzi con because the perpetraitor knows that the fools believe there is value. He knew how to structure it "like gold" so they would believe. But it is nothing like gold (see the OP linked question), and in fact structuring it that way enabled him to get a huge chunk of the greater fool funds that are coming in.



Yeah if you don't know these things, you should not be voting.

You just proved my point that Satoshi used asymmetric knowledge to fool you.

Debasement means we increase the quantity of bitcoins. This is currently decreasing at a geometric rate of halving the debasement rate every 4 years. Nothing every used as money has that fast of a declining debasement.

Gold is the most extreme, and it isn't close to Bitcoin. Orders-of-magnitude difference. This is what is causing the frenzy of speculation. The speculators will say it is because they expect future growth of spending, but the fact is they are coming in because of the EXTREME scarcity of the newly generated coins. And this religious delusion I have described in this and prior reply to you.


Please learn about the system.


Roughly agreed.


Ponzi schemes look great until the implode. The key point is the divergence.


Overly simplistic analysis.

There are many ways they can get burned. Once is they lose a revenue source they were projecting as increasing. Another is any value they had in the system could be wiped out. Another is they may not trust the system. Another is the government might come in and shut down the system claiming too many people were harmed. Etc....

Nobody likes to be part of things that fail. Bad outcomes happen when many people are harmed. Wars... New regulation... etc...


I tried but they were trying to drag me into games, so they could get me to hide my points in a 1000 posts of diarrhea. I know how trolls operate. I know how to minimize their effectiveness.

So either John Derry or Mark Zimmer has had significant plastic surgery I take it?

Sorry to tell you this @WishIStartedSooner, but there's WAAYY too much logic and solid reasoning in your post. AnonyMint will be writing up an essay on why he disagrees with you momentarily.


EDIT: Called it.

If Charles Ponzi gains more owners of his receipts from his "Securities Exchange Company", did this better Gini coefficient make it not a ponzi scheme?

The key is that if the people invested are not spending, then the value isn't there.

You think that later they will become spenders, thus you think the Gini coefficient is dropping in a valuable way. I see they are all buying to sell later at a profit.

Thus I disagree with you.

More replies to follow...

Yea... guess I've been doing the customer service a bit too long I don't have thick skin, but I do have an open mind, and google for the words I don't understand. And I've decided to give you the chance to convince me, if you can.


Okay, so that supports the argument that bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme, and if anything negative, would best be classed as some kind of con? Not that I really care, I want to address the points you're actually making, not the naming scheme.


This might actually be more fair in the beginning. I will concede that point.

But over time, after the early adopters have sold out, after the mainstream has picked up on it, the wealth is going to redistribute itself to those who "do more" to earn it (that's a different argument all together though, and I'm not trying to derail the thread).

So at worst, we'd end up with a system similar to what we see now. The result of capitalism where the wealth is more topheavy, the only difference being that we would not allow banks to have control over what we've accumulated (if we didn't want to). This sounds just peachy to me.

In a system, like you propose, where the initial coin is distributed more fairly, those who take more action to earn it are still going to end up with more money, and thus more resources to set up projects that make more money. So in a laissez-faire system, the end result is still going to be same after the shitstorm, so why care if early adopters profit from the risk/work they put into it?


So it's only a con until the early adopters cash out, then everything equalizes? I don't understand how this is even a con to begin with. Just seems like another bubble bursting, which is something we all expect to happen many times during bitcoins ascent to ubiquity, a natural consequence of it's growth, and the uncertainty that people have inside them.


Is bitcoin a frozen debasement though? I will admit, I had to look the word up on wikipedia. Here's what it says:


It seems to me that if the mainstream DOESN'T pick up on it (and those dumb-asses may well not), then debasement is not frozen but thoroughly possible. Not because extra bitcoin is being made, but through lack of demand for what exists.

So... bitcoin debasement is not frozen, just driven by something other than the federal reserve's whim?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by this...


Oooohh I think I see what you're saying. Yes it is unstable now. But with mainstream adaptation the price fluctuation would be much less volatile than it is now. Also, we have the technology to compensate instantly for what differences in price would still occur. And only the fringe is arguing that bitcoin will make fiat disappear. So if it didn't completely overtake fiat, we'd still have a way to store wealth that is stable. If it does overtake fiat, then the larger market saturation would ensure that more stability exists.


Seems those fortyniners made out pretty good, and the economy survived, did it not?

As long as demand exists, any price drops from early adopters unloading would be corrected for in time. And your argument is that religious delusions will push demand higher over time, until it's mainstream. Right?


But those merchants won't get burned, unless they intentionally leave their money in BTC for speculative purposes. Instead they will have immediately converted it to fiat, which isn't going away THAT fast...

Regarding the name calling, whether somebody is smart or not, if you're trying to warn them that bitcoin is a con for altruistic reasons, then you might have better luck not pointing their (our) lack of intelligence out to them (us).

If that is not your intent, then what is?

It seems to me that the matter of whose right and wrong in this thread comes down to this:

What happens after the hoarding early adopters have mostly cashed out? Does bitcoin survive and remain popular? If yes, then this is not a ponzi scheme/con/whatever you wanna call it. If no then you might have a point, whatever words you choose.

AnonyMint: I got to go help my friend move, I'll be back, not planning to duck out on this.

I hope you can appreciate how impossible it will be for me to teach every member here basic economics? I don't have enough time. Eventually I must quit and go back to real work.

The number of possible misunderstandings and conflations is unlimited.


I did not miss that, my entire thesis is that spending is what is lacking in Bitcoin. There is too much store-of-value and not enough velocity.

But then you try to erroneously attach that truth to giving 50% of a money supply to a few people.

I would have no problem with them having 100% of the current money supply, if I know that the debasement is sufficiently fast, that they are not incentivized to sit on that capital and bury it in a hole.

Please people, stop conflating truths with non-truths.

The early adopters have 50% of the money supply ... until they spend it. You seem to completely miss how bitcoin is actually a currency, it is transferred around to help generate wealth. Say there is Joe, who has some bitcoins he mined a long time ago. Joe pays some bitcoins to Bob to do some work and create some value, Bob would otherwise just be sitting on his couch watching TV. Joe the early adopter has now cashed out his bitcoins, but because of bitcoins the total value of the system was able to increase.

I thought you were using caps for emphasis not in the proper usage, since there is so much of that sort of thing in forums.

Then I guess you were implying that who are my external peers is irrelevant in this forum, and/or that I'm juvenile or possess some trait of that boy band. I admit I do look young with blonde hair and blue eyes even though I am 48.

When did the affliction of losing control over your eyes start?

(egos are bigger than brains, and balls are smaller than hoops)

I wasn't using a metaphor 

Liar. Here is my first reply to you:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1674023

Nothing there but being respectful and answering your question.



Yadayadayada.

You continue to waste my time on politics. Stop, or I will ignore you.

I'd suggest you go back up and see who started that.  Your very first reply on this thread was condescending and rude, and had I noticed that at the time I might have declined to engage you.  Your constant belittling of the intelligence of everyone on this thread, including those like me who started in good faith, has done no favors to your ability to influence others.  As a rule, I respond to ad hominem attacks by turning the snark up to 11.

I've realized since yesterday that your primary distinction between "bubble" and "ponzi scheme" is the presence of malicious intent of the creator, *which, semantically, makes more sense to me now*, but I find your basis for conclusion of malicious intent (which is, strictly speaking, unknowable unless you are Satoshi) shaky at best, as there are simpler explanations that fit the facts.  [I didn't fail to notice that you ignored my much-simpler-than-yours explanation of the debasement schedule.]

You may find the debasement schedule stupid or unsustainable or untenable, but here's a corollary to Occam's Razor:

Never blame on malice what can otherwise be blamed on stupidity.

Thanks for being amicable and also for not lurking. Hope I don't piss off but I must be frank, you have two logic fails here. Hopefully you have a thick skin.

You are correct that as the wealth is distributed with a better Gini coefficient, then it will be less skewed to ponzi. One of the key traits of ponzi is the white lie that lets the insiders walk away with a big chunk of the networth of society.

And my design is that everyone with a harddisk can mine, so a much better Gini coefficient from the start and forever.

However your vote of Yes fails on two points.

1. It is a ponzi until they cash out at least. Short-term ponzi, long-term stability would not change what it is for now.

2. Lack of debasement is not a stable form of money and not even better for anyone except those who control politics, never has been and never will be. I refer readers again to read more carefully the following two linked posts.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1679165

Does Money Have to be Backed?

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/03/26/does-money-have-to-be-backed/


The problem is that the white lie about "bitcoin is better like gold" and "no debasement is a better world" is causing the ponzi frenzy. Every person who is pissed off about the end of the 78 year sovereign debt cycle, is religiously passionate about a better system.

The problem is that their religion is being aided by a debasement that is not increasing to dampen some of the rush into it. The debasement should only slow as the transactional goods & services economy becomes a larger share.

And because of this flaw, it can't never stabilize, just as gold and fiat can never stabilize. But at least fiat stabilizes for much longer periods than gold (in some cases), because the better central banks do allow some flexibility. (not saying I like central banks. I don't, I want a free market with open source algorithms)

With an algorithmic fluctuating debasement, we can get something like a mix between gold and fiat, without the bastards front running us with their secret control of the levers.

Then finally, we can get a bitcoin-economy that grows in value.

Until that technical change is made, it is a ponzi scheme. Sorry.


No chance of that. Price is going way up. Don't worry. It is an awesome ponzi scheme, for the religious delusion reasons I explained.

Once the sheep are jealous of the earlier ones, the gold fever starts. They are all 49ers rushing to California now.


A ponzi scheme can fail only if the participants realize that the value isn't there.

In this case, no one is going to believe what I am saying above about the valuation of a currency.

They will stampede into Bitcoin, guaranteed. I should buy Bitcoin. I would make a lot of profit, if I sell out at the right time.

But I am not interested in profiting on a ponzi scheme. And who knows when it pops and crashes.

I will admit that as Bitcoin crashes, it still has some transactional value, assuming that the merchants don't get so burned that they curse it.

However, if a competitor is able to get traction that has more stable value, that could alter the outcomes. I don't think this is likely.


I only implied that to those who were writing batshit stupid nonsense to me. Such as fornicating over whether the white lie in Bitcoin is an economic bubble. I don't care. We have a scheme here that is caused by misinformation and greater fools funding the earlier fools. Call it what ever you like. That is waste of precious time to argue over the name, when the effects are the same either way.

If you waste my time with stupid games over irrelevant naming, then you are not smart IMO.

I voted yes, but purely for semantic reasons, as bitcoin is clearly not a ponzi.

I think you have valid points, but what you're missing is when the early adopters cash out, that bitcoin will return to the bitcoin economy, and start to maybe be used again.

So it will seem like a ponzi scheme when the price drops from early adopters going and getting theirs causing late-comers to lose out on money, but the price will stabilize again as demand for that bitcoin continues to increase, which will occur naturally as bitcoin gains legitimacy. If the demand for bitcoin drops over time from lack of adoption (and not just early adopters cashing out), then the early adopters are fucked (unless they cashed out already). Ponzi schemes do not fuck the early adopters.

That risk is what I think makes the difference between a viable currency, and a con (which is the word I think you should be using in place of "Ponzi scheme,")

However, your language is intentionally trying to piss people off (by implying that every poster has a low IQ, for example), so I view you as a troll.

A very successful one too, because you've stirred up quite a name-calling contest here...

Not yet. I was hoping that moderators will let me out of Newbie area, because I don't want to put such a serious thread in it. I want to interface with smart developers.

I don't understand why you want to have a technical discussion with me, when you are still playing politics and asking ChipCoin to go read a summary which is just BS and has none of the details and truth?

You expect me to be nice and respect you when you continue batshit dumb juvenile behavior?


Re-read the algorithm at http://anonycoin.org, that is explained.

In short, you need to have all those 1TB (or what ever size we chose, probably scale it by Moore's law over time automatically) of secret keys stored, or you are not ready to respond when your turn comes.


The dice is determined by the hash of the chain of blocks with the entropy of the transactions. No one can predict it, nor change it. When selecting which transactions to put in the current block, the current peer has only a limited time to respond and the difficulty will be set high enough that it is not practical for them to search for a set of transactions that would select a desired peer. Also remember there is a transaction fee, so it is costly to add bogus transactions.


That why several nearest closet will also do duplicate work.


I haven't written it down yet. Intuitively I've got it. I need to formalize.


Good technical questions. Shows that you are developer. So why the political BS from you? Come on now. You are smarter than that. I will respect you, if you respect me.

Do you think I would ever trust you to be in charge of something, if you chase away new ideas as you have done to me? I had to fight so hard, others won't be able to do. Show me that you embrace new information rationally.

Nice you choose the page that has all the "finger in ears, nananana" politics, and nearly none of the factual content.

ChipCoin at al, I suggest reading the entire thread, not just one page of it.

They don't want you to read the truth. They are trying to hide the facts in their so called "summaries" which are nothing more than politics and hiding all the details.

Note if they continue this, then I will continue adding this post to the bottom of the thread too. I will also make a request to moderator to stop this pollution of the discussion, with such attempts to funnel readers to only one part of the thread.

It is so pitiful, they have lost the logical debate, they have to resort to such slimy methods.

They can also see they are losing as new votes continue to appear for "No", as more readers learn the truth.

I've updated page 5 with a more accurate summary, taking into account the past 2 pages. It's a light read compared to everything else, but the same valid (and important) points are covered.

Apologies I was away for some minutes writing about Big O algorithm-cost math:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4861&cpage=1#comment-397234


STOP. All of you readers need to stop a delusion that is in your mind.

1. Inflation and deflation both transfer wealth to the rich at a faster rate than they transfer it to you. Neither is good. So don't think Bitcoin's inflation is better. Please re-read the following linked post slowly over and over until you understand. It took me 6 years to figure that out. You are not going to get it in 5 minutes. You need to sit down with a cup of coffee and read it slowly.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1679165

2. I agree that letting some humans decide the debasement rate is bad, because it means they can game the system and profit more than others. The debasement rate should be algorithmic in the open source, so we all are on a level playing field. The debasement should be optimized to minimize both inflation and deflation. Our value should increase with a balance of FX price increase and that goods getting more plentiful at the same price due to increases in productivity. We will never get this perfect, but at least if we can agree on something more sane than what Satoshi chose, then we won't have a ponzi scheme.

Also all you goldbugs needs to read this:

Does Money Have to be Backed?

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/03/26/does-money-have-to-be-backed/

Expect to your preconceptions destroyed, if you have an open and rational mind.


Agreed, I would never want to lose this.

But the transaction fees in Bitcoin are not set. As the profitability of mining declines, they could increase, especially since the Proof-of-Work in Bitcoin encourages a monopoly as Satoshi himself admitted! Go back and read the OP linked question and following the links!


Agreed! I love the technology advance of Bitcoins. But I am telling you it has to be improved. There are some fatal flaws in the debasement and the Proof-of-Work.

ChipCoin,

Welcome to the thread, and the forum.  I'd suggest going through the previous posts to get a sense of the depth of the discussion, or at least check out the excellent summary on page 5.