Topic: Bitcoin is not a Ponzi. But sometimes it is marketed like one. (Read 1118 times)

Since the creation of Bitcoin, it has shown that it's of the future, moving from $0 in 2008 to 100k plus currently shows there's hope in the future, am very amazed of how fast it's growing and that has made it to become an asset class, not only that but on of the fastest growing asset class, we saw it pass Silver this year to be among the first seven ranking assets currently and i believe that if it could get to this level in about 15 years interval then it has a good potential of growing above Gold in the future, some people even refer to it as a digital gold. Well, information is very important many of us failed to embrace Bitcoin much earlier cause we got a wrong information about it from crítics as well as the government but we gradually saw it's potential as years past and embraced it without a second thought and i believe that with this current ATH more people would begin to see it's potential and deviate from críticising but embrace it.

When there are positive effects, the Bitcoin market recovers and the value of the asset increases. While many believe that it is a bubble and that the price of Bitcoin will head towards a serious correction.

Exceeding the 100,000 threshold means that Bitcoin will succeed in having the value it deserves.

Political changes in the world are among the biggest influencers on the crypto market, and with the expansion of the cryptocurrency market, the degree of influence becomes widely available.
Among Trump's promises during his election campaign, he will pass more flexible legislation in the field of cryptocurrencies, and he also touched on the idea of ​​​​establishing a strategic national reserve of Bitcoin, and therefore he received support during his campaign from groups active in the field of digital currencies

I agree, bitcoin will not stop growing at exponential rate, it is growing super fast, and one day it will pass gold too, it will be the biggest asset in the world and won't stop until it is. I also even believe that it will be bigger than dollar one day, which is long long way to go, but I believe that will not be impossible, it is going to be possible without a doubt.

I feel like the best thing to handle right now should be just focusing on how to get the best for ourselves, individually, if you can do great individually, then you won't face too much trouble, that's the most important part of this. I understand too many people look at the general market, but look at what you can do with the information you have, that's more important.

Thanks for your interesting contribution. I'm a bit more optimistic than you, and I don't believe Bitcoin has already become a Ponzi scheme. As of now, I think it is as much a Ponzi as Apple or Nvidia: it is probably overvalued due to get-quick-rich speculation, if we compare the current price of $100.000 to the current adoption for non-speculative reasons (currency, long term savings, remittances etc.), but it has still a big potential for adoption so if we take into account possible future usage, it's perhaps indeed not overvalued at this point.

That features like Taproot, which improves privacy (despite that aspect not being liked by most governments), got added to the code relatively recently, and the development of interesting solutions like BitVM is an indication that the ecosystem surrounding Bitcoin is still healthy. But there are clouds on the horizon already.

I agree here mostly, although in countries like Argentina and Nigeria Bitcoin is also quite popular -- I think many people hold some BTC or altcoins there but relatively low amounts. About a possible selloff, I agree that it's likely that we'll see crashes like in 2018 and 2022 also after this next bubble pops. My hope is however that the selloff could be a little bit less pronounced, perhaps only 50 or 60 % instead of more than 75%, due to more "dip buyers".

Regarding Saylor: he has a business model that works for him, so his behaviour is in my opinion not cultish but predictable. He simply communicates in a way his company benefits most. But that doesn't make him a credible Bitcoin supporter.

This is also my take on the issue. Some big countries could hodl a few hundred thousands, in the order of magnitude of the coins that were already seized from Silk Road etc., perhaps a bit more. It's also better in my opinion of central banks and nation-states don't hold too many Bitcoins, otherwise they would get too much power in the case of another fork upgrade (like in the 2017 Segwit dispute).

In this scenario I'd expect US and its allies to build up mining potential too. However, you're correct that an 51% strategy would still be easier than an attack to Fort Knox. WW3 is also imo a very unlikely scenario, but that's OT here

that's the thing I'm worried about that there are some people who say that people should invest in bitcoin because they can get the potential for big profits from it, but they don't explain in full what factors cause the value of bitcoin to increase and what the risks are if someone invests in it. because a lot of people are trapped in bitcoin investment hoping that they can profit quickly, but they don't realize the risks, and when the price of bitcoin drops then they immediately sell it because from the start they don't have a long-term plan to invest in it and are consumed by the words of influencers or people who say that bitcoin investment has the potential for big profits.

I agree bitcoin seems to have become a ponzi scheme. Majority of people I meet in bitcoin view it as a get rich quick scheme. They'll never say that directly but all of them believe that if they hold onto their bitcoin some day they will be rich, even to the point they will go into credit card debt to buy more bitcoin. They have very little knowledge of how it works and most don't self custody which defeats the whole purpose of owning bitcoin.

Bitcoin makes more sense for countries and people that don't have a stable store of value but the vast majority of all bitcoin holders are from developed countries where they have alternative store of value assets like gold, real-estate, and stocks. The moment bitcoin stops out performing the S&P500 everyone will sell out.

I do believe in bitcoin. The tech is great but people seem to have turned it into something it isn't. Its become more of a religious cult making bold claims that bitcoin would solve all our problems. With people like micheal saylor going billions into debt because they "just believe" it will always go up. These people will deny any vulnerabilities of bitcoin and call it a perfect money when nothing in the real world is perfect. things are only perfect in theory. everything has trade offs.


I don't believe any large countries/central banks will have a strategic reserve. Maybe a small reserve but not a large amount. theres too many vulnerabilities for a country such as the USA to hold bitcoin. If for example USA did have a reserve but then world war 3 breaks out. China has plenty of resources to building enough miners and get enough energy to cripple bitcoins network. making the USA bitcoin useless.

Take for example if the USA kept gold as a reserve. China would have to go through the USA military which has an annual budget of 800billion and invade 100s of miles into the USA and bust into fort knoxs and steal the gold. Which would be much harder to pull off then spinning up 10GW of power for some miners in their own country.

It might be easier to pull off a sybil attack rather than miner attack but I haven't done enough research on sybil.

This is definitely a possibility. But for me it will depend on the dominant investment paradigm.

The 2021 ATH was a x3 of the previous ATH in 2017, while 2017 was a x15 of the 2013 high. Let's assume the next bull run achieves "only" a x2 compared to the previous ATH (i.e. around $140.000), the second next is a x1.5, and then a x1.2.

If this series continues, investment patterns would have to change for the "speculation model" still work. People would either have to buy in bear markets and crypto winters to get a reasonable return (and if too many do this, then the returns will be smaller). Or alternatively they will have to accept that they won't get rich with a simple Bitcoin investment, but see Bitcoin only as something like an alternative to a bond or a savings account.

In short: The speculation on high returns, which is now the overwhelmingly dominant pattern amoung Bitcoin investors, will have to change to a pattern where Bitcoin is seen as a safe investment but with relatively modest returns. If an ATH is only 1.5x of the previous one, then with good trading and reckless buying in the deepest bear market you may achieve doubling your investment, but not much more.

We can have, of course, a super bull run eventually, for example if Central Banks begin to invest massively, like some are speculating now at this moment with Trump promising a strategic reserve. But that would only push the "problem" one cycle into the future.

The interesting question for me is if this will work. In my opinion, it can, but Central Banks and businesses using BTC as a "strategic reserve" are not enough because they can only probably influence the amplitude of the gains in one or two cycles (i.e. less than 10 years). If we want Bitcoin not to deflate afterwards, it has also to be used for value transfers. The reason is to give investors the safety that there is no bubble that can burst, there is a real adoption taking place.

People who consider bitcoin as a ponzi basically have no knowledge of bitcoin itself. Although it is marketed like a ponzi because it can make people rich without having to work hard, basically those who think like that are those who do not have enough knowledge about bitcoin. In fact, almost every year there is bad sentiment towards bitcoin, but bitcoin remains strong and is currently growing and developing.

However, even so, people who do not believe in bitcoin or consider bitcoin as a ponzi are not our enemies. If they consider Bitcoin as a ponzi, a pyramid scheme, those who buy at the top always profit, and have no basis in fact they do not have knowledge about bitcoin.

They need to study the size of the bitcoin mining industry which uses more energy than the US military, they also have to see countries like El Salvador have admitted that there are even plans to build geothermal mines, and they also have to look at the Middle East where bitcoin is actually very encouraged and supported by the government. So actually people who consider bitcoin as a ponzi, they do not fully understand bitcoin. They need to be educated in the right way, so that they can realize the benefits of bitcoin.

In fact, if they are observant in looking at bitcoin, they understand that bitcoin is an interesting phenomenon. Without being controlled by anyone, trust in Bitcoin has continued to increase since it was created several years ago and surely Bitcoin will be many times more expensive than the current price of Bitcoin.

How do you know it will come to an end? Maybe it will end up being smaller in the future, but that means the bear runs needs to be smaller as well. So far it has been 15 years and we had good cycles, and I believe there is no reason why we can't do more than 15 years again, there is really no reason for it to stop, that could very well happen again.

So what I think we could see right now, would be bitcoin having the same cycles until we die, after that is not my problem. We can definitely see lower volatility there is no doubt, and lower peaks ROI but that doesn't mean it will "stop", it will just be less, and like I said, less is fine because bear runs will be less in return as well. We will also make a good amount of money on bull runs thanks to every bear run as well, as long as you can achieve to buy during bear run and sell during bull run there is nothing wrong with having at all, we should definitely consider an never ending increase for sure.

From my understanding of Bitcoin and the other investment I know mostly digital currencies I believe that people who has invested in Bitcoin can testify that bitcoin is not a scam so that is why we are having more people who develop interest in Bitcoin from the look of things I can see that more investors are coming in in Bitcoin and the more youths is also developing interest to invest in Bitcoin, so for them to develop such interest bitcoin is not a scam and since I've been practicing Bitcoin investment I'm not notice anything like a scam, so those people who says Bitcoin  is a scam I believe that have not understand exactly the concept of Bitcoin.

While I agree with what you wrote, I wasn't referring to the current cycle but to a "major" long term cycle.

Despite of the harsh 75%+ bear markets, the general tendency in the last 15 years has been bullish. This can continue 1-2 decades more, or maybe less than a decade, but the interesting question is what will happen when this long term bullish trend comes to an end. We're already seeing that the volatility to the upside was lower in each of the 2011, 2013, 2017 and 2021 bulls. If this pattern continues, and this is quite likely, then we will eventually hit a ceiling difficult to overcome for seveal years after.

But would that make Bitcoin a bad investment if you invested near this ceiling? That's the big question, and I was referring to that point. If the short term profit investment pattern continues, then it is likely that indeed those who invested near the top will lose, and the bear market will be deeper than before if there are indicators hinting that the ceiling was reached. For example, one of these indicators could be that the USD exchange volume at the top of the bull market was only as high as in the preceding bull run, or even lower, indicating less buyer interest.

The optimistic scenario is that Bitcoin is not longer used as a short term speculation vehicle in this scenario but for longer term saving and for value transfers. Basically what Boyapati meant when he wrote "The Bullish Case for Bitcoin". In this scenario the price near the "long term top" could be probably relatively stable, so even those who invested late won't see major losses.

Even everyone is not agreed about this but in my early days I was also introduced Bitcoin as a Ponzi but it gives me some better outlook and bitcoin also helps me in few cases, so I involved with this sorted out many rumours and then never look behind because it's always amazing experience and things have never been problematic for me.

Recently as things are getting more wide open peoples those were negative about this and never have faith in this now investing huge amounts and feeling comfortable as it's all about discussion and opening the ways few years back I was alone, but now we are having good community which is working on this, and we are having good response about this as well even still few are negative about this but as things are sorted out and peoples are feeling more comfortable we are having good increase in our community.

That is why we should get rid of some crypto influencers most especially those who are clearly one-sided. They are not educating us to be honest, but is only spreading false information that only them will benefit, while leaving us with unfair criticism on the coins.

At the end of the day, having due diligence is the key. The answers to our questions do not depend on the millions of influencers out there, but it’s only in ourselves that we will find the reliable answers to our questions.

And why people see bitcoin as scams is because they lack understanding and have zero knowledge about bitcoin be honestly who would see bitcoin in this period and then call it scam is not even possible because the value of bitcoin is now become global, to the extent that they want to consider making it, a reserve currency in the US so it's a great improvement, and at this rate now only does with enough doings can actually be able to participate because 90k is actually a lot of money.

And those that will be favoured will only be those that have been holding and if you look at it they actually deserve it because, the issue of buy and hold have been out there for a very long time so all they need to do is, accept the price of they think is high because everyone have the opportunity to actually buy but people don't take things seriously.

Those that can not afford ot now will have to wait till the next bear market because it will surely come so it's better to make preparations for that period than want to buy high.

By that thinking they would realize later on that bitcoin is seems like ponzi since people have that mindset would think bitcoin is just the same with other investment they try especially if they have little knowledge about this coin.

But if they associate it as asset the same with their fiat used then maybe they won't think about anything like that. This is why its important to teach newbie people the other use case of bitcoin so that they would not get any misleading information that can create bad impression which can discourage them to proceed on what they are doing with their bitcoins.

People are attracted to profit and passive income, and they saw it on Bitcoin by looking on the market. so they ignore its actual uses, engage in trading, and even use it to create a Ponzi plan. This is one of the reasons why Bitcoin has low acceptance in our country; they associate it with Ponzi schemes and passive income, and the mainstream media pick it up as such whenever the authorities bust a company that uses Bitcoin to scam people.

I think it is very likely that all phases will repeat themselves as they always do, regardless of how many people get involved in BTC in one way or another in the current bull run. Of course, the main idea circulating in the media right now is the possibility of BTC being part of the US strategic reserves, and as we can see, some politicians in other countries are advocating similar ideas. If any of these ideas were to be realized, it could extend the bull run - but it's no secret that most of those who invest in BTC do so for short-term profit, so the trend will very likely change at some point next year.

Holders should have already learned that there are periods when the market is ruled by bulls, and that there are also periods when the market is ruled by bears. All those who cannot cope with this have one very simple option, sell everything as close to the peak as possible and wait for the next major price correction to reinvest.

Why would you think that when the average person can still buy Bitcoin at a level they can afford even though the price of Bitcoin itself has gone past the price level you mentioned? I don’t think Bitcoin has gone beyond the realm of scams and is only suitable for the few because Bitcoin has always been suitable for anyone who is willing to buy and hold it properly without excessive fear. But I also don’t understand why you would think that about Bitcoin when it has gone past $90K per Bitcoin, which has given new hope to those who are still holding it today.

Honestly, BTC has been marketed as a ponzi for a long time now directly and indirectly through various sources which is why influencers doing the same isn't anything new and they are simply trying to cash in on the hype.

Bitcoin and the crypto market ascension over time prove that more and more people are realising that it ain't a ponzi or scam which is what truly matters at the end of the day.

And besides, when you want to validate some information, it is quite easy now to check over the net and see if it is true or not. Just make sure you are also looking at the right sites as there are so many misleading information also these days.


That is actually true. You can't say to yourself that you will stick to this brand or product. Because at some point, you need to buy another one. And so it depends on how you will assess the situation and see for yourself. Anyone can do the marketing and look it like what he wants to portray it, but if you know the hard facts, you don't need to buy such marketing promo.