Topic: Bitcoin is not a Ponzi. But sometimes it is marketed like one. - page 5. (Read 1118 times)

Most of the people who believe in the true benefits of Bitcoin (decentralization and censorship resistance) choose to remain anonymous. We don't hear much from such people because they are not popular on social media. These influencers are not social workers, they are online mainly for money. For them to get the needed attention that will make profit they will have to tell the people what they want to hear. People don't care about privacy, almost everyone is focusing on money and these influencers have to promote Bitcoin as a "Ponzi scheme".

If you check the internet, you will see that most people who give a balanced or comprehensive lesson about Bitcoin always have low followership. There are just a few good teachers that have many subscribers or followers.

But we all have a role to play in sharing the true message of Bitcoin. In our own small corners and social media platforms people shouldn't know that Bitcoin is much more than a profit-making asset.

That's why they are influencers. Their duty is to sweet talk the public into making decisions that on a normal day would require proper research but just like you said, some big investors don't have the time to go through the rigours of a boring research and instead prefer to rely on these interesting pitches thrown by these influencers.
 Of course, you can't do anything without the possibility of having profit that's why since they know it's how well they deliver is what determines their pay, they'd add so much spice to their contents to ensure it reaches the desired audience and excites them enough to want to participate. I mean, who would pass up on an idea of getting rich from taking advantage of the bullish price of Bitcoin?

These influencers did mention if Bitcoin is decentralized, censorship resistance, anonymous pseudonymous etc, but it's just come from their mouth, not necessary they understand what they talk about. It's because when they show their Bitcoin, instead of showing their hardware wallet or non custodial wallet, they show their balance in centralized exchanges and never talk about no KYC P2P.

So, what's actually the point for mentioning these Bitcoin's value when they're the one who kill it?

Of course there will always be a large group of Bitcoin investors which will be only in "because of the money". In the case of stocks and derivatives, we have the same situation.

However I think in the case of Bitcoin this group is disproportionally large. Many people for example hold Apple stocks because they like Apple as a brand, and they know approximately the products Apple produces and why they could justify the high price of Apple's stocks.

In the case of Bitcoin, we have of course the diehard believers and cypherpunks who understand everything, but this group is very small, perhaps 1%. Then we have a "somewhat informed" group, but I think it's only 10% or so. And even in this group, the belief for example that Bitcoin's value lies mainly in its "scarcity", the fixed 21 million supply, is widespread. This is however not the main USP, because there are now thousands of altcoins with an even more limited supply, e.g. all the "100% premined" coins.

I also don't think it is needed that every influencer / writer / forum member should educate investors thoroughly about Bitcoin's philosophy. If they do, it's awesome. But I'd recommend even influencers whose target group are "trader bros" to mention at least the basics about decentralization (no central middleman) and censorship resistance, so their readers/listeners actually know what they're investing in. That can be explained in a 30 second TikTok video.

No influencer comes up and say what doesn’t benefit them, they’re all having their own returns by presenting one side of the market to people and let them invest in them. They’re smart in the space and make their money through conniving to mislead beginners in the space. It is easy to convince newbies to join in the hype when the bulls have set in than when the market is still fluctuating.


How bitcoin is designed does not need to be blamed on others for one’s mistake. Newbies are often getting trapped always when it comes to this, they’re so naive that they’re so focused on making quick money without researching first on what they’re trying to put their money into, whether legit or not, they just want to make quick money. Influencers easily take advantage of that and keep milking them. DYOR is important for newbies also as it serve as a readiness sign for all newbies.

These influencers mostly show up when the market is bullish, they know it’s easier to convince people to buy during the hype. I’m not sure about their exact reasons, but they’re likely benefiting in some way. It could be promoting their channel to gain followers or viewers, basically taking advantage of the situation.

But You know, potential investors don’t want to hear about the boring technical aspects and the risks involved in investing in Bitcoin. Influencers often present only one-sided narrative focusing only on the positives. In the end, though, it’s up to us as investors. We need to stick to DYOR to avoid blaming others if things go wrong.

If i may get this more clearer, what is needed here is in the understanding of what differentiates a critics from a bitcoin influencer, these are two different things and they all have their different meanings as well as their impact over the market, critics will not invest and also join towards discouraging others from investing, while influencers are not aimed at giving the wring information, but working to do their job in a more professional manner that could drive in more users without considering the effect of doing so, as long as they are being paid, but we should rather be more concerned on who are the sponsors to those influencers and knowing if they are the good or bad people.


A reasonable person in crypto will understand that it's a decentralized digital currency, this alone talked about many things which we are expected to know of it, secondly, we also make more emphasis on DYOR, how many are working on that before making any decision from what they heard other people say.

Not everyone has a technical/philosophical understanding of how Bitcoin (blockchain) works, but everyone wants profit for sure, and these so-called influencers take advantage of this. This is so prevalent in meme-coin trading. As awareness about technical aspects of Bitcoin grows, these things will diminish, but nothing we can do about it, as sometimes even lazy, greedy investors do not bother to look into the technicalities of a project.
I think this assumption is  100% true.  . Nation wide Bitcoin FOMO is going to be next big phenomenon soon. 

I think most people in this community know that Bitcoin does have intrinsic value. The level of security, decentralization and censorship resistance of the Bitcoin network is unparalelled by other kinds of "money". And Bitcoin's value/price is, in theory, only showing people's desire to use this network to benefit from these qualities.

So those critics saying that Bitcoin has Ponzi-like qualities are simply wrong, period.

However, I am worried about some influencers who do market Bitcoin like if it was some kind of HYIP scheme, perhaps not directly a Ponzi (because there is still no central entity benefitting), but a bubblish asset with no real value which happens to go up in price because people/entities/businesses are buying it.

Their story is approximately this one: Buy Bitcoin now! It can only go up because its supply is limited and others are buying it too. Companies and even nation states will enter the market, and you soon will be rich. Don't be late!

In short, they focus only on the potential price increase, not on the intrinsic value. Okay, maybe something like "censorship resistance" is nerdish and perhaps even unpopular (because some still believe the "Bitcoin is for criminals" lie).

But the problem is that with this narrative predominating, nobody knows why Bitcoin's price should go up, i.e. why people should be buying it. If this "why" can only be answered by "because it goes up", this benefits the critics who (pretend to [1]) argument that Bitcoin is a Ponzi or that it has no intrinsic value.

What do you think? Is this narrative problematic? Or do we need it to drive more people into Bitcoin? Discuss!

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[1] I often distrust the critics who sustain the Ponzi theory. Their real problem may be instead that they, in reality, don't like the censorship resistance aspect and support tight government control over money.