Great effort, but this is NOT a pyramid scheme, this is Ponzi scheme, it's not the same, not the same at all. Pyramids and levels belong to multilevel and affiliate program world, that is people are getting paid for bringing new members, part of their deposits. We do not have any affiliate program.
I get your point, especially after reading the following bits:
Quoting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme“A pyramid scheme is a form of fraud similar in some ways to a Ponzi scheme, relying as it does on a mistaken belief in a nonexistent financial reality, including the hope of an extremely high rate of return. However, several characteristics distinguish these schemes from Ponzi schemes:[1]
• In a Ponzi scheme, the schemer acts as a "hub" for the victims, interacting with all of them directly. In a pyramid scheme, those who recruit additional participants benefit directly. (In fact, failure to recruit typically means no investment return.)
• A Ponzi scheme claims to rely on some esoteric investment approach and often attracts well-to-do investors; whereas pyramid schemes explicitly claim that new money will be the source of payout for the initial investments.
• A pyramid scheme typically collapses much faster because it requires exponential increases in participants to sustain it. By contrast, Ponzi schemes can survive simply by persuading most existing participants to reinvest their money, with a relatively small number of new participants.”
Quoting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme “A pyramid scheme is an unsustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public.[1][2]”
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One more thing that is worth noticing is that the simulation assumes that every User would withdraw his Bitcoins, would not send them again into the scheme. I guess a lot of present Users of the “real” scheme are willing to reinvest what they have received, thus creating a case as we have with banks, where the amount owed by the banks to their customers is higher than the bank’s real holdings.
One thing to note is that as soon as the first person deposits, the scheme already owes more than it has.
If the first depositor sends 1 BTC, he is "owed"* 1.5 BTC, and the scheme is already insolvent to the tune of 0.5 BTC.
Every time anyone deposits, the scheme only gets further into debt, because although their assets increase by X, their liabilities increase by 1.5 times X. Basically half of every new deposit counts as extra unfunded debt.
(*) except he isn't "owed" anything really. He's playing a game, and knows that he might get back less than he put in. That's part of the game. The problem is when the players don't know what game they're playing, like
these poor people.
That is a good point to make, especially talking about assets increase versus liabilities increase. I didn’t think about it this way.
XXXXXX
It seems you have put the wrong link, that "higher resolution image" doesn't look right.
You're right, sorry about that, the resolution was the same but the quality was better (I suppose)