Topic: Is Bitcoin a Pyramid or Ponzi scheme & what are the ramifications? - page 3. (Read 16881 times)

Yeah, but transfer bitcoins and revoke transactions. Doesnt change the point.

And the biggest botnets had 10M+ bots connected. Considering the amount of people mining that can easily be topped by a botnet.

Now the pools and a few big players can take over. Btw a 51% attack can't steal coins. You are not qualified to speak, because you don't even know Bitcoin 101.

Also why would I care if botnets mine, as it adds security. It is only a problem if one botnet can get 51% which won't be possible if million people download your client.

And yet I answer...

If we agree with this, we can ask ourselves if Bitcoin falls in one of those categories :
1. Ponzi scheme
2. Pyramid scheme
3. Economic bubble

My opinion (*) :
1. No (even Anonymint agrees).

2. No. The system can work without new participants. It worked 3 years ago (you could buy pizzas), it still works today (you can buy a lot more stuff), it will still work tomorrow whatever the exchange rate is.

3. Yes, probably. People are putting great expectations in Bitcoin and maybe not all of them will be fulfilled (the first one being an always increasing price).

(*) : we can only have opinions here.
Most of the debate is about "is Bicoin a fraud ?".
You can not just yell "fraud". ; you have to prove that :
- someone (with a name and address) is doing something illegal in his country of residence,
- and that he is doing it on purpose.

If you are more in favour of the free market than me, then stop worrying about the masses.  

Well, i am really glad they arent listening to you. CPU only? Eh?
Right, and the next botnet steals all coins via a 51% attack. The presence of ASICs has pretty much thwarted the potential threat presented by a malicous botnet.

Bitcoin developers refuse to change the coin supply curve and make transaction fees low forever.

And the ASICs existing miners will never let Bitcoin be changed to CPU-only. Impossible to fix that in Bitcoin. Too late.

They will not listen.

Sorry.

No I was debating with Hawker in PM and posting some of my findings here to the public thread. I appreciated your post Btw.

Was this to me? I'm not sure what any of that has to do with my post.

You can't see the writing-on-the-wall? Focus your crystal ball on this and estimate the future...

Bitcoin is completly transparent which no Ponzi Schema can be. Ponzi Schemes require a lack of transperency!

Bitcoin is not for the masses.  It never will be.

Yet a common theme they all expressed was that such currencies were something they'll be able to control -- something that can be monitored and policed -- and not an anarchic and impenetrable system that drug dealers and money launderers and tax evaders can hide behind. So: The feds are paying attention.

For future users of virtual currencies, that's a good thing. It'll offer consumer protections and predictability. For Bitcoin, it's a problem.
To the extent using Bitcoin has any benefits now -- convenience, cost-efficiency, putative anonymity -- it's because authorities haven't been taking it very seriously. As officialdom becomes more assertive, Bitcoin will become more difficult and expensive to use, and less anonymous. That's because complying with money-transmission laws such as the Bank Secrecy Act is burdensome and costly and annoying. Bitcoin exchanges are starting to find this out. As the government's tentacles spread through the ecosystem, it's hard to see how Bitcoin will retain any advantages over normal methods of payment.

But its price is booming! you might say. That's true: It's now trading at about $536 per coin, after briefly hitting $900 yesterday. It may go much higher. If you got in a month ago (when it was valued at about $186) and planned to make a speculative buck, that's good news. If you expected it to become a reliable currency, it's terrible news. No asset that fluctuates so erratically can plausibly work as a medium of exchange. If a retailer accepts bitcoins for a product and the Bitcoin price declines sharply the next day, he's made a terrible mistake. If the price increases sharply, the buyer has made a terrible mistake. That's why BitcoinShop.US, an online retailer that prices its products in bitcoins, has seen its orders plummet 20 percent this week.

Here's a stark description of the problem: "The relative lack of acceptance of Bitcoins in the retail and commercial marketplace limits the ability of end-users to pay for goods and services with Bitcoins. A lack of expansion by Bitcoins into retail and commercial markets, or a contraction of such use, may result in increased volatility or a reduction in the Blended Bitcoin Price."

Actually, Bernanke said "virtual currencies" may hold long-term promise, which is more to the point. Virtual currencies of some kind should eventually become a great boon to economies and consumers, especially to the poor. A digital currency without the rickety infrastructure, deflationary bias, security flaws, disappearing exchanges, regressive money-creation mechanism, and luster of criminality and paranoia that attaches to Bitcoin would be a welcome innovation.
It won't be nearly as entertaining. But it might actually work.

Bitcoin is not for the masses.  It never will be.  What the point in trying to buy food, clothes or housing anonymously?

Bitcoin is for people that fiat currency does not provide an adequate medium of exchange.  Drugs, gambling, remittances, avoiding exchange controls - these are all areas where Bitcoin is useful.

And as such, Bitcoin users don't give a damn if the value goes back to where it was in 2009.  The transactions will still go through.

All you seem to be saying is that you want to replace one set of early adopters with another.  Again, what's the altcoin going to do that Bitcoin doesn't?  

I have to agree, that bitcoin has dynamics which resemble a pyramid scheme. But that would change, as soon as you are able to pay all your bills and taxes with bitcoin and earn them directly without the need to convert to fiat somewhere along the transaction chain.

For this there needs to be mainstream adoption, so IMO the only possibility for BTC to survive as currency is that all participants follow the mentality "One for all, all for one".

Honestly, I would like to believe it, if there wasn't so much greed in human nature....

You assume that Bitcoins are actually/ will be mined to be spent.

One would argue by recent hoarding by Chinese, Bitcoins will end up more like a digital gold, a wealth hoarder, a finite supply yet ability to transact at low cost, so with built in benefits.

Gold has no intrinsic value either per se, it is not valued by how much electricity it conducts, however for something to have intrinsic value, it needs to carry moral value first, imo.

You could argue the mere fact the bitcoin has no interference from the Government (at this stage) that it morally has substance, therefore it does have intrinsic value to the current holder/hoarder.

Then we agree to disagree if you think investor invest in tweeter for any other reason than increasing or protecting their wealth.