Cryptocurrency Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme
jacobinmag.comSame arguments from both sides, different day. So tired of the self-righteousness of both sides. The reality is that there are use-cases that are useful today with crypto. The reality is also that the vast majority of money in crypto is there for speculative reasons, not fundamental value. That's fine, it's a bet, stop caring about where people put there money. If you don't want to make a speculative bet, then don't. If you made a speculative bet and it paid off, no you are not a genius. No one cares, no one shows shit about fuck, let's all stop pretending and just understand that speculation != investment grade and allow for people who want to take significant risk on speculative bets.
I don’t think there are two sides.
I don’t think I’m self-righteous when I say that the use cases for crypto just aren’t there yet as they require a non-speculative environment to be viable.
I like the idea of smart contracts and general ledger. It’s useful for buying things in theory. But at $10+ for a transaction fee that’s impossible. I’ve been waiting over 10 years.
I think this is pragmatic. And I don’t think it’s self-righteous to roll my eyes when some crypto fan tells me to just wait. Especially if they are financially bound up in convincing people to raise the price of crypto.
I do care where people spend money as it affects me and people I love. Lotto is bad. Spending lots of money on lotto is bad.
“Betting” on crypto is driving up the price and crowding out real use cases.
Also, ethically, pump and dump schemes are bad. I feel bad that victims lose money. I want these schemes to stop. I’m not self-righteous in my anger. I don’t care that much, I just want the SEC to investigate and prosecute.
> But at $10+ for a transaction fee that’s impossible
Algorand transaction fees are a fraction of a cent.
That’s great news, but the major projects like BiCoin and Ethereum are super expensive to do transactions.
I hope Algorand takes off as micropayments are a really nice use case and I’d like to be able to use it.
Just simple stuff like sending $20 worth on a paper wallet to niblings for their birthday. I just want to stop using cash.
I’m sorry, but you are vey misinformed regarding the transaction cost of Bitcoin.
What’s the best way to check out transaction costs.
This site [0] shows the average transaction cost at US$1.675.
And the same site [1] shows ethereum at US$3.916.
This is much lower than the last time I checked. But still impractical for any real uses. A few dollars per transaction is bad, especially when the price can fluctuate 20% per day.
Here’s the blurb from their site “ Average Transaction Fee is at a current level of 3.916, up from 3.227 yesterday and down from 17.67 one year ago. This is a change of 21.36% from yesterday and -77.84% from one year ago.”
[0] https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f...
[1] https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_transaction_...
> “Betting” on crypto is driving up the price and crowding out real use cases.
Additionally, that betting has cascading effects of GPU markets, and uses a small nation's worth of electricity every year. If that bet was contained only to the participants, then it's fine. But it's not.
Yea, cause what could go wrong allowing the uninformed to “invest” their savings into gigantic, unregulated ponzi schemes with no recourse for when things go south?
Definitely zero issues with shit like that in the past, that’s for sure.
Hahahahaha, people try ponzi schemes in different forms every 50 years or so and it always makes few sketchy people rich and ruins a ton of idiots :D
As long as we Madoff well right? ;-)
Yes, the critique became quite boring in the last year.
"You're burning the world!"
"We are saving the world!"
Both are obviously BS.
Last time I checked (2021) the CO2 emissions of one bitcoin transaction was equivalent to driving over 2000 km in an average middle european car from the same year (see: https://www.forbes.com/sites/philippsandner/2021/11/19/bitco...)
Unless I made an error here, or that study is flawed this seems to me like a ridiculously huge amount?
> What matters is the source of the electricity that is consumed. It is key to distinguish between renewable sources of electricity and fossil fuels. We do this by taking into account the total electricity mix of each country to convert Bitcoin’s electricity consumption into its carbon footprint.
Jumps out to me as being not particularly precise. In the US, for instance, you need to take a much more local view- bit coin mining tends to be clustered near hydro power. This pulls the opposite way with coal plants in the boonies of China.
Yeah but even if they are off by a magnitude and it would only be the equivalent of a 200km car drive it would be way to much.
This is a false comparison.
Please explain why, because I'd intuitively expect the comparison between kgCO2 of bitcoin transactions to gCO2 of car driving to be valid, assuming underlying numbers are true and not off by many magnitudes which I cannot judge (as stated).
To be fair, Bitcoin proponents don't even see this as critique, they say it's by design and everything more efficient would jeopardize their goals, lol.
This article is largely correct. You can argue that it's "not technically a Ponzi," but rather some other type of scam, but the semantics are not interesting.
The following excerpt is a point that many seem to miss.
> In fact, investors won’t — on average — be able to cash out for even as much as they put in. Much of that money went to cryptocurrency mining. Recent analysis shows that around $25 billion and growing has already gone to Bitcoin miners, who, by best estimates, are now spending $1 billion just on electricity every month, possibly more.
> That money is gone forever, having been converted to carbon and released into the atmosphere — making cryptocurrencies even worse than traditional Ponzi schemes. Most of the money lost in Bernie Madoff’s infamous Ponzi was eventually clawed back and returned to investors. Much of the money put into cryptocurrency, even if courts could trace back tangled webs of semi-anonymous cryptocurrency transactions, can never be recuperated.
Bitcoin was meant to be fiat money, but one without any central bank. Instead, it is being treated as a financial instrument where you make an "investment" and you can buy almost nothing with it.
If you're being sold Bitcoin or any other crypto as an "investment" where you might receive a "return", you're participating in a Ponzi scam.
If you're buying crypto so that you can use it to make a payment (e.g. Lightning payment to your favourite podcaster, or buying a pizza), then ok carry on.
Mostly but as long as you're not the one holding the last tulip, you can profit greatly. It does bother me to see how many young people are being taught it's an investment rather than a game of economic chicken. Then again, so much in our modern economy is that way that one can hardly blame them from not seeing the danger.
> young people are being taught it's an investment rather than a game of economic chicken.
I mean, crypto is sorta garbage, but so are all the fiat currencies. Orthodox economics apparently says it's totally cool to print money to support ditch-digging because it makes jobs reports look good. The US Fed itself acknowledges in its own reports that the US is financially unsustainable. Does anyone see how this doesn't just collapse sometime in the next 50 years?
Unless we start a big war with China...
Most investments are Ponzi schemes including all forms of currency. I don't want to get into an argument about the short term investments and liquidity in the markets, bla bla bla. They could be tools, but they end up becoming the ends.
Why?
This is not true at all as most investments have some intrinsic thing of value.
A stock is a predicted stream of future earnings. A Ponzi scheme produces nothing and only survives through new investment. Stocks don’t need future investment as they can just pay out dividends forever based on the companies earnings.
Equating these two things seems fraudulent at worst and stupid at best.
People rocking Robin Hood are not investing. Institutional investors are investing.
> Equating these two things seems fraudulent at worst and stupid at best.
Please.
I'm bored with this topic. I've done a deep dive on it and it does nothing for me. I'm not a gambler or a gamer. It seems to be very exciting for those that are.
I really would love a browser plugin that removes all mention of crypto/web3/etc..
I am just so bored with reading about anything to do with the entire space, pro or con.
An inescapable argument about basically nothing. How do I opt out completely?
Even if I were to accept all of the fearful arguments against cryptocurrency, a prohibition of cryptocurrency would still be the greater evil in my view.
Even if it is 'irrational' as described by some behavioral economists, how can we accept that the behavioral economist who is accusing the consumer of irrationality is himself entirely rational.
The premise is nonsensical in my view. Differing actors employ their individual agency towards unique ends which cannot be evaluated from a position of imperfect information. Value is subjective.
You made a whole lot of sense, almost as much as cryptocurrency :)
The author makes the common mistake of conflating market manipulation with a Ponzi scheme.
This is unfortunate, because we've seen real Ponzi schemes that use crypto (Bitconnect, PlusToken, Onecoin) and it makes it harder to talk about them when "Ponzi scheme" gets so watered down.
I admire you for fighting the good fight, but I think I've given up on it. I tried. Ponzi scheme in the vernacular now just means any sort of speculation. Tulips, crypto, whatever, it's all Ponzi schemes.
Which makes it harder to describe frauds like the one Charles Ponzi perpetrated but oh well.
Written in 2018?
It sounds like that at first but all the events in the article are very current.
No, the year and month are in the URL.
I like permissionless ponzi schemes more than permissioned ponzi schemes.
So is social security and fractional reserve banking, yet no one is trying to stop those.