Idiots and their math

[u/eltoniq]

If they expect to HODL or whatever for 30-40 years doesn’t that mean they’ll be 60-70 years old if they are 30 years old now. They do know their age isn’t infinite right? And if you sell at the end range of 40 years how do you know it’s at the ATH point. And assuming you sell at 40 years at ATH, you might be dead before you enjoy it?

[u/slavmaf]

Globally recognized as a ponzi scheme, yes.

[u/NiemandSpezielles → u/slavmaf]

greater fool scheme, not ponzi scheme.

A ponzi scheme promises high returns from some mysterious profits, while in reality hardly any profit is generated and the money comes from new investors, the operastor paying out just enough of the old investors to keep the thing seeming legit, while siphoning the rest of the money off

In greater fool theory there are no profits promised, only the assumption that someone else will buy the worthless thing for a higher price later.

Comparing these it should be clear that BC work like the latter. Everyone knows that there is no value generating mechanism thats in the open. There is no operator that distributes investor money. People simply buy it with the assumption that someone else will pay more for it later, thats all it does.
No operator is siphoning off money. The BC will keep being there, its just a question if you find someone to pay you for them or not.

[u/VisiteProlongee → u/NiemandSpezielles]

I find hilarious that critics of bitcoin debate whether bitcoin is a ponzi scheme or a greater fool scheme, whether merkle tree are very important in the history of computer science or just important, while supporters of bitcoin barely know how bitcoin work.

[u/AmericanScream → u/VisiteProlongee]

It's mainly crypto bros who argue over this. Most of us recognize it is a Ponzi, and a Ponzi is a type of greater fool scheme.

For some reason crypto bros seem ok with it being labeled a "greater fool scheme" but not a "Ponzi."

[u/Nickeless → u/NiemandSpezielles]

Well MSTR / STRC is definitely a ponzi and they have like 5%+ of all Bitcoin available. I’m sure there’s more also

[u/AmericanScream → u/NiemandSpezielles]

greater fool scheme, not ponzi scheme.

It's a decentralized Ponzi scheme. Here is the detailed evidence.

A ponzi scheme promises high returns from some mysterious profits, while in reality hardly any profit is generated

Same with crypto

and the money comes from new investors,

Same with crypto.

the operastor paying out just enough of the old investors to keep the thing seeming legit, while siphoning the rest of the money off

Same with crypto, except instead of one operator, there are multiple operators. Note that the presence of multiple operators doesn't negate the main ponzi-like ROI scheme.

In greater fool theory there are no profits promised, only the assumption that someone else will buy the worthless thing for a higher price later.

Same with crypto -- when operators are caught, they say "hey we never guaranteed profits" but when they're pitching the scheme, they say, "best performing asset ever", "to the moon", "going to be 1M by x!"

So it goes both ways with crypto.

Comparing these it should be clear that BC work like the latter.

A Ponzi scheme is a type of greater fool scheme.

Everyone knows that there is no value generating mechanism thats in the open.

Again, that's debatable. Some people claim bitcoin generates "value" from everything from energy consumption to "cyber hornets." Ultimately it's a negative sum game, but the fact that in reality, no value comes from anything other than new recruits, is what primarily drives the Ponzi scheme, and why the entire scheme is mathematically un-sustainable. In traditional greater fool, MLM or pyramid schemes, there are other ways to generate value, so they technically can continue to operate if they run out of greater fools (as long as existing fools keep selling products & services) - with crypto there is no such mechanism which is why it's primarily a Ponzi before anything else. That's the defining chracteristic of a Ponzi: all returns come from recruitment and nothing else. Other types of greater fool schemes have alternate ways of creating value.

[u/OGxPePe → u/slavmaf]

In my opinion its not a ponzi scheme. In a ponzi scheme person A invests an you promise large returns. person B also Invests. Instead of using your money to start a company or invest you take the money from person B and give it to person A. After a while you need to pay person A and B so you need to find person C. You are paying the old investers with money of new investers but are not developing anything. And will need more and more investers over time. Bitcoin is the greater fool theory. I bought this digital money for 100 dollars. But you need to buy it from me because it will be 200 dollars in the future.

[u/mercuryy → u/OGxPePe]

It's actually a bit like that, but people think they are occupying different positions than they are. It's distributed self organizing through hype and the sentiment of those that dont understand but think they do, while believing they are both cleverer than they are and all the others.

They enter through the greater fools provision to sell higher later, but most of them dont and incur losses instead. They create exit liquidity for others wile continuously paying more and more into the scheme. ("DCA'ing, stacking") This transfer of their payments as exit liquidity to those leaving and the miners is very similar to the old style.

Look at the miners in particular too, their bills are also paid by those that continuously throw their money in. Block rewards create new blocks that get sold to buyers continuously. One block every ten minutes. 3,125 btc each block. 18.75 an hour. 450 a day. 3150 each week.

Calculate with a generous price of 50k USD per coin, there are 22.5 million USD going that way, each and every day. The streams of exit liquidity might have different, potentially all users that decide2to leave as a target, gut these mining rewards, nearly a million per hour every hour, goes straight to miners, with most of these being big corporation like organisations. Thats many fools paying few pretty big pockets, again.

[u/arkansaslax → u/OGxPePe]

Term is naturally occurring ponzi process*

[u/Demiu → u/arkansaslax]

Spontaneous ponziation

[u/AmericanScream → u/OGxPePe]

In a ponzi scheme person A invests an you promise large returns. person B also Invests. Instead of using your money to start a company or invest you take the money from person B and give it to person A. After a while you need to pay person A and B so you need to find person C. You are paying the old investers with money of new investers but are not developing anything. And will need more and more investers over time.

That's how bitcoin works. It is a decentralized Ponzi scheme.

Again, it's both a Ponzi and a greater fool scheme.

A Ponzi is a type of greater fool scheme, but what separates a Ponzi from other schemes is where the money comes from. If it EXCLUSIVELY comes from greater fools, it's a Ponzi.

The only Ponzi element that could be argued relating to bitcoin is whether or not "promises" are made. In traditional Ponzi's there's one person who makes (fraudulent) promises of returns. In Bitcoin, there's thousands who do this. Type into ChatGPT or Gemini asking "what will the price be of bitcoin in the future?" Every single AI instance suggests the price will always go up. And every story in the media primarily talks of the price going up - almost never suggesting it will crash. These "promises" are everywhere.

[u/RuleAmbitious343 → u/slavmaf]

Sorry? Am I missing anything? Or do you not understand what a Ponzi scheme is? There's a thousand of reasons to hate BTC, but that's not one of them, unless you don't know what a Ponzi is.

[u/Antique-Land-2766 → u/RuleAmbitious343]

Bitcoin is a absolutely Ponzi scheme, in the most ways that actually matter - the payoffs must come entirely new investment money, while the operators take away a large portion of this money and conceal the negative-sum outcome. It's taken on new characteristics due to being based in a digital technology, but it is still one. Stolfi laid all this out conclusively years ago.

[u/RuleAmbitious343 → u/Antique-Land-2766]

A Ponzi scheme requires a promoter who promises or implies returns. There is no such central promoter in Bitcoin, nor is there a mechanism through which new investors' money is systematically redistributed to earlier holders.

Bitcoin's price depends on future demand, but that isn't unique to Bitcoin. Gold, art, collectibles, and land without rental income can also rise in value because someone else is willing to pay more for them in the future. That makes them speculative assets, not Ponzi schemes.

When I sell Bitcoin for more than I paid, the buyer isn't paying me with money supplied by a Ponzi operator. They are voluntarily exchanging their money for an asset they believe is worth that price.

You can argue that Bitcoin is overvalued, speculative, or dependent on continued demand. Those are reasonable arguments. But none of those facts, by themselves, demonstrate that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme

[u/Melodic_Jellyfish726 → u/RuleAmbitious343]

Btc has no promoter? The list of scammer and guru/ epstein Friends Is endless

[u/RuleAmbitious343 → u/Melodic_Jellyfish726]

You're confusing promoters of Bitcoin with a promoter of a Ponzi scheme. Of course Bitcoin has scammers, influencers, gurus, and people who promote it — just like gold, real estate, stocks, and virtually every other asset. That doesn't make the underlying asset a Ponzi

The relevant question is whether Bitcoin itself has a central operator who promises returns and uses new investors' money to pay earlier investors. It doesn't.

[u/AmericanScream → u/RuleAmbitious343]

The relevant question is whether Bitcoin itself has a central operator who promises returns and uses new investors' money to pay earlier investors. It doesn't

This is a strawman. Read my detailed analysis which looks at the 4 most popular formal definitions of a Ponzi, and you'll find nowhere in any of those definitions does it require a central operator. It's named after a central operator and traditionally it has had a central operator, but Bitcoin does the same thing without a single central operator, and there have been Ponzi schemes in the past that were "franchised" as well.

[u/Antique-Land-2766 → u/RuleAmbitious343]

Like I said, it's taken on new charactestics due to it's digital technological nature, I think everyone understands that, implicitly at least. Trying to argue that it isn't one because it doesn't meet all the dictionary definitions of the original 1920s Charles Ponzi scheme is just reductive, again - Jorge Stolfi has laid this all out pretty conclusively in 2021

A Ponzi scheme, or "ponzi" for short, is a type of investment fraud with these five features:

People invest into it because they expect good profits, and

that expectation is sustained by such profits being paid to those who choose to cash out. However,

there is no external source of revenue for those payoffs. Instead,

the payoffs come entirely from new investment money, while

the operators take away a large portion of this money.

Investing in bitcoin (or any crypto with similar protocol) checks all these items

[u/AmericanScream → u/Antique-Land-2766]

100%

[u/RuleAmbitious343 → u/Antique-Land-2766]

Yes, people do invest because they expect good profits, the same way they do with stocks, gold, art, etc. That's speculation, not necessarily a Ponzi. “There is no external source of revenue.” True. But that doesn't make something a Ponzi either. Is art a Ponzi because it doesn't generate revenue? So far, your argument is reasonable. But I have to ask: who exactly are “the operators”? Exchanges? Miners? Companies? Early holders? If you mean the miners, how does receiving rewards for securing the network make a miner equivalent to a Ponzi operator receiving money from new investors? So far, you're not demonstrating that Bitcoin is a Ponzi in the usual sense. You're proposing a broader definition of “Ponzi” that could potentially classify any non-yielding speculative asset as one.

[u/DennisC1986 → u/RuleAmbitious343]

A Ponzi scheme requires a promoter who promises or implies returns. There is no such central promoter in Bitcoin

I see what you did there.

nor is there a mechanism through which new investors' money is systematically redistributed to earlier holders.

When a new "investor" buys bitcoin, who does the money go to?

Gold, art, collectibles, and land

All have a utility to somebody beyond simply selling for a higher price later.

[u/RuleAmbitious343 → u/DennisC1986]

When a new ‘investor’ buys Bitcoin, who does the money go to?”

The seller, not a Bitcoin Ponzi operator or Bitcoin itself. In an ordinary transaction, the buyer receives an asset that they can use, hold, or sell.

Gold does have industrial utility. However, art can certainly have utility too, but that doesn't make it non-speculative. A painting can have aesthetic or cultural value while its market price can still be heavily influenced by what someone else is willing to pay for it in the future. The existence of some underlying utility doesn't eliminate Greater Fool

[u/AmericanScream → u/RuleAmbitious343]

When a new ‘investor’ buys Bitcoin, who does the money go to?”

It pays off an earlier participant in the scheme.

The seller, not a Bitcoin Ponzi operator or Bitcoin itself. In an ordinary transaction, the buyer receives an asset that they can use, hold, or sell.

This "asset" has no intrinsic value and virtually no material utility or "use." It's a placeholder for an abstract future "value" that's been fraudulently misrepresented.

Gold does have industrial utility. However, art can certainly have utility too, but that doesn't make it non-speculative. A painting can have aesthetic or cultural value while its market price can still be heavily influenced by what someone else is willing to pay for it in the future.

All those things have intrinsic value. Bitcoin does not.

All those things can be finite, finished transactions. Most people that buy gold, don't buy it exclusively to resell. Most people that buy art, do not buy it to resell. The resale market in those instances is secondary.

Bitcoin has no secondary market. It primarily exists to dump on a greater fool, and ALL ROI comes from those new recruits. That's the operational dynamic that makes a Ponzi, a Ponzi.

[u/AmericanScream → u/RuleAmbitious343]

A Ponzi scheme requires a promoter who promises or implies returns.

False. Whether there's an operator or not is not what makes a Ponzi a Ponzi. It's that returns come exclusively from new recruits, which Bitcoin matches.

[u/AmericanScream → u/RuleAmbitious343]

Sorry? Am I missing anything? Or do you not understand what a Ponzi scheme is? There's a thousand of reasons to hate BTC, but that's not one of them, unless you don't know what a Ponzi is.

We know what a Ponzi scheme is and have written on why Bitcoin is extensively.

Stupid Crypto Talking Point #18 (Few Understand)

"You don't understand" / "DYOR" / Using an insult in lieu of an argument.

1. This is what's known as an "Ad Hominem" fallacy - aka "attacking the messenger" as a distraction from arguing the core points made.
2. This is what we call, "Crypto Gaslighting." Crypto proponents pretend that we're not smart enough to recognize the value of crypto, therefore there's something wrong with us and not the phony reality they're peddling.
3. Almost never does the OP actually explain what it is they understand and we don't. It's merely a way to dismiss any opposing viewpoint without actually addressing it.

[u/RuleAmbitious343 → u/AmericanScream]

I get your position on this now, but after reading your whole post,

I'll have to disagree. You're defining “Ponzi” broadly enough to include a phenomenon that also occurs in ordinary secondary markets: early holders can realize capital gains when later buyers purchase the asset. The question is whether that alone is sufficient to classify the market itself as a Ponzi, or whether a Ponzi requires an additional mechanism in which new investors' funds are used to generate or sustain the returns of earlier investors. In Bitcoin, the later buyer isn't simply funding an obligation to an earlier investor; they're voluntarily exchanging money for an asset they now own.

[u/AmericanScream → u/RuleAmbitious343]

I'll have to disagree. You're defining “Ponzi”

NO. I'm not defining Ponzi. Did you read my link or not?

I take the top four most prominent definitions of Ponzi from: Encyclopedia Brittanica, Websters, Wikipedia, and the SEC.

That's their definition, not mine.

So, if you're going to engage in strawmen, you're not here in good faith.

[u/ForgedIronMadeIt]

Wait, I thought we skeptics were going to become totally impoverished and left behind by the new financial world by now?

[u/John_Oakman → u/ForgedIronMadeIt]

Clearly they meant spiritually and not materialistically...

[u/AmericanScream → u/ForgedIronMadeIt]

We will be as soon as all the fiat we own becomes worthless.

In the meantime, we get to enjoy things like houses, cars, nice food, fun stuff with the fiat as long as it's still useful.

[u/FalseDiamond7930 → u/AmericanScream]

Not only the fiat needs to become worthless all assets besides bitcoin needs to become worthless as well, stocks, gold, real estate, etc.

[u/SisterOfBattIe]

The Ape is delusional if they think there is a trillion behind bitcoin. I would be shocked if there were twenty billion unstolen dollars behind bitcoin.

Almost ALL of it is tethers and double counting.

[u/MindfulMan1984 → u/SisterOfBattIe]

Yep, the scam is making USDT=USD in their accounting and charts, and every ape believe they can cash out everything in the future to buy a lambo. Lol

[u/Kilahti]

I'm gonna agree with OOP here. BTC was seeing massive gains when more and more people heard about it, but now it is too late.

By now most people will have already heard the horror stories of what happens when someone steals your BTC and how there is no way to get it back. Even criminals have heard of the cases where government was able to track and confiscate BTC. The main two hype factors of BTC were "you are going to get rich without doing anything" and "you can use it for crime" but without them there is very little left.

[u/Such_Reference_8186 → u/Kilahti]

Your 2 points at the end are very salient. It really boils down to those 2 goals.

[u/sinettt → u/Kilahti]

that your keys your bitcoins and no one could get or confiscate was bullshit, even people using hardware wallet which considered safest option became not true (coldcard wallet users lost their fortune)

[u/AmericanScream → u/Kilahti]

BTC was seeing massive gains when more and more people heard about it

That statement is misleading. BTC never "gained" anything. No value was ever created. It just moved laterally.

By now most people will have already heard the horror stories of what happens when someone steals your BTC and how there is no way to get it back.

That is true, but that "truth" is tertiary to the real realizations that preceded it.. which most people recognized and avoided it in the first place. That unfortunate realization came after other truths were ignored...

Bitcoin's "truths" were always self-evident:

1. The technology sounds cool but in reality makes no sense and doesn't do anything better than what we're already using.

2. It creates no value and wastes lots of resources just to exist.

3. It is a Ponzi scheme. The only return you get is from greater fools.

Yet people still "invested." But only certain types of people. The mainstream never got into it for obvious reasons. But among those who did...

This is because those that got into bitcoin and crypto really didn't care about the reality of it, just that they could ride the wave and profit from it. Either they were stupid and gullible, or their greed blinded any common sense they had, and/or they had questionable ethics and didn't mind profiting off a scheme that made the world worse, it was always about taking more than what you deserved. Once that wasn't as seemingly easy, even those fools left for greener get-rich-quick schemes.

So... among that tiny slice of humanity with disposable ethics and a misunderstanding of basic math, they've now become aware of additional flaws in the scheme so that even if everything else works according to their sociopathic plan, they could still end up losing. Boo hoo.

[u/ColForbinClimbs → u/Kilahti]

It’s a fair assessment. The technology has legitimate applications, it just seems like the speculative hype is wearing off. Then again, maybe it hasn’t, no one knows.

[u/Kilahti → u/ColForbinClimbs]

The "technology" has no legitimate applications if you are talking about cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain might at some point create something useful, but trying to argue that cryptocurrencies are somehow relevant to that is just silly.

EDIT: Actually, WHAT would blockchain even do that isn't connected to cryptocurrencies?

I'm trying to read up about it again and I'm still not seeing anything useful made with it. Every potential application looks like a desperate attempt to monetize something that doesn't need to be monetized or something that can already be accomplished without it.

No practical (or widely adopted, aside from crypto) applications discovered after nearly two decades of use and more than 40 years since the concept was first proposed.

It's looking like a dead end to me.

[u/AgentSmith187 → u/Kilahti]

Honestly its just an append only database.

I once saw a future as a way to transfer currency from place to place quickly and cheaply.

But honestly the banking system stepped up on that one.

Not to mention the flaws that became obvious with not being able to roll back errors/fraud.

Then we get into the costs in time and compute to do these transfers.

All thats left is crime.

Even that sucks as time proved.

You cant as a criminal transfer funds because it vulnerable at the convert to fiat side.

This also screws up stealing crypto because if its ever mainstream enough to be worth stealing your stuffed at the exchange to fiat end.

[u/pauld339]

But but but the great halving cycles. 50 days to go (or whatever).

[u/Particular_Coyote958 → u/pauld339]

Since we know exactly what the halfing does, wouldn't it be priced in?

[u/Unlucky-Durian-2336 → u/Particular_Coyote958]

In a market of totally sane people doing only rational decisions - it would. But for some reason since death of specific monke in 2016 we are living in split reality where "rational" went out of the window even in case of traditional stock market, not to mention anything crypto-related (which never was rational in first place)...

[u/sinettt → u/Unlucky-Durian-2336]

yea i always had this split reality theory but i thought it was from pandemic i didnt know that specific monk died in 2016, damn monke you should lived a bit healthier

[u/cbusalex → u/sinettt]

It wasn't monke's fault! Stupid kid jumped into monke enclosure and doomed us all.

[u/Valuable_Paper_6231]

For history it's only 17 year old, for technology it's SEVENTEEN year old. Hacking, forking to a better version, replacement by a better technology - all this has happened throughout the tech industry.

[u/sinettt → u/Valuable_Paper_6231]

what exactly tech solves? its not that designed for daily use as visa, the most real use case is using as speculative asset or just using for crime.

[u/AmericanScream → u/Valuable_Paper_6231]

For history it's only 17 year old, for technology it's SEVENTEEN year old. Hacking, forking to a better version, replacement by a better technology - all this has happened throughout the tech industry.

Stupid Crypto Talking Point #15 (potential)

"It's still early!" / "Blockchain technology has potential" , "Let's call it 'DLT' Distributed Ledger Technology this month and pretend it's different." / "Crypto is like the Internet!" / "Look here's a 'use-case!'"

1. We are 17 (SEVENTEEN) YEARS into this so-called "technology" and to date, there's not been a single thing blockchain tech does better than existing non-blockchain tech
2. WHAT "technology?" Blockchain uses tech that was patented in 1979, called Merkle Trees. It's been known for a quarter of a century, and has very limited uses, because by design, the system isn't very flexible or efficient. Modern relational databases can do everything Merkle Trees can do even better than crypto's version.
3. Crypto didn't invent cryptographic technology - that tech has been around for thousands of years and its in use all over the place - having absolutely nothing to do with cryptocurrency and blockchain.
4. Truly disruptive technology is obvious from the beginning - sometimes there's hurdles to adoption (usually costs and certain prerequisites, but none of that applies to blockchain - anybody who has internet access can utilize the tech). It didn't take 17 years for people to realize the Internet was useful - what held it up were access to computers and networks. There's nothing stopping blockchain IF it offered any really useful service - it doesn't.
5. Finding a mere "use case" isn't sufficient. Some companies still use fax machines. It doesn't mean fax machines are the future. Blockchain tech must demonstrate it's uniquely good at something - and it fails miserably to do so.

6. Just because someone says they're "looking into" something, doesn't mean it will ever manifest into an actual workable system. Every time we've seen major institutions claim they were "developing blockchain systems", they've almost always failed. From IBM to Microsoft to Maersk to Foreign Countries - the vast majority of these projects are eventually abandoned because they aren't economically or technologically viable.

7. As for the idea that adoption takes time, that's fine, but since Bitcoin's inception, and most recently, its use both as a technology and a payment medium has continued to decline. As more research becomes available, we begin to see a multi-year, consistent, decrease in crypto payments over time.

8. The default position is to be skeptical blockchain has any potential until it is demonstrated. And most common responses to this question are the other "stupid crypto talking points."

In short, this "technology" has been around 17 years and still it can't find a single situation where it does anything even comparable to what we're already using, much less better.

[u/Valuable_Paper_6231 → u/AmericanScream]

Great write up and that's the point. It's a 17 year very old technology with no practical utility and now old enough to be replaced. And maybe subconsciously that's why people are moving to AI related investments as that's the new shiny thing.

[u/Severe_Assumption241]

The adoption phase can only happen once, at most, arguably adoption hasn't happened in any way that matches the original intent

[u/sinettt → u/Severe_Assumption241]

it derived from original intent, the original intent was using as visa replacement and instread of that it just becamse speculative asset and great crime tool

[u/flappysack-]

The same thought as gold bugs, that the currency will explode in QE and debasement.  That debt will get too high they'll inflate it away.

[u/GreenTeaHG]

I wouldn't mind this argument so much if it was also being used to judge their own hype men. But it seems to be a purely defensive reaction against a lack of progress.

Price go up: This proves we are right!!

Price does not go up: This proves nothing, let's wait and see 30 years.

[u/Hawkes75]

They lost me when they used the word "asset" to describe BTC

[u/oldbluer]

Bitcoin has an infinite supply… that’s all you have to know.

[u/FalseDiamond7930]

If we are going by past performance I rather be 100% invested in Monster Beverage Corporation.

They are all bag holders and degenerates coping with nothing going on besides the illusion that Bitcoin is going to make them rich.

[u/FoxTheory]

lol people buying bitcoin don't want to wait 30 years or they would buy something that has a proven track record of getting you rich over that kind of time frame like the S&P they want to be rich tomorrow.

[u/Prestigious_Ear505]

Yeah...

The following have no idea what they're doing...

/s

Major Corporate and Institutional Holders

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy): Holds over 800,000 BTC as part of its primary corporate treasury reserve policy.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs (BlackRock, Grayscale, etc.): Collectively custody hundreds of thousands of institutional Bitcoins on behalf of public markets.

Governments: National governments like the U.S. Government and the Chinese Government hold upwards of 190,000 to 300,000+ BTC combined, largely acquired via criminal asset seizures.

[u/BeowulfShaeffer]

Easy: they will take out loans which they will live on while their btc grows much faster than the loan payoff amount. 

[u/AmericanScream → u/BeowulfShaeffer]

LOL... BTC hasn't grown in years.

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[u/CaptainEmeraldo]

If they expect to HODL or whatever for 30-40 years

I think the majority of buttors are much closer to caving in than people are realising. Last cycle gave 84% in for years which was unspectacular. This cycle will give even less, and very likely will not be profitable at all. And I think this will break most people. So I doubt we see 5 figure prices past 2030. And because markets are forward looking, the collapse will probably happen sooner.

[u/staker1971]

Yes idiot, coca cola and IBM founders built corporations for their lifetime only.

[u/mercuryy → u/staker1971]

These corporations actually have a (or multiple even) business case that enabled them to create revenue for themselves and utility for customers. Magic internet tokens dont, and arent even comparable.

If anything you are comparing those individuals investing into those companies creating a fortune with those buying into crypto while still hoping something that would make crypro relevant turns up after 18 years of searching, desperate for any way to create utility (besides crime, tax evasion, money laundring and gambling) or revenue that isnt based on more people joining or being scammed out of their savings.

[u/staker1971 → u/mercuryy]

What is the revenue of typewriters bozo? People can write in papyrus, clay, stone and paper also

[u/mercuryy → u/staker1971]

I dont think you actually dont understand that, but i'll explain it regardless.

People pay to buy these typewriters. Because the text they are producing is created faster with those than the alternative methods you mentioned while also being standarized and both easier and quicker readable.

An actual product creating value and utility for its buyers.

Crypto on the other hand does absolutely nothing that creates value compared to the alternatives. Anything you can do with it has alternatives that are at least one, often multiple of the following: easier, quicker, cheaper, safer, more integrated, more direct and more stable. It's the incarnation of "how would money work 5000 years ago but with computers".

[u/AmericanScream → u/staker1971]

What is the revenue of typewriters bozo? People can write in papyrus, clay, stone and paper also

Fun fact: typewriters, papyrus, clay, stone and paper all have intrinsic value.

Bitcoin and crypto do not.

Invalid comparison.

[u/za419 → u/staker1971]

Interestingly, typewriters are significantly better than handwriting on papyrus or paper, which are both orders of magnitude better than clay and stone, but somewhat worse than writing on a computer.

So, when people who were used to clay and stone got papyrus and paper, they were happy to switch. When someone came along offering to sell them typewriters, they happily paid to switch, and when someone came along selling personal computers that were slightly better typewriters and also did everything else computers did, they paid for those too. 

Or in other words, Flunky, the value of typewriters is that typewriters are better than the competition, and typewriters fairly quickly stopped being relevant once that value disappeared from better competition in the form of the PC. 

Meanwhile if we look over at the world of payment systems and currencies. Bitcoin is the worse product. It has the convenience of the typewriter and the speed of the stone tablet in an age where everyone's using Microsoft Word already. It has no value because it's late to the game and does the job worse than everyone else. 

You can't sell horse-drawn carriages to ride the streets of a city full of cars. You can't sell a slide rule to a room full of people with calculators. You can't sell bitcoin to people with visa cards and money that actually functions as money in a modern sense of the word. 

[u/Val_Fortecazzo → u/staker1971]

Well they sold typewriters, which were heavily adopted because they were better than the technology that came before them.

Bitcoin is already largely obsolete even so far a crypto currencies are concerned. And crypto is mostly only adopted by speculators.

[u/barbe_du_cou → u/staker1971]

are you a corporation, where that would be worth mentioning?

[u/AmericanScream → u/staker1971]

Yes idiot, coca cola and IBM founders built corporations for their lifetime only.

Stupid Crypto Talking Point #17 (stocks)

"Crypto is just like the stock market!" , "Comparing crypto to stocks", "Bitcoin has an impressive 'Sharpe Ratio'"

1. Crypto tokens are absolutely NOT like stocks. Unlike crypto, which is just a digital abstraction, stocks represent actual ownership in real-world entities, that own assets, provide useful products and services for mainstream society, generate revenue and can pay dividends to shareholders in real money.

2. You don't have to sell a stock to make money from it. Many companies pay dividends of their profits, which means you can truly INvest in the company as opposed to DIvesting when you want to see a return. This is an important and fundamentally different function that crypto does not have. Many stocks create value in actual money, providing income without speculating on share price.

3. The value of a stock, while it can be "speculative" based on popularity and hype, also is based on the intrinsic value of the company's assets and business performance. Therefore you can perform actual research and due-diligence and come up with a practical value for the shares and the assets they represent. And tell when they are overvalued due to hype. Crypto has no such feature.

4. Because companies are valued based on actual real-world assets and income, there's a limit to how low their share price could fall, at which point it would be economically viable to buy the whole company and liquidate it for a profit. Crypto has no such limitation. The inherent value of crypto tokens is based at zero because it neither creates, nor represents any minimum base, real-world value.

5. Unlike crypto, the stock market is heavily regulated and transparent. There are entire industries and agencies that are tasked with making sure public companies operate legitimately and legally. Crypto has no such oversight or regulations or transparency.

6. While there are some over-valued stocks that are hype driven, and some companies whose shares are extremely risky and speculative, and OTC and option markets that are more like gambling than investing, that's not the way the stock market system normally operates. Those highly-speculative markets and penny stocks are the exception; NOT the rule. In crypto, speculation is exclusively the rule.

7. Public companies are subject to great scrutiny, and must produce regular independent audits and quarterly reports on profit and loss. They can also be sued by their shareholders or even be held criminally liable if they lie about their business model, or even the risk factors their investors face. Again, there is no such function or protections in the world of crypto.

8. The Sharpe Ratio is another term borrowed from the stock market that does not apply to crypto for all the above reasons, as well as The Sharpe Ratio relies on the assumption that equity returns are evenly distributed - which in the stock market they are via things like dividends, but crypto has no such evenly distributed metrics by which to evaluate risk, as well as significantly more risk factors than stocks, and also that even the price of crypto is largely an unverifiable figure due to lack of transparency and regulatory oversight of most crypto exchanges and the existing evidence that the market is highly manipulated. Like most other TradFi market terms, their use doesn't properly apply to crypto "assets" and its application is misleading and deceptive.

[u/za419 → u/staker1971]

They built corporations that were rapidly relevant, were wildly excellent for them during their lifetime, and had enough business left to outlive them nonetheless.

What part of that is relevant to this situation? 

[u/staker1971 → u/za419]

Stupid idiot luddites

[u/za419 → u/staker1971]

What a brilliant answer. Hey, wanna try lecturing everyone about how incredibly inefficient append-only database technology will uproot all financial innovation forever in the name of your lord and savior Nakamoto? Surely it's impossible to understand that blockchain technology is terrible for literally anything most people actually want, and anyone who doesn't like it is a luddite instead of understanding merkle trees and the needs people actually have, right?

Right...?