[HN Gopher] Bitcoin pyramid schemes wreak havoc on Brazil's 'New...
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Bitcoin pyramid schemes wreak havoc on Brazil's 'New Egypt'
Author : belltaco
Score : 55 points
Date : 2022-01-22 19:35 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (apnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com)
| freitasm wrote:
| It is always a scam. Funny how this story has similar rags to
| riches vibes as this one
| https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/service-station-worker-t...
|
| It's all a scam.
| roydivision wrote:
| A Ponzi scheme based on a Ponzi scheme.
|
| It's turtles all the way down.
| cinntaile wrote:
| 12 years and counting, is that some sort of record for a ponzi
| scheme where people have been saying it's a ponzi scheme from
| the beginning? I wonder when they'll realize it might be
| something else.
| Macha wrote:
| https://www.therichest.com/nation/10-of-the-biggest-ponzi-
| sc...
|
| 15 years for number 2.
|
| Madoff was first investigated in 1992 and shut down in 2008
| for 16 years:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoff_investment_scandal
| inter_netuser wrote:
| Ponzi and pyramid schemes are materially different.
|
| Madoff was paying cashflows to his clients. Bitcoin pays
| nobody.
|
| What are the longest running pyramid schemes? Gold sees to
| be running for nearly 5000 years, seems like plenty of
| runway here.
| bogota wrote:
| mrtksn wrote:
| Wouldn't you agree that if enough people choose to stay in
| Bitcoin instead of simply buying for cheap and selling at
| higher price, the structure will stop resembling a ponzi
| scheme?
|
| The Bitcoin network does actually function as advertised and
| there's no technical reason for it not to be a decentralised
| network of value exchange.
|
| I understand that at HN even considering blockchain
| technologies yields a strong pushback but at some point you
| need to admit that the crypto people are onto something.
| Bitcoin denies to die even after the rush of speculative
| investors and get rich quick folks dies off.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Wouldn't you agree that if enough people choose to stay in
| Bitcoin instead of simply buying for cheap and selling at
| higher price, the structure will stop resembling a ponzi
| scheme?_
|
| Why would people give up the opportunity to cash out the
| winnings of investments/gambles? People do the same with some
| stocks.
| mrtksn wrote:
| It's a cash out opportunity for some but for others it's a
| medium of exchange. There are also quite a lot of
| ideological people.
|
| If you believe that Bitcoin has a bright future and even
| may become a global currency, it's a bad investment move to
| sell your bitcoins at any time. Sure, you can argue that
| you can sell high and later buy more for less but that's
| timing the market and no one can actually reliably do that
| and as a result if someone believes that BTC will be huge
| in the future will never sell. When the mission is
| accomplished, they will use it as money to purchase goods
| and services.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> It's a cash out opportunity for some but for others
| it's a medium of exchange._
|
| Here's a thought, if your medium of exchange is someone
| else's cash-out, pump-and-dump opportunity, then maybe
| it's not a good medium of exchange.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Maybe. But maybe it offers some value that is not found
| in the classical systems and for many people that's good
| enough.
|
| Also don't forget that if it happens that BTC replaces
| the government controlled currencies as some pundits
| claim, there won't be pump and dumps etc. No one pumps
| and dumps USD in the USA but they do it in other
| countries.
|
| A quick example is Turkey where the USD gained against
| the Turkish lira a lot and lost over %30 value overnight
| but USD is still good.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> A quick example is Turkey where the USD gained against
| the Turkish lira a lot and lost over %30 value overnight
| but USD is still good._
|
| Your comment serves to make a point for strong and stable
| fiat like USD, not for Bitcoin which also just lost
| around 40% of its value in a month.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Only small part of the worlds population lives in a
| western democracy(about %10). People around the globe(the
| %90) pump and dump all kind of currencies all the time,
| including USD. Don't forget that sudden value increase
| and decrease cuts both ways. BTC is just like USD for a
| lot of people, just easier to trade.
|
| BTW I don't hold any crypto, I simply find it fascinating
| and I think there's some merit in its ideas and
| technologies.
| disruptalot wrote:
| You make it sound like this is somehow a unique property
| Bitcoin. In truth, every asset and even medium of
| exchange can and has been manipulated for gain.
|
| JP Morgan spoofed the precious metals market and got
| caught.
|
| In the medium of exchange category, the forex market has
| been manipulated for decades.
|
| You are more at risk of volatility and manipulation in
| crypto markets because they are immature. Bitcoin is
| still in the discovery stage.
| nradov wrote:
| The "evidence" of forex market manipulation seems to
| consist primarily of sore losers complaining that their
| trading strategies should have been profitable in theory
| but lost money in practice. Sure if you're trading some
| obscure low volume currency pair then there can
| occasionally be some temporary funny business, but no one
| other than central banks has sufficient capital reserves
| to significantly manipulate the major reserve currencies.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> In truth, every asset and even medium of exchange can
| and has been manipulated for gain._
|
| Well yeah, that was my point. That's why in many
| countries with rampant inflation they use USD or EUR, as
| mediums of exchange because they're currencies controlled
| by powerful economies and governments which have proven
| to be mostly stable throughout recent history, save for
| major disasters, therefore their currencies exert a large
| amount of trust and stability on the financial markets,
| vs BTC that fluctuates more extremely more quickly
| without any brakes from any government as the BTC you got
| yesterday for selling your PS4 on ebay could maybe now
| buy you a yacht or maybe not even a big mac.
| [deleted]
| ffggvv wrote:
| yes it's just that no one has any use for the network other
| than as a ponzi/speculative investment. not store of wealth
| or currency
| razemio wrote:
| I use it to prove that my legal / important documents
| aren't faked / altered and existed at a given time. Only
| Bitcoin (Blockchain Tech) can do that if I am not mistaken.
| cookingrobot wrote:
| Why don't you put multiple versions of your important
| documents on the blockchain, and then later you can pick
| and choose which version you want to "prove" are real?
| anf0 wrote:
| I use it for remittances
| dandanua wrote:
| 1. It's not an exchange, it's a transfer. Irreversible.
|
| 2. It's not a value, it's a numerical record.
|
| 3. What do you mean by "as advertised"? It's "advertised"
| that bitcoin can solve world's hunger...
|
| 4. There are numerous technical reasons not to use it
| rzwitserloot wrote:
| > Wouldn't you agree that if enough people choose to stay in
| Bitcoin instead of simply buying for cheap and selling at
| higher price, the structure will stop resembling a ponzi
| scheme?
|
| Wouldn't you agree that if enough people keep their flower
| bulbs instead of simply buying for cheap and selling at a
| higher price, the structure will stop resembling a ponzi
| scheme?
|
| Your statement boils down to: Yes, but.. what if... we don't
| TREAT it as a ponzi scheme? See! Now it isn't a ponzi scheme!
|
| Yes. And IF only the moon was made of cheese, then the moon
| would be made of cheese.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > Wouldn't you agree that if enough people keep their
| flower bulbs instead of simply buying for cheap and selling
| at a higher price, the structure will stop resembling a
| ponzi scheme?
|
| I agree, that's how we have gold as a value store. However
| flower bulbs are not durable like gold and can grow
| exponentially on supply through farming - no surprise we
| don't store value in flower bulbs today. Bitcoin doesn't
| suffer from these issues.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> that's how we have gold as a value store._
|
| Except for one, not anymore, and two, the value of gold
| doesn't only come from speculation like in BTC, but from
| supply and demand from real world applications of gold,
| like semiconductors, electronics, aerospace, automotive,
| medical, etc. since it's one of the best electrical
| conductors and heat reflecting materials we have.
|
| Without gold, we'd be screwed royally, making the current
| supply chain disruptions seem like a walk in the park.
| Without BTC, we could fork 1000 other crypto-coins onto
| which people can speculate on and nothing would be lost.
| bshipp wrote:
| if there was only one possible cryptocurrency then I'd
| agree that supply can't be grown exponentially.
|
| However, there are new cryptos coming online every week
| it seems. Almost like growing different colored tulips.
| skybrian wrote:
| Yes, "ponzi scheme" is over-used, though it seems to apply to
| the schemes in Brazil.
|
| Bitcoin is more like infrastructure that people can use to
| play pump-and-dump games. We've seen with meme stocks (and
| previously, penny stocks) that just about any financial asset
| can be used for these games. It doesn't need to be
| intentionally set up for that. It's structural in having a
| limited supply, a volatile price, and continuous trading.
| Just add hype, which serves as coordination among the players
| about which financial asset to use to play the game.
|
| One difference is that a cryptocurrency's value can come
| primarily though not exclusively from its usefulness for
| playing pump-and-dump games. High fees and volatility deter
| most usage for payments, and there is no income stream other
| than new investors buying in.
| pnutjam wrote:
| Here's a good documentary that explains how something like
| bitcoin works. =D
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3105306/
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