Quote from: HBBZ on January 22, 2013, 02:57:35 AM

Quote from: Holliday on January 19, 2013, 05:40:08 PM

Quote from: HBBZ on January 19, 2013, 02:05:00 PM

I figured everything out when I took a walk this afternoon. Cool

When new participants flood their dollars in Bitcoin exchange, the price of bitcoin goes up, hoarders who spread the hypes dump their coins and make their profit, in a colletive and indirect way. You can't see the individual who snaped away your money as a newbie. This is nature of bitcoin exchange as a tool of ponzi scheme. The hypers work in a team that no one exposes his face as a schemer. Is this a ponzi scheme? simple and clear yes, a subtle hidden and intricate one.

No, you didn't figure anything out.

An increasing exchange rate and early adopters profiting does not make a ponzi scheme. By your definition anything that went up in value would be a ponzi scheme. Google stock is a ponzi scheme. Gold is a ponzi scheme. Land is a ponzi scheme. Oil is a ponzi scheme.

So for your world to be without ponzi schemes, nothing could ever change value. That sounds like prison because someone is going to have to enforce it. The fact is things change. People change. What they value changes. The free market is all about price discovery. Bitcoin doesn't only go up, it goes down as well. Anyone who purchased any Bitcoins at any point from the very start has taken the risk of losing value. That is not a scheme, the risk is, and always will be, there for everyone.

The ponzi operator takes no financial risk (beyond punishment if caught obviously)!

Also, I have no idea what you are going on about with the "divided more than a million times" idea. You can divide it as much as you want, everyone still holds the same percentage of the total. It makes no difference what-so-ever as far as scarcity is concerned. Only how you perceive it. There are either 21 million Bitcoins or 2.1 quadrillion satoshis, I still have the same amount in my wallet and can affect the market equally in either scenario.

Someone came into my home and took my TV. They are a thief! (I forgot to mention that I placed an AD in the local paper offering my TV for sale and then accepted their money in exchange for it.)

It's an honor to have you enaged in a serious discussion. Sorry to hear the theft in your house, has the police done something with that?

I'd like to draw a timeline to determing whether bitcoiners are legally ponzi schemers or not. If 50% of available bitcoins are actively traded in exchange between dollars or euros etc yet less than 5% are used as currency serving as medium of transactions and bitcoin is in perilous situation.

That is not speculation any more.

I'll tell you some of my observations. Bitcoin in mainland China is absolutely a ponzi scheme and gambling with possibly less than 1 BTC used as currency per day. Everyone in a user discussion group is talking about mining, hoarding, buying, selling bitcoins, the daily volume of exchange at BTCCHINA is approximately around 1k.

The market is not yet developed in China -- but that doesn't mean it won't develop. People said the same thing about the property market in China. And the coffee market... and numerous others, far too many to mention.

I think BTC is *particularly* attractive in China, given the non-convertibility of the renminbi.

Either way, you can't divorce the reality in China from the reality in the rest of the world. Despite apparent authoritarian efforts to the contrary, the Internet is global. Bitcoin is global. Demand in one country will increase the value for all holders and all within the ecosystem.