It's funny...coins like DASH are allowed to go up in price and not be called a Ponzi
You really can't be this dense.
Nobody is saying that BitConnect's lending platform was a Ponzi because their token went up in value. That isn't what defines a Ponzi.
People are saying that BitConnect's lending platform was a Ponzi because it promised unrealistic and unsustainable daily returns in USD terms.
the promise of free coins forever for holding enough of them and not selling- sounds a bit like lending doesn't it?
All proof-of-stake coins promise free coins forever. They don't promise that these free coins won't debase the currency - because they will. If staking causes the supply of DASH to double, it's not unrealistic to expect the per-unit price of DASH to halve if there's no change in demand. And nobody is promising any different. It is the promise of sustained daily USD profits by the BCC lending platform that made it a Ponzi.
It basically works exactly the same way - PoS mining/staking isn't much different either except the yearly interest they give you is a fixed percentage instead of variable although the more often you stake, the more it compounds and higher staking amounts tend to pay more often)
No, it's quite different. DASH's returns are in its own tokens. BCC's lending platform promised a return in USD, effectively promising that the USD price of BCC tokens would never fall below a certain price. That's a promise they couldn't afford to make, and a promise that they eventually broke.
DASH was even moaning about Bitconnect to coinmarketcap's Twitter (calling it a Ponzi, no less)
That makes sense, because it was a Ponzi, and DASH isn't.