Quote from: jseverson on May 15, 2018, 03:41:23 PM

Quote from: xiangyi on May 15, 2018, 04:16:47 AM

Opinion 1:
BTC is a Ponzi schema, the reason why I accept it is because I believe there will be bigger fools to purchase it from me.
Answer:
In that point of view, US Dollar could be viewed as a much larger Ponzi schema. The reason why you accept US Dollar is because you believe someone else(or maybe everyone else) would accept it.

I don't believe that Bitcoin is a ponzi at all, but I don't think it's at all comparable to USD in this context. Bitcoin is said to be a ponzi because speculation drives its value up -- this is where the belief that some other person will buy it for a higher price comes in. That trait very loosely fits with the narrative that a ponzi is a scheme where older members benefit from the new members coming in. It's very different from a person accepting USD because it's legal tender, where there are no speculations involved.

exactly.
Ponzi schema is hard to define, and whether there involves speculation is subjective.
Currency is a thing that the reason I accept it is because I believe others will accept it. And that's how Gold/Silver/Shells/Dollar work. I mean, the belief can also considered speculation, it's just different levels of confidence. For example, the theory "Bad money drives out good". US governments promised that $35 dollar can exchange to one ounce, so that allies and people are willing to accept it, and ended it in 1971. Let's assume another Ponzi program, if you invest gold in this Ponzi program, you get a paper certificate that you can exchange back to gold at a fixed rate, and you can also get paper certificate interest at 2% every year, and the certificate is published by the program. The only way that this program continues is that there are more members to invest gold to join this program. How is this program different from US Dollar? The federal reserve print a lot of certificate(USD) to people, and give them interests, and someday they announce that we do not exchange USD to gold, but you have no other choice, just use USD.
Now we have BTC, the digital Gold, though there may be deflation, but in history, deflation is a good thing most of time.