Ponzi scheme?  I really don't think so.  I do agree with several of the other points here.

Does ANYBODY care about Monero except for the flaming fanboys and Poloniex? No.  Most of the XMR market is being supported by Polo and the massive amount of fanboys there.  Lets look at some real proof.

#   Source   Pair   Volume (24h)   Price   Volume (%)   Updated
1    Poloniex   XMR/BTC    $ 105,033   $ 2.02    60.54 %    Recently
2    hitbtc      XMR/BTC    $ 42,393   $ 2.02    24.44 %    Recently
3    MintPal   XMR/BTC    $ 10,438   $ 2.02    6.02 %    Recently
4    Bittrex   XMR/BTC    $ 8,755   $ 2.02    5.05 %    Recently
5    BTER      XMR/BTC    $ 3,885   $ 1.97    2.24 %    Recently
6    Melotic   XMR/BTC    $ 2,210   $ 2.05    1.27 %    Recently
7    BTER      XMR/CNY    $ 770   $ 2.00    0.44 %    Recently
8    Bittrex   XMR/BC    $ 0   $ 2.13    0.00 %    Recently

The majority of the other exchanges could careless about XMR.  The majority of their vol comes from arbitraging the markets.  When Polo goes up you generally have enough time to buy cheaper on the other exchanges.  When polo drops, you can work it the other direction.

Monero is the most well-organized pump job I've ever seen...  Quite possibly yes.  Most of the recent XMR pumping has been spear headed from rpietila and his minions.  On a daily basis there is an overflow if XMR cheerleading, talks of XMR over taking BTC, wild price predictions, and price manipulations. 

rpietila has commented several times about the massive amounts of XMR he controls.  I've seen estimates as high as 10% of the current supply.  I don't think its that high but its high enough that the XMR devs told him he needs to down play his holdings and influence on the market.  How well does that sit with you?  I don't think devs should have any say over what some says or does with their coins.

rpietila's has tried to make several price predictions for XMR and has been wrong in many ways.  On the last XMR pumps, rpietila burst on the scene and proclaimed he had done some amazing analysis and predicted XMR would hit .0065-.0068.  His followers went into panic buying mode.  Price went to the 530s but the real buy support wasn't there.  All his minions got dumped on and drove the price into the 380s.

After the market dropped from that .0065 prediction, rpietila came back to the troll box and called for XMR hitting .005.  Again the buying started.  They tried hard to get it there.  There were some really large buy walls trying to keep the price up.  Fake "buy support" was over 600 total btc on the books at one point.  There were fake walls for 80 and 100 btc down low on the the books with smaller walls up higher.  In the end, it topped out in the 480s and then the dumping ensued.

After these manipulators finished dumping their coins on these fanboy followers, the walls were removed and the price fell to the 300s.  At some point during this drop, rpietila's awesome analytic process told him that XMR would never go under 300 again.  Walls were made.  Dumps happened and shortly after that XMR went to 290s.

So 3 of his recent predictions were wrong.  He lead people into buying the coins they were dumping and they thanked him for it.  Everyone said, "oh its great we get cheap coins at 400+.  Anything under .1 is cheap."


Lets take a look some comments:

http://cryptocointools.com/troll-log/?msg=&user=rpietila&submit=Filter
http://cryptocointools.com/troll-log/?msg=monero&user=&submit=Filter
http://cryptocointools.com/troll-log/?msg=xmt&user=&submit=Filter

These are just recent comments from the log.
21 hours ago   rpietila   "I am trying to prop it up by fixing 1 drk = 1 xmr"
7 hours ago    rpietila   "I am thinking of a huge buy"
7 hours ago    rpietila   "when I unleash my btc, it will make a 1 month high"

Some nice LOL comments from the fanboys
15 hours ago   TrueCryptonaire   Buying Risto's puts is not a good move since Monero will basically go up and if 0.01 is a bargain, what is 0.0035?
15 hours ago   TrueCryptonaire   But when Risto's friends start to hoarding moneros, you cannot even imagine how high it will go.
15 hours ago   TrueCryptonaire   I see very realistically monero hitting even 1000+ USD

15 hours ago   TrueCryptonaire   ant84, this type of coin actually might be the final crypto...
15 hours ago   TrueCryptonaire   ant84, Yup. I see Risto's prediction of replacing gold a realistic long term.

9 hours ago    TrueCryptonaire   It takes some time for corporations and individuals adopt it but eventually the whole world will be speaking the gospel of Monero.
9 hours ago    TrueCryptonaire   It is virtually impossible that Monero will not go pass 1000 USD.
9 hours ago    TrueCryptonaire   Monero could actually replace the gold bullion in the store of value.

9 hours ago    TrueCryptonaire   greenmon, Monero has the wealthy elite backing - no wealthy person ever mentions bbr.
9 hours ago    TrueCryptonaire   maqa71, Risto told he can find easily buyers for 50 k moneros weekly from his contacts.

1 hour ago     fatboy1   aminorex, do you see monero taking over BTC? And, do u have a time frame? I hold both!
1 hour ago     aminorex   my most optimistic estimate for xmr is btc parity in late 2017. MOST optimistic

24 hours ago   Snail     toretto, XMR's big pumps will come with db complete and official GUI, i can see monero pumping to a billion usd at somepoint

8 hours ago   presstab   Thanks to David Latapie, part of the Monero core team, for helping get HyperStake added to polo today