Bitcoin is just like a Ponzi pyramid scheme today, your fund invested in bitcoin are vanishing because early adopters / merchants are selling / spending / cashing out them very hard (you saw all those " xxx accepted bitcoin" news, most bitcoins accepted are sold right away means your fund has been transferred to the merchants,Convert fiat to bitcoin -> use bitcoin to pay merchant -> merchant convert bitcoin back to fiat)
Only who bought lower than you will sell/use the coins, same as you want more people to buy the price higher than your bought price so you can grab their money and get rich just like a Ponzi scheme
The question is people are getting out, no one is buying your coins, what you left at the end are worthless digital numbers
The Ponzi scheme metaphor applies to any kind of investment: Stocks, funds, real estate, etc... the only way you can profit from an investment is to sell your cheaply purchased goods at a higher price to the next guy, this even applies to normal business, where you purchase cheap raw materials and make expensive products
I marked the "money" as red in your quotes, it seems that people unconsciously regard fiat money as money. Most of the people have this misconception just because they have been used to this idea since they were born, not because that fiat money indeed has any value. This is similar to: Everyone believe that sun goes around earth since they were children, until the day they were educated about the solar system
In fact, those paper are the biggest Ponzi scheme (Central bank produce money extremely cheap and dump it to people in exchange for expensive things, and they have exclusive right to do it, it is a monopole Ponzi)
Bitcoin is not Ponzi because of its manufacturing cost, as long as the money has a manufacturing cost, it is a normal business activity, its price is purely decided by market demand, while fiat money's price is arbitrary decided by the central bank