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Ponzi scheme - Wikipedia
Search domain en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_schemehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme
A Ponzi scheme (/ ˈ p ɒ n z i /, Italian: ; also a Ponzi game) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. The scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from product sales or other means, and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds.

Who's gonna fund the next bitcoin millionaire?

I thought this video was educational:

www.youtube.com/embed/FJ-0b6NLo4Q

Wait, no it was this one:

www.youtube.com/embed/Cg10yYZjK94&t=102s

Literally everything is a scheme to part you from your money. Crypto is no different. Vacations part you from your money. It's the return that matters. Emotional, monetary, etc. I'll take a vacation 10 out of 10 times over investing in crypto is my perspective. If you choose to invest in crypto, that's your decision. The money is going to be taken from you at some point either way or given to heirs. Might was well enjoy life as stress free as possible. Crypto is stress by definition. And for that reason, I'm out.

"Bitcoin is absurdly wasteful of natural resources. Because it is so compute-intensive, it takes as much electricity to create a single bitcoin — a process called “mining” — as it does to power an average American household for two years. If bitcoin were used for a large portion of the world’s commerce (which won’t happen), it would consume a very large portion of the world’s electricity, diverting scarce power from useful purposes."

"Bitcoin is scheduled to hit the 20.5 million mark by 2030. Considering that there will only ever be 21 million bitcoin in existence, this means that it will take approximately 110 years for the next 500,000 coins to be mined. “Considering how many BTC will be lost at that point and how distributed the economy should be, 500k more coins to mine will be a lot of coins,” one user wrote. "

WookieMan says

Literally everything is a scheme to part you from your money. Crypto is no different. Vacations part you from your money. It's the return that matters. Emotional, monetary, etc. I'll take a vacation 10 out of 10 times over investing in crypto is my perspective. If you choose to invest in crypto, that's your decision. The money is going to be taken from you at some point either way or given to heirs. Might was well enjoy life as stress free as possible. Crypto is stress by definition. And for that reason, I'm out.

Wookie.
Totally cool. Nobody is trying to make you invest in Crypto. You have good points too.
I believe 90% of traders (applies to stocks and other asset classes) are losing money. I am not really into trading. I buy&hold stocks and recently crypto.

Obviously, I would also rather just spend money than make money. I used to not invest in crypto because I determined it was too risky for me. Now that institutional players are getting in, it changed my perspective. Why would reputable companies like Paypal/Square and Hedge fund guys invest in it? Isnt that how it usually goes? Wall street goes in and retails follows later? I doubt that we are all smarter than these guys. They are obviously making big investments here for the long term. (Square=50M in BTC, Paypal according to Forbes is a 50B stimulus check for Bitcoin: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronshevlin/2020/10/25/paypals-new-service-is-a-50-billion-stimulus-check-for-bitcoin/?sh=20aee1511c4c and Microstragy invested 250M in Bitcoin). I think that's just the beginning. Personally, I have a hard time just disregarding all this news as "nothing".

For my risk profile, investing in Bitcoin offers high reward potential for a risk that I am willing to take. Others see that completely different. Totally fine.
We'll see how it plays out.

G36 says

For my risk profile, investing in Bitcoin

Gambling. Beyond a power intensive scheme to part rubes from their money and fund international crime there is no there there.

G36 says

Why would reputable companies like Paypal/Square and Hedge fund guys invest in it?

Valid point, but they may know something you do not. Big money is everything. They may see a market they can leverage and manipulate. It's the internet, so I get some won't believe me, but my uncle has 9 figure wealth. Outside of politics, he gets to do what he wants, when he wants to do it. He can buy a company for $3-4 million and not bat an eye. Purchase property that churns off $100k/mo profit as a landlord. The mindset is completely different.

At some point, the toy they're playing with becomes worthless. They are even okay losing money. It's a difficult game to win when you're playing with the kids that don't care about losing their toys because they have storage units and safes full of them.

I get that. A rich dude may spend money left and right and doesnt care. But that may not apply to the next guy. I do know people how are well off and you would never know how wealthy they are because they dont like to show it and behave super frugal.

G36 says

Obviously, I would also rather just spend money than make money. I used to not invest in crypto because I determined it was too risky for me. Now that institutional players are getting in, it changed my perspective. Why would reputable companies like Paypal/Square and Hedge fund guys invest in it? Isnt that how it usually goes? Wall street goes in and retails follows later? I doubt that we are all smarter than these guys. They are obviously making big investments here for the long term. (Square=50M in BTC, Paypal according to Forbes is a 50B stimulus check for Bitcoin: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronshevlin/2020/10/25/paypals-new-service-is-a-50-billion-stimulus-check-for-bitcoin/?sh=20aee1511c4c and Microstragy invested 250M in Bitcoin). I think that's just the beginning. Personally, I have a hard time just di...

Let them have their half baked opinions and assume all they wish. My assumption is get ready for the rocket ride BTC/USD 16800+/- and on a good/better day 17250 should be challenged and hopefully breached sooner then later but it really don't matter due to my 24000 is clearly in sight....

G36 says

I do know people how are well off and you would never know how wealthy they are because they dont like to show it and behave super frugal.

Eh, if they're well off they show it. Warren Buffet I know will come up as an example. That's the anomaly in the equation. Even then his wealth is just straight up known.

I know real estate. I know the location in AZ. My uncle has a $10-15M house that he paid $7M to build and holds the neighboring lot as well. All his neighbors are extremely well know people. Tax records don't lie. Wealthy people like to show what they've accomplished. Poor people do the same in trying to keep up with the Jones' purchasing homes at the max end of their budget. That's ultimately what crypto is. "The Jones' got crypto, I need some."

As I've said 1,000 times. You can make money. I just think you're chasing the life changing investment in the trailer park owned by a billionaire.

Absolutely Wookie. I am not a rich guy. I tried it with stocks but the wide range of 8-15% profit annually doesn't cut it for me. We'll see what happens.

G36 says

Absolutely Wookie. I am not a rich guy. I tried it with stocks but the wide range of 8-15% profit annually doesn't cut it for me. We'll see what happens.

Good luck. 37 and 8% is and will do me well. It's more of a timing issue than quantity. Start early, invest 20% of income and you'll be rich. Not much else to it. And if you throw 1-5% of funny money around and do BTC I'd have no issue with it personally. Crypto should never be more than 5% of your portfolio at this point though unless you have 7-8 figures locked up savings wise (cash, not paper). Then you can really fuck around with it.

No need to dox any info, but if you're 40 plus, be careful of chasing a return or get rich quick. You're an adult obviously and maybe older than I am. Chasing a get rich dream is a recipe for disaster. Chased mine when I was 22 and lost $60k plus and a lot of labor. I learned early and recovered at a young age. s

Thanks man.
I dont believe in getting rich quick. One of the reasons why I discuss investments on sites like this instead of some fanboy/moonboy platform. Life changing money doesnt necessarily mean being rich to me. I am probably going to end up with more than 5% in Crypto. But I wouldnt really recommend that to anyone else. But I try to stay away from recommending anything. I agree with up to 5% in crypto in general. The only advice I would feel comfortable giving is DO NOT do a cash refi and stick it Crypto and DO NOT get into debt in order to speculate. :)

"Impacts of Finite Bitcoin Supply on Bitcoin Miners
It may seem that the group of individuals most directly affected by the limit of the bitcoin supply will be the bitcoin miners themselves. Some detractors of the protocol claim that miners will be forced away from the block rewards they receive for their work once the bitcoin supply has reached 21 million in circulation.

Without the incentive provided by a prize of bitcoin at the end of a rigorous and costly mining process, miners may not be driven to continue to support the network. This would have disastrous effects for bitcoin.

Mining is not just a process by which new tokens are introduced into the ecosystem; it is first and foremost the way in which the decentralized blockchain is supported and maintained (in the absence of a central bank or other single authority). If miners abandon their work, the network may be forced to move toward centralization or collapse entirely.2

Even when the last bitcoin has been produced, miners will likely continue to actively and competitively participate and validate new transactions. The reason is that every bitcoin transaction has a small transaction fee attached to it.

These fees, while today representing a few hundred dollars per block, could potentially rise to many thousands of dollars per block, especially as the number of transactions on the blockchain grows and as the price of a bitcoin rises. Ultimately, it will function like a closed economy, where transaction fees are assessed much like taxes."

"once the bitcoin supply has reached 21 million in circulation."

Which is projected to be in 2140. Conveniently, you left the year 2140 out of your copy/paste effort. Which you claimed to be at 2040 in previous posts. Just a 100 years off.
"The reward will continue to halve every four years until the final bitcoin has been mined. In actuality, the final bitcoin is unlikely to be mined until around the year 2140."

I like that you are reading the article though :) here the link.

https://www.investopedia.com/tech/what-happens-bitcoin-after-21-million-mined/#:~:text=In%20actuality%2C%20the%20final%20bitcoin,changed%20between%20now%20and%20then

This is a picture of just one of the bit mining "farms" that are used to create and update the bitcoin ledger. Out of a total of 21M coins 18.5M have already been "mined". As you can imagine this vast array of computers uses incredible amounts of power. As the bitcoin program plays out the miners get paid less coins per win. The computational power needed to solve the problems needed to win increases as well.

Not only does bitcoin require "the greater fool" to buy into the game, it also consumes the capital as it goes. Kind of like when the scam artist running a traditional Ponzi scheme pays the old rubes with the new rubes' money while buying a bunch of blow and escorts. The old rubes tell the new rubes, "It is an excellent investment as it always goes up and the people who run it throw one hell of a party".

Somebody has to pay for all of these computers and the power to run them. When it is no longer profitable the miners will quit and sell their custom hardware to some company using blockchain for some better purpose than a Ponzi scheme.

G36 says

Conveniently, you left the year 2140 out of your copy/paste effort. Which you claimed to be at 2040 in previous posts. Just a 100 years off.

Ya know, I think I am going to go back to my original estimate of 2040, actually I don't think it will last that long.

Onvacation says

As the bitcoin program plays out the miners get paid less coins per win. The computational power needed to solve the problems needed to win increases as well.

Several years ago there was a company in NL selling a space heater with a bitcoin mining machine inside it. The idea was to offset the cost of electricity with the bitcoins being mined and essentially get "free heat" out of it. =))

It could work some time ago but it probably wouldn't now.

More than half of the bitcoin mining operations are in China.

WookieMan says

You guys had an active thread going and then create a brand new one on the exact same topic. Stay in your lane. We don't need 10 different crypto threads.

I beg your pardon. I don't have ten different threads on crypto.

I did post
https://patrick.net/post/1334086/2020-07-26-bitcoin-meets-banking-as-u-s-bank-regulator-permits

and if you want to get on the ground floor of an exciting new currency of the future.
https://patrick.net/post/1314087/2018-02-28-getrichquickcoins

And maybe a couple of others but I promise to keep news of the crypto currency scam to this thread.

Sorry.

At least I'm not arguing about climate change and World Trade Center 7.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lin-a2lTelg

Onvacation says

I beg your pardon. I don't have ten different threads on crypto.

Sarcasm I assume? Either way a new thread was started in the last 10 days or less and now there's a new one pumping crypto or BTC.

"sarcasm is not a teaching method"
old saying

The more I look into bitcoin the more it looks like a Ponzi scheme.

It currently costs the miners a couple thousand to "mine" a coin. The miners profits go into player dividends and upgrades to keep up with the ever increasing complexity of the calculations involved in keeping the ledger up to date. It's going to cost more and more to "mine" the bitcoin and all of the "investments" in bitcoin are going into electricity, upgrades, and dividends to the people that fund these "mines". You used to be able to "mine" on your PC but now the miners are using as much power as the country of Israel.

In normal investments someone has a great idea for a product or a service and borrows money. The money funds the product or service and profits or losses are made. The stock market makes this easy. With crypto your kind of investing in a network of "miners" who depend on people to buy the coins at an ever increasing price to justify their ever increasing costs to "mine".

Bitcoin is unsustainable. If you want to be like Jamie and speculate in the crypto don't be the last one in, or out..

And there is no there there.

Bitcoin is a gamble and nothing more unless you are a criminal transfering money.

Bitcoin has no product, no needed service, and no assets.

Bitcoin requires huge amounts of electricity.

If you don't realize bitcoin relies on the next biggest fool, that fool may be you.

Bitcoin is programmable.

It was originally programmed with artificial scarcity and longevity.

Bitcoin can also change the rules of the currency as they go if a consensus of the miners agree. For instance, if their were only 100 miners in the world and 51 of them decided that the payoff was not high enough after one of the halving events and they decided to change the rules so they would make more there is nothing to stop them.

From a bitcoin fanboi site:

"Bitcoin is a unique digital asset for an increasingly digital world that requires digging deeper than the surface level to understand its core properties and trade-offs. It pushes onlookers to question pre-conceived notions of what is right and widely accepted to begin to understand its full value proposition."

Uh huh.

Buying Cryptocurrencies Scam: How It Works
Source: TNW (The Next Web) – Dan Pepijin

According to TNW, “at least 39 Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) were launched in September. In addition, at least another 33 crypto startups are set to launch their ICOs in October. CO is an event in which a cryptocurrency, blockchain firm or a startup sells tokens that represent ownership of its core blockchain, in an effort to raise money to develop the product or scale an existing product.

Unfortunately, many scam artists have jumped on the cryptocurrency train to unleash all kinds of scam cryptocurrencies on unsuspecting investors who think they are buying the next Bitcoin at a discount.

In brief:
Average Bitcoin transaction fees increased 2,213% since January 1.
Since the date of Bitcoin's block reward halving, fees continued to increase by 144%.
Over 94MB Pending transactions in the Bitcoin mempool means the network is now as clogged as it was in January 2018.
The average cost of sending transactions on the Bitcoin network has increased by 2,213% since the turn of the year.

That’s according to data from Bitinfocharts, which shows that average Bitcoin transaction fees climbed as high as $6.64 on May 20. That’s the highest average cost of a Bitoin transaction since July 2018—almost two years ago.

At the turn of the year, average fees were as low as $0.28—marking a 2,213% spike since January 1.

https://decrypt.co/29949/crypto-blockchain-bitcoin-transaction-fees

HODL- Hold On for Dear Life!

"Crypto naysays who think Bitcoin is “the ultimate bubble” love to point at so-called HODLers and laugh.

HODLers are crypto investors who buy and hold their positions regardless of price. Whether the market is up, down or sideways, these folks stay invested, confident in the long-term value of crypto. The term was created in 2013 in a Bitcoin chat forum by an investor who was watching Bitcoin’s price fall sharply but decided not to sell. He wrote a post titled, “I am HODLing,” meaning to write “HOLDing.”

The misspelling caught on with the Bitcoin community. Eventually, working backward, they turned it into an evocative acronym: Hold On for Dear Life. Anyone who has watched Bitcoin’s recent volatility knows that the acronym can sometimes feel spot-on.

To the mainstream investment community, however, it’s the epitome of crypto insanity. You can almost hear them tut-tutting from behind their mahoganied desks:

Look at these fools, holding their imaginary money with no regard to price. They just sit there and watch while their portfolios fall by 50% or more. Insanity!

But HODLing is actually the only valid strategy for most crypto investors. After all, it’s just “buy and hold” in an updated wrapper."

"HODLers incur profits/losses based on when they entered the market cycle, however, the ones who entered the market less than a year ago having unrealized losses are piling up. The percentage of HODLers with unrealized positive gains has dropped and a higher percentage of them are currently running losses."

It's like real gold only better.

Onvacation says

It's like real gold only better.

Cant argue with that.

I don't know about fungible. I was in a Barcelona coin shop trying to buy some old 100 peseta token with Franco's image on it. I offered the proprietor US dollars but he would only take Euros. The coin would be worthless but it was made of silver.

Try giving him bitcoin.

I think "100 peseta token" are the last thing I would want to buy. Why would I?

So you collect silver/gold coins?

Onvacation says

I was in a Barcelona coin shop trying to buy some old 100 peseta token with Franco's image on it. The coin would be worthless but it was made of silver.

So you collect silver coins?

Onvacation, is that a hard question to answer? ;)

G36 says

So you collect silver coins?

and copper, nickel, zinc, at one point I had the goal of collecting every US coin made in the 20th century, but some of those Barber coins are way too expensive.

Yes I collect coins. But I don't invest in them.

Onvacation says

G36 says

So you collect silver coins?

and copper, nickel, zinc, at one opoint I had the goal of collecting every US coin made in the 20th century, but some of those Barber coins are way too expensive.

Yes I collect coins. But I don't invest in them.

Nice! What about gold coins? I imagine you also collect some gold coins?

Hi OV, no gold coins in your portfolio?