Why bitcoin is worse than a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme by Robert McCauley
Brazilian computer scientist Jorge Stolfi is one voice who has contended this. His view is based on the following observations:
- Investors buy in the expectation of profits.
- That expectation is sustained by the profits of those that cash out.
- But there is no external source for those profits; they come entirely from new investments.
- And the operators take away a large portion of the money.
All of this rings true true. But in calling bitcoin a Ponzi scheme, critics are arguably being too kind on two counts. First, bitcoin doesn’t have the same endgame as a Ponzi scheme. Second, it constitutes a deeply negative sum game from a broad social perspective.
Does it? Why wouldn't there be economies of scale and advantages of locating near cheap electricity for Monero miners? Why are a million shelf-CPUs quieter to cool than the same computing power in ASICs?