In the legal sense, a 'Ponzi Scheme' has a specific meaning. In conversation, the definition is a bit looser. Sorta like how expressive has a different definition when you say 'that is an expressive programming language' and 'that is an expressive face'.
Crypto, as a whole, is about early adopters trying to convince newcomers that crypto has value. If the early adopters can't convince anyone that crypto has value, it's just a bunch of math and wasted electricity.
Early adopters try to convince laymen to 'invest' in crypto (i.e. buy crypto from the early adopters). Then the second generation crypto adopters have to find new marks to buy their crypto. Ad infinitum, until someone is left holding the bag. Then you sprinkle in some jpgs that people purchase despite anyone being able to right click and save it, rug pulls, and overall idiocy that happens when you give people billions of dollars without checking to see if they're observing basic organizational principles (i.e. are they running payroll out of a Slack room?).
Mingle it all together and you get a house of cards that's remarkably similar to a Ponzi scheme, yet doesn't exactly fit the bill. Sort of like how MLMs are legally distinct from Ponzi schemes for... reasons, I guess.
Saying that crypto shouldn't be considered a Ponzi scheme is a bit pedantic when the outcome is the same (i.e. the last person is always holding the bag, so you have to keep trying to convince someone to buy into your idea).
And they hate being told that they're a pyramid scheme. They'll claim that pyramid schemes are illegal. They're not. Pyramid schemes in which the only thing being moved is money are illegal, but as long as you offer a real good or service, you can pyramid it up.
They'll claim "everything is technically a pyramid scheme" trying to conflate a hierarchy with a pyramid scheme. But in a typical corporate hierarchy, money flows downward. I don't buy stock, I don't rent space, I don't etc. I am not responsible for any of the assets. I get paid for the value of my labor (in an ideal world, let's not get into that discussion here). In a pyramid scheme/MLM/network marketing bullshit, money flows up. I have to buy the stock I'm responsible for selling. I need to find/rent space to do so, I have to get customer contacts, etc. And on top of that, I have to recruit, train, and manage people under me. And for this privilege, I owe some percentage of my sales to someone higher up.
Never join a company where the first thing they ask you for is a check.
Technically everything is a ponzi scheme based on the assumption that it correlates with world GDP growth.
Land, Homes, Gold, Stocks are all Ponzi. It's just that the duration of the scheme is longer. If an asteroid hits and kill all humans tomorrow except 100 people, those 100 people can get all the above 'assets' for $0.
E.g The Gold Scheme has lasted over 5,000 years. Who is to say that BTC will not last at least 50. As an investor, it's not whether something is a ponzi or not, but how long the scheme will last.
For something like land, it could well be till the population peaks or Metaverse makes land less valuable or we find another amazing planet where we can all instantly migrate to. But eventually the land that you own will have no value. When is the question, till then you'll keep buying land in the hope of selling it to someone else for a higher value
With the small exception that homes, land and stocks (at least some of them) can pay you rent.
I personally like to think of Gold as of Babylonians Bitcoin, it has very little value of its own - but it has a long history of being a store of value (like 5k years vs Bitcoin's 5k days). So at least in this case we have a lot of track record that Gold works.
Beside Gold, silver was also used for monetary purposes, but with time it lose its role - as more and more silver was produced as e.g. side product of copper mining. Countries that were relying on silver as the store of value (China) where hit very hard by silver inflation.
Time will show if Bitcoin is a bubble, cyber silver or cyber gold. I personally would be interested in having stable coin based on Gold, that would basically mean return of the gold standard. But in that case we have to trust some institution to keep all that gold safe...
I can understand wanting a term for the specific kind of grift we see with crypto.
Making it such that "crypto scheme" or something like that is the new term for this chicanery would be nice. Clean, obvious, and appropriately stigmatory.
Crypto, as a whole, is about early adopters trying to convince newcomers that crypto has value. If the early adopters can't convince anyone that crypto has value, it's just a bunch of math and wasted electricity.
Early adopters try to convince laymen to 'invest' in crypto (i.e. buy crypto from the early adopters). Then the second generation crypto adopters have to find new marks to buy their crypto. Ad infinitum, until someone is left holding the bag. Then you sprinkle in some jpgs that people purchase despite anyone being able to right click and save it, rug pulls, and overall idiocy that happens when you give people billions of dollars without checking to see if they're observing basic organizational principles (i.e. are they running payroll out of a Slack room?).
Mingle it all together and you get a house of cards that's remarkably similar to a Ponzi scheme, yet doesn't exactly fit the bill. Sort of like how MLMs are legally distinct from Ponzi schemes for... reasons, I guess.
Saying that crypto shouldn't be considered a Ponzi scheme is a bit pedantic when the outcome is the same (i.e. the last person is always holding the bag, so you have to keep trying to convince someone to buy into your idea).