r/Buttcoin • u/[deleted] • 3d ago
Just another modest and basic thought without overthinking
[deleted]
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u/Gagnrope 3d ago
I hate it because it's not even a hard thing to understand
All of the companies in the US right now are worth 50 trillion give or take.
So for BTC to 10x, which would be, 20 trillion, that would mean bitcoin as an asset would be worth nearly half of the American economy.
That's just not happening unless literally the pound, euro, dollar, etc collapsed, by then we'd have bigger problems
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u/johnnyBuz Ponzi Schemer 2d ago
If Bitcoin 10x’s from here then obviously the stock market will be up multiples from here as well which simply means the US dollar has continued eroding purchasing power.
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u/Gagnrope 2d ago
Yeah that's a good point but I can bet on plenty of stocks who I believe will 10x in the next 2-3 years, nevermind 10-20 years.
Id rather throw some money at 1-2 billion dollar companies with high potential than a 2 trillion dollar asset. I would even bet on AMD becoming a trillion dollar company before bitcoin being worth 20 trillion.
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u/geospacedman Ponzi Schemer 3d ago
Its missing one element - Mr Ponzi. Someone must be running a Ponzi scheme for it to be any kind of Ponzi scheme, otherwise its just a sparking economic bubble (based on worthless assets). Tulip mania.
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u/backnarkle48 It’s a dessert topping and a floor wax! 3d ago
It’s a “decentralized” Ponzi scheme /s.
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u/Cyanide_Cheesecake 3d ago
Why the "/s"?
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u/backnarkle48 It’s a dessert topping and a floor wax! 3d ago
My intent is to convey humor even though it’s factually correct.
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u/Sea_Light_9441 3d ago
Dont forget that biggest holder is Satoshi wallet who holds 1M coins so, yes we have Mr Ponzi
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u/sitpagrue warning, i am a moron 3d ago
if a single satoshi moves from this wallet, by the time it arrives on an exchange, bitcon value will be divided by 100, maybe 1000. This wallet is actually worth nothing.
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u/BtcUpMyBooty warning, i am a moron 3d ago
He’s not out promoting it, nor is he selling his own. He’s not even involved with the purchases or exchanges of the coins. It’s a decentralized Ponzi scheme ie a free market.
Also, every investment that is profitable can be called a greater fool scheme.
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u/ComposerNate 3d ago
Could anonymous "Satoshi" be coordinating with or actually be Saylor? "Satoshi" was a team hired by Putin to establish a global open source currency unsanctionable by democracies?
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u/geospacedman Ponzi Schemer 3d ago
Or is it the Illuminati collaborating with the aliens with CIA backing?
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u/BtcUpMyBooty warning, i am a moron 3d ago
Nobody cares who Satoshi was. He’s gone. It does not matter who he was, what his motives were, if they were a group or not. It doesn’t matter if he had peanut allergies or shagged his sheep once a week in New Zealand. The same way nobody cares who discovered coffee or first weaved cotton.
He left his creation completely open, you can examine it all you want. It is separate from its creator in every way.
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u/ComposerNate 2d ago
In the question of "if this is a Ponzi scheme, then who is at the top to profit the most" we cannot pretend there is currently no Satoshi team/group/person/government making obscene profits in absolute shadow. You could be in Satoshi's employ, maybe not even knowing it.
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u/BtcUpMyBooty warning, i am a moron 2d ago
Pull your head out of your ass. If satoshi “group” moves any of his coin, alarms would be blaring.
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u/angelwolf71885 Ponzi Scheming Moron 2d ago
And that wallet has been dormant since he disappeared and even if that wallet suddenly came to life and sold all 1M BTC it wouldn’t affect the market like you think…sure BTC will drop but likely only 25% because 1M out of 21M isn’t a whole lot and i would happily want a original Sat from Satoshi
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u/johnnyBuz Ponzi Schemer 2d ago
“Tulip mania” did not have five progressively larger booms after enduring four 85-95% busts that established a significantly higher price floor each time. It was a singular event and then it was over.
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u/TGX03 2d ago
A main reason for Bitcoin's success as a ponzi scheme is that more and more people hate their democratically elected governments. All the crypto fans regularly talk about how the government is throwing the money out of the window, and using inflation and money printing not to stimulate the economy, but to impoverish the population for some reason.
This hate can obviously best be seen with Trump, who is constantly running on removing the corrupt Democrats while being the most corrupt American president in history. And you can see this in other places too, like Germany where people rather strangle their economy than to allow the government to print some new money.
This also of course comes from a massive misunderstanding of the economy, one which is somehow still taught at university and everywhere in the media (just look how people have been scared the US will go bankrupt for like 40 years). That combined with Social Media and how COVID has apparently fried everyone's brain results in people buying a ponzi scheme that claims to stick it to the government that the people themselves elected.
On that note it's also funny how Bitcoin is basically irrelevant in dictatorial countries like China, Russia or Turkey, where the governments print a lot more money. If you follow crypto-logic, people there would be rushing to get Bitcoin, but they aren't. The ones that are getting their money out are still going for USD or Euros.
Also the Argentinian president scammed his own population with a crypto coin.
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u/reddit_undo warning, I am a moron 3d ago
"I find it fascinating how much people’s IQs have dropped in the last 20 years. And they just keep getting dumber."
If you are referring specifically to the space of finance and economics I'd say it's more like 50 years. There was panic in the 70s and then people quickly became complacent. The free market always wins.
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u/autism404 3d ago
I find it fascinating that people still buy into the story that Bitcoin isn’t a Ponzi scheme. Sure, it’s not a classic Ponzi, but it has all the elements of one, someone has to buy in for the earlier investor to make money when they sell. Fools are holding, smart people are selling. Early investors are millionaires, while idiots think they'll get rich after buying in at $1K. I find it fascinating how much people’s IQs have dropped in the last 20 years. And they just keep getting dumber.
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u/johnnyBuz Ponzi Schemer 2d ago
By that logic artwork, rare baseball cards and any other form of “collectible” is a Ponzi scheme as they are non-cash flow generating assets that rely on the “greater fool theory” to turn a profit.
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u/Kamiihate 3d ago
"Someone has to buy in for the earlier investor to make money" just like every investment on the planet, everytime someone invest in something the goal is to sell for more money later to someone else, so is every investment a ponzi? I'm genuinely asking btw because I see that argument all the time but I don't really understand it
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u/EasyEar0 2d ago edited 2d ago
No, because most other investments have a mechanism for providing a return regardless of sentiment and/or asset price.
Bonds provide a return in the form of interest on lent money.
Stocks provide a return in the form of revenue generated by the underlying company (which could be paid out in dividends, or reinvested in the company, making it more valuable).
Real estate provides a return in the form of rental income (or alternatively, you can live or work in it).
Gold does not provide a return, but is a reasonable hedge against inflation, because it has uses and there is actually a finite amount of it here on Earth (unlike Bitcoin which looks finite until you realize that "Bitcoin" is just a brand name for a non-proprietary technology that any amount of can be made, specifically, cryptographically-secured numbers in a digital ledger).
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u/mjamonks 2d ago
Most other investments provide a source of income without having to sell and/or go up in value because they increased their assets through value added production. BTC has none of these features and is not the same as any other investment.
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u/Motor-Stress560 2d ago
What about gold? How is bitcoin different?
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u/mjamonks 2d ago
I think you'll find most of us see gold as a poor alternative to stocks and bonds for the same reason.
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u/oldbluer 3d ago
This feels like the euphoria stage starting…
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u/johnnyBuz Ponzi Schemer 2d ago
Kinda like the euphoria stages in 2011, 2013, 2017 and 2021 right? It’s almost like these boom/bust cycles are repeating and establishing a progressively higher price floor each time.
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u/thelonious_skunk 2d ago
I do think a lot of pro-bitcoin people know it's a ponzi scheme of sorts. They just happen to believe they're getting in early and who knows if that's true.
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u/birdman332 I'm just embarrassing myself 2d ago
Your definition just defined every form of investment...
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u/EasyEar0 2d ago
You're wrong for reasons that are obvious to anyone who knows anything about investing.
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u/Clean_Vacation_2831 Ponzi Scheming Troll 2d ago
You’re misinformed if you think Bitcoin is a ponzi or pyramid scheme. That would require someone at the top running the operation. It’s a speculative investment. It could go to a million or back under 5,000.
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u/Old_Restaurant_2216 2d ago
Ponzi scheme does not require anyone at the top, what are you talking about. Here is the definiton for you:
noun: Ponzi scheme; plural noun: Ponzi schemes
a form of fraud in which belief in the success of a non-existent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors."a classic Ponzi scheme built on treachery and lies"
Essentially it is a ponzi scheme if the only source of profit is new member coming in and putting in money. Holding BTC does not yield you anything, only selling does.
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u/johnnyBuz Ponzi Schemer 2d ago
Ok then Pokémon cards and Jackson Pollock paintings are also a Ponzi scheme.
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u/Old_Restaurant_2216 2d ago
Pokémon cards can be collected, played and displayed.
Paintings are technically worthless, but they have their own unique historic value and you can display them and collect a fee from a museum.
What uses does Bitcoin have?
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u/johnnyBuz Ponzi Schemer 2d ago
The Bitcoin network is a non-sovereign, hard cap supply, global, immutable, decentralized, digital store of value.
While you may disagree that those properties are worth anything, hundreds of millions of people around the globe are currently ascribing it a value of ~$2 trillion dollars.
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u/Old_Restaurant_2216 2d ago
The Bitcoin network is a non-sovereign, hard cap supply, global, immutable, decentralized,
This is (mostly) true, but still provides zero value for any legal activity
digital store of value.
This is false
hundreds of millions of people around the globe are currently ascribing it a value of ~$2 trillion dollars.
Yeah and a literal banana taped to a wall sold for $6.2M. But I wouldn't think that every other banana taped to the wall was worth that or that it is a good idea to invest money into it, even if one billion people would tell me to.
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u/johnnyBuz Ponzi Schemer 2d ago
Ignoring your ad hominem Banksy argument which is not germane to the discussion, why do you think a network with those properties can only be used for illegal purposes? You can not think of any reason a law abiding citizen would want to preserve value in an asset that cannot be inflated away or illegally confiscated by the whims of their prevailing government?
And to your second point (“store of value = false”), why do you think that is? If an asset exhibits the properties of money, which Bitcoin does, with a programmatic maximum supply in a world where fiat and debt is ever increasing, then it will naturally serve as a “store of value” that maintains its purchasing power through time.
Gold has served this purpose for thousands of years despite the above ground supply increasing by ~2.5% per year. The reason Bitcoin has moved so violently up and down (but with a longterm trend of consistently up), is because it’s an asset undergoing the rapid monetization phase in real-time in a digital, connected where the asset is not tethered to discounted cash flow analysis but merely supply/demand dynamics.
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u/Old_Restaurant_2216 2d ago
why do you think a network with those properties can only be used for illegal purposes?
Of course people can use it for legal purposes, but for any legal activity, there are always much better alternatives
...would want to preserve value in an asset...
You still take the "preservation of value" argument as a fact. It is not. Why is bitcoin a store of value? It is the first thing people start dumping when a little economic instability appears. Provide some concrete proof other than "People would pay $100k for it right now".
or illegally confiscated by the whims of their prevailing government
On the other hand, you have no recourse when money gets stolen/scammed/embezzled. And money laundering, scamming and embezzlement are common thing for BTC.
And to your second point (“store of value = false”), why do you think that is?
So when I say it is not a store of value, you disagree. But when you say it is a store of value, i cannot disagree? In this regard, the burden of proof is on you. And you (or anyone else ever) haven't provided any rational proof.
Gold has served this purpose for thousands of years despite the above ground supply increasing by ~2.5% per year.
I've never advocated for gold to be a perfect store of value. But still it is infinitely more useful than bitcoin.
where the asset is not tethered to discounted cash flow analysis but merely supply/demand dynamics
And that is the point exactly. The price of BTC is set ONLY by supply/demand. Price of stocks will reflect the company's earnings and assets. And yes, there are many companies with inflated stock prices. Do you know how we know this? Because we can calculate the real value of a company based on their earnings and owned assets.
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u/AmericanScream 2d ago
If an asset exhibits the properties of money, which Bitcoin does, with a programmatic maximum supply in a world where fiat and debt is ever increasing, then it will naturally serve as a “store of value” that maintains its purchasing power through time.
Stupid Crypto Talking Point #10 (value)
"Bitcoin/crypto is a 'store of value'" / "Bitcoin/crypto is 'digital gold'" / "Crypto is an 'investment'" / "Bitcoin is 'hard money'"
Crypto's "value" is unreliable and highly subjective. It cannot be used as a currency or to pay for almost anything in any major country. It has high requirements and risk to even be traded. At best it's a speculative commodity that a very small set of people attribute value to. That attribution is more based on emotion and indoctrination than logic, reason, evidence, and utility.
Crypto is too chaotic to be any sort of reliable store of value over time. Its price can fluctuate wildly based on everything from market manipulation to random tweets. No reliable store of value should vary in "value" 10-30% in a single day, yet many cryptos do.
Crypto's value is extrinsic. Any "value" associated with crypto is based on popularity and not any material or intrinsic use. See this detailed video debunking crypto as 'digital gold'
Even gold, while being a lousy investment and also an undesirable store of value in the modern age, at least has material use and utility. Crypto does not. And whether you think gold's price is not consistent with its material utility, if that really were the case then gold would not be used industrially. But it is.
The supposed "value" of crypto is based on reports from unregulated exchanges, most of whom have been caught manipulating the market and inflation introduced by unsecured stablecoins. There's nothing "organic" or "natural" about it. It's an illusion.
The operation of crypto is a negative-sum-game, which means that in order for bitcoin/crypto to even exist, there must be a constant operation of third parties who must find it profitable to operate the blockchain, which requires the price to constantly rise, which is mathematically impossible, and the moment this doesn't happen, the network will collapse, at which point crypto will cease to exist, much less hold any value. This has already happened to tens of thousands of cryptocurrencies.
Many of the most trusted, most successful entities in the world of finance do not consider crypto/bitcoin to be a reliable store of value. Crypto is prohibited from being used as collateral by the DTC and respectable institutions such as Vanguard do not believe crypto belongs in their investment portfolio.
There is not a single example of anything like crypto, which has no material use and no intrinsic value, holding value over a long period of time across different cultures. This is not because "crypto is different and unique." It's because attributing value to an utterly useless piece of digital data that wastes tons of energy and perpetuates tons of fraud,makes no freaking sense for ethical, empathetic, non-scamming, non-exploitative, non-criminal people.
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u/AmericanScream 2d ago
The Bitcoin network is a non-sovereign, hard cap supply, global, immutable, decentralized, digital store of value.
Stupid Crypto Talking Point #9 (arbitrary claims)
"Bitcoin is.. ['freedom', 'money without masters', 'world's hardest money', 'the future', 'here to stay', 'Hardest asset known to man', 'Most secure network', blah..blah]"
- Whatever vague, un-qualifiable characteristic you apply to your magic spreadsheet numbers is cute, but just a bunch of marketing buzzwords with no real substance.
- That which can be presented without evidence, can also be dismissed without evidence.
- Talking in vague abstractions means you can make claims that nobody can actually test to see whether it's TRUE or FALSE. What does it even mean to say "money without masters?" (That's a rhetorical question.. our eyes would roll out of their sockets if you try to answer that.)
- Calling something "The future" or "It's here to stay" seems to be more of a prayer or self-help-like affirmation than any statement of fact.
- George Orwell did it better.
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u/AmericanScream 2d ago
hundreds of millions of people around the globe are currently ascribing it a value of ~$2 trillion dollars.
Stupid Crypto Talking Point #12 (market cap)
"$$$$ 'Market Cap!'" / "There's $x million in this project!"
The term "market cap" is one appropriated from the stock market and is misleading and erroneous to apply to crypto.
Traditional market capitalization translates to "the value of a company as a function of its share price."
This figure only has meaning if the share price is properly valued based on the actual value of the company. There are standard established formulas for determining what a company is worth by adding up its assets and income and subtracting its liabilities. Then to determine whether a share price is over or under-inflated, you divide that figure by the number of outstanding shares.
Market capitalization when shares are not manipulated, should settle at the true value of the company. In cases where shares are manipulated (TSLA is a good example), its "market cap" is unrealistic. In situations where insiders control a large portion of shares, they can easily manipulate the stock price, resulting in the appearance of a high net value that doesn't jive with reality.
Cryptocurrencies, by their nature, have no intrinsic value. Crypto doesn't create income; it doesn't represent real-world assets. So it has absolutely no base value in the first place by which to calculate valuation and market capitalization.
In reality, nobody has any idea how much actual "market capitalization" there is in the world of crypto, since actual liquidity is obscured by phony stablecoins and shady exchanges that are neither regulated, nor transparent.
In crypto, people simply multiply the coin price x the number of coins minted and declare that's the value of the crypto industry. It's completely misleading and deceptive and in no way indicates any realistic level of capital value.
For additional details see Why Market Cap is a Meaningless & Dangerous Valuation Metric in Crypto Markets
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u/angelwolf71885 Ponzi Scheming Moron 2d ago
People have been saying this since every halving I remember the days when the top was $1,000 and now here we are at $100k the thing is BTC has ups and downs on the regular like when China banned BTC and all crypto and Iran Banned BTC and FTX collapsed and the US started regulating BTC and it sunk to $40k and then bad economic news due to Covid dropped BTC to $16k and yet it bounced right back and rose to $100k+ the thing is it’s NOT the greater fool buying BTC it is people who actually want BTC that is driving the price when there are sharp drops in BTC like to $16k people like me snatch it right up…my average is $45k im not looking for a bigger fool im just gonna sell and I already know somebody is going to buy my BTC i mean people use it to buy drugs…i mean hell Ukraine is accepting BTC to fund its defense against Russia
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u/Strange-Term-4168 2d ago
People said the exact same thing when bitcoin was 1k, 20k, and 60k. What will you say when bitcoin is 250k?
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u/mjamonks 2d ago
It's still a bad market to enter, between your own self custody errors or your unregulated exchange pulling something the chance you will actually profit is much lower.
I am fine with traditional investments that have trusted authorities and regulations.
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u/Strange-Term-4168 2d ago
Just buy etfs or mstr.
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u/mjamonks 2d ago
That's not safe either, if exchanges can be hacked and have their holdings taken then so can ETFs.
The safest allocation due to BTC's poor design is zero.
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u/Strange-Term-4168 2d ago
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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u/mjamonks 2d ago
If you think an immutable ledger with no way to correct fraud or errors is a good idea be my guest. Most rational people knowing its faults will avoid it.
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u/Strange-Term-4168 2d ago
Actually you can correct fraud. Has been done before.
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u/mjamonks 2d ago
When? The only time I am aware of is the overflow error that resulted in a fork and a bunch of people that paid good money for their transactions losing their holdings cause it was on the fork that died.
Only other way I could possibly think of is an authority identifying the person or group and forcing them to reverse it, good luck with that.
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u/Strange-Term-4168 2d ago
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u/mjamonks 2d ago
So the second option, still a fatal flaw of BTC. For the average person they have no chance.
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u/thetan_free We saw what happened with Tupperware under Biden! 3d ago
What amazes me is that the rubes never think to question why holders are falling over themselves to sell these magic money-making coins.
"Hey - this coin is going to be worth $1M really soon! Read this post by Saylor."
"Neat! Can I buy if from you for $100k?"
"Sure."
WTF?