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My Profile Log Out. Add Your Comment. Please review our terms of service to complete your newsletter subscription. I also appreciate how the term has evolved — as language always does — to connote not just a broader range of activity but also a prevalent sense of economic malaise. Is the dollar a Ponzi? Is it Ponzi-like in this scenario? Well, I can see why some would say that. No doubt there are some who will read this and see an argument against government spending, or a defense of people getting scammed.
But you can use a word without agreeing with it. Saying that crypto is Ponzi-like can be purely descriptive, without value judgment, and emotive. Crypto deviates from the historic definition of a Ponzi scheme in several important ways. Crypto, apart from the flat-out scams, will always have a free-floating price mechanism because these assets trade in free markets rather than in a financial black box designed by a Madoff or Ponzi, he said. There's a sense that over-saturation of the term might let sketchier projects through.
Does that bastardize a well-known phrase? Does it normalize undesirable market activity? Might people get hurt later on? The leader in news and information on cryptocurrency, digital assets and the future of money, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies.
CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group , which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. As part of their compensation, certain CoinDesk employees, including editorial employees, may receive exposure to DCG equity in the form of stock appreciation rights , which vest over a multi-year period. CoinDesk journalists are not allowed to purchase stock outright in DCG. Layer 2. Cryptocurrencies have a bright future but are still too hard for most people to use, including those living in underserved communities.
The company, which was burned during the last major crypto bear market, did not mention mining in its last earnings report; bitcoin and ether drop. The holding company for Mercado Bitcoin, which is in talks to be acquired by Coinbase, is partnering with local player Giant Steps. Follow DanielGKuhn on Twitter. Read This Issue. Sign Up. By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk product updates, events and marketing and you agree to our terms of services and privacy policy.
By Daniel Cawrey. Apr 15, at a. Apr 15, First mover.
This means that the activity is able to continue without any individual liability being incurred by the participants. But in order to do this, the system imposes a real and very significant cost on cheating:. As the value of Bitcoin goes up, the energy used to mine the cryptocurrency has reached a staggering Considering the alternative using mainstream finance, being surveilled, and landing in jail , I can see how some folks might see this as a price worth paying in order to access the billions of dollars currently sloshing around in the Bitcoin markets.
What are we to do if this bubble starts spinning wildly out of control and governments need to get mediaeval on digital coins? I mean, like, strict-liability, no-holds-barred, raiding-crypto-Meetups, Marsellus Wallace levels of mediaeval. A previous version of this post had a legislative proposal which is no longer relevant — the original post was written after the DAO Report was published but before any meaningful securities enforcement for non-registration had taken place, which now has happened in relation to schemes large and small including Telegram, Kik, and as of a few weeks ago, Ripple.
It therefore appears that at least given current law Bitcoin itself is unlikely to be classified as such a scheme, although peripheral conduct around it e. TBD whether this has any impact on the markets for mainstream cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. View all posts by prestonbyrne. For that reason I do not see existing regulatory law applicable. BTC combines the properties of token money, shares, fractional shares, and a distributor network, with zero liability on behalf of the distributor, and zero means of restitution.
The problems are:. How this differs from Fiat State Paper Currency is hard to define. I can make my own change sell a fraction of my fractional share. But ignorance is not a defense when promoting and profiting from a hazard.
Nor the ability to survive even minor hack attempts. This is very hard to prosecute in my opinion. Because as an expert it is nearly impossible to demonstrate the people involved understood their fraud, rather than were excited nerds, very conscious of the corruption of the existing banking system, and very aware of the possibility and means of circumventing it, but not aware of the legal or empirical meaning of money, and the decreasing liquidity, purchasing power retention, and increasing risk of money substitutes and fiduciary media.
The concept is fantastic. Most of us understand the problems of producing and using hard money and counterfeiting. Most problems we have in mathematical economics are related to the poor information quality of monetary transactions. Some of us understand the problem of accounting systems with fiat money untraceable record keeping all accounting systems along with the federal budget, launder money out of necessity.
Most people understand this, but that we do not want governments to possess that information, in order to further control us Most people understand that there is no reason any longer for most bank transactions, fees, and largely for their existence. An independent treasury of various digital currencies and title registries would make the consumer financial sector irrelevant, and relegate the financial sector from seeking consumer rents to seeking entrepreneurial investments. I think these are understood.
And we are have moved from fiat money, to credit money, and now we are moving into fractional shares as token money. Which as far as I can see is the last logical step in the evolution of such things. In my opinion that technology is very close. But likewise, it is far easier for the treasury to acquire and implement a monolithic, federated divided into chunks fractional share token money system, and its equivalent title registry. And BTC is not technologically capable or architecturally advantageous for fulfilling that role.
And should the state enact such a system which is not very difficult then all other digital currencies will crash precisely because they are not open to liability, restitution, and insurance by an insurer of last resort.
There will always be a some form of black market currency. But the future of money substitutes is in fact purely digital it has to be. With most of us immediately converting it to something harder commodities, commodity money, or commodity money shares as a store of value, while trading instantaneously and transferring title instantaneously over a network run by the treasury. To deal with Bitcoin, all you have to do is target the exchanges. Since the exchanges have to use and accept regulated currency, as soon as you stop the use of regulated currency in those exchanges they die — forcing bitcoin back to peer to peer exchanges which is far more difficult to trust.
Preston, I came here snooping around for a confirmation or rebuttal of whether my conviction that Bitcoin is a giant, criminal pyramid scheme, is correct. What I did not find, but perhaps only because it is too obvious, is that the main reason why this cryptocurrency is a scam is its limited supply of 21 million forever, no matter how much human activity those 21 million bitcoins are supposed to represent.
This means that whoever entered early, most significantly the secretive creator with his 1 million bitcoins, is bound to reap endless rewards as the pawns pile on at the bottom. Therefore, one regulatory step that is needed is to remove the 21 million cap — bitcoin will then immediately assume its real value, whatever it may be. Of course, with the billions of USD now at the disposal of the bitcoin overlords it will be an even more uphill struggle against possible campaigns political and PR in favour of bitcoin.
And we may well end up with yet another scam in the legal limbo, just like most MLMs. Bitcoin is not redeemable for money though it can be sold at whatever price the market might bear, like other assets. Nor is it a contractual right to some good, service, etc. Your rule would apply to digital gift certificates. The rule here is mainly aimed to constrain c-currencies with issuers. Indeed one can see that the skillsets of the pump and dump crews who work the AIM forums and social media were always directly transferable to ICOs and the same usual suspects seem to spreading false information in both realms.
The AIM regulators are worse than useless so I fail to see how Cryptocurrency regulation would be effective even if there were rules. Ultimately I think it will be banks that end up regulating this sphere. It seems to be the case that we are reaching the point that it is becoming so onerous for banks to keep sufficient tabs on their customers that have accounts with cryptocurrency exchanges that they will eventually refuse to let money flow into or out of exchanges via customers as it will just cost them too much time and effort to police this kind of customer which is their regulatory duty now.
Its either that or they ditch those customers and those accounts. Taking to Twitter today, Dorsey answered a couple questions posed by a Twitter user: Was Musk investing contingent on Dorsey leaving? Did Dorsey leave because of Musk? On April 8, the company officially spun off Warner Bros.
Discovery WBD. High-dividend stocks can mislead. Here's a smart way to find stable stocks with high dividends. Watch seven dividend payers on IBD's radar. In this article, we discuss the 10 stocks that Jim Cramer says you should sell. The finance world is abuzz with news that Tesla, Inc. Most Americans have less in their retirement accounts than they'd like, and much less than the rules say they should have.
So, obviously, if that describes you then you're not alone. Jamie Dimon was once convinced this year would see a booming economy, but not even he can stand in the way of the forces destabilizing the global economy. Bloomberg -- Twitter Inc.
While the EU debates whether to slap sanctions on Russian gas and oil and member states seek supplies from elsewhere, the Kremlin has been forging closer ties with China, the world's top energy consumer, and other Asian countries. Apple has been an American success story several times over with the Mac, iPod, iPhone and other inventions. But is Apple stock a buy now? On Friday, three days ahead of tax day for most Americans, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris released the completed tax returns from their first year in office.
KeyBanc sees positive and mixed trends for other chipmakers. Demand remains 'healthy' in the industry, it said. Natural-gas futures on Thursday post a gain for the holiday-shortened week, their fifth weekly climb in a row, with prices for the fuel settling at their highest in close to 14 years. Software giant Microsoft has earned plaudits for its successful pivot from desktop computing to cloud computing.
Many investors may be wondering: Is Microsoft stock a buy right now? When investing in your future, it is important to understand how much income you can expect from your nest egg. Earlier this week, I wrote about Musk's penchant for humor. Bloomberg -- European natural gas prices slumped to the lowest since the start of the war in Ukraine, with the Easter holidays approaching and Russian President Vladimir Putin remaining largely silent on a potential halt to European gas supplies.
Some would welcome the revenue and jobs exporting LNG would bring, but others are worried about undermining U. It's unclear if the billionaire has it. Markets closed.
” according to Bloomberg. Cryptocurrencies, the central bank governor explained, can't be defined as a currency, asset, or commodity, given that the tokens don't hold any “intrinsic value” and “have no underlying cash flows.”. hutsonartworks.com › is-crypto-ponzi-scheme-india-central-bank-rbi-regulation. Cryptocurrency is not merely a bad investment or speculative bubble. It's worse than that: it's a full-on fraud.