Rarely is it one person doing all the lying in a Ponzi scheme. Commonly they're labeled as multi level marketing, which then encourages more people to lie.
And I disagree that bitcoin proponents doesn't claim they make your money with for you: there's a lot of talk about the "deflationary nature" of bitcoin, aka the "magical scheme". Miners haven't burned all the money invested in bitcoin, but I'll admit this particular scheme has an unusually high cost of business, for a Ponzi scheme.
Most victims of a Ponzi scheme believe they're investing in something that will earn them money in the long run, otherwise they wouldn't have fallen for it.
Bitcoins long-term value is clear by examining it's usefulness: it's a tulip, at best.
I'll also freely admit that bitcoin is by far the most cleverly disguised Ponzi scheme yet, it's nature will probably only be obvious after the inevitable collapse.
A lot of people compare the Tulip craze to Bitcoin but the differences in the properties of each should make it clear why Bitcoin has a higher chance of maintaining value over time. The qualities that Bitcoin has, have typically been sought after in other high valued commodities.
Things like longevity and (protocol enforced) scarcity are previously things attributed to gold and remains one of the reasons why gold continues to hold value. Tulips on the other hand can easily wither away and its amount can grow exponentially. There are more reasons on why Bitcoin should be valuable in its own right, but many people who can write a lot better than me have written about it.
If you haven’t made up your mind on Bitcoin and still have an open mind to learning what it is, or even if you want more intelligent arguments to critique and debunk, I highly recommend reading The Bitcoin Standard written by Saifedean Ammous.
I agree that bitcoin has exactly one of the properties that makes gold valuable. It lacks the others though: you can actually use gold for a wide range of applications, from electrical to cosmetical, and it's rarity actually makes it even more useful as decoration, as it becomes a brag (look how much expensive gold I can afford).
You can't build electrical circuits from bitcoin, nor can you wear them as a necklace(I guess you could print your keys on a shirt or something, but then they wouldn't be yours for very long)
Scarcity alone isn't enough, you need a use for them too..
I used to think like that. Except most of the value of gold comes exactly from the same mindset it puts value on BTC and not on those properties you describe.
While gold does have some interesting properties in no way would that explain a 10 trillion dollar market cap, and the price of 55 000 $/kg, sorry. It's just not that much better and rarer than other competitor materials. If comparing by properties alone, there are materials that should then be more expensive. For example Platinum is almost half of its price, and yet way rarer, and it's properties more useful.
I don't believe utility is the driving force of gold as a store of value and if anything I would say it competes with it. I can assure you that most of the gold reserves in the world aren't holding gold with the future intent of having its value tied to its usage in circuits or beauty products, they're using it as a store of value. Being a store of value has utility in itself so again I implore you to look at arguments from someone who has studied Bitcoin a lot more extensively than I have and can give more hard data and context to the usage of similar commodities for comparison (i.e. the author of The Bitcoin Standard)
And I disagree that bitcoin proponents doesn't claim they make your money with for you: there's a lot of talk about the "deflationary nature" of bitcoin, aka the "magical scheme". Miners haven't burned all the money invested in bitcoin, but I'll admit this particular scheme has an unusually high cost of business, for a Ponzi scheme.
Most victims of a Ponzi scheme believe they're investing in something that will earn them money in the long run, otherwise they wouldn't have fallen for it.
Bitcoins long-term value is clear by examining it's usefulness: it's a tulip, at best.
I'll also freely admit that bitcoin is by far the most cleverly disguised Ponzi scheme yet, it's nature will probably only be obvious after the inevitable collapse.