zlacker

By definition, a Ponzi scheme involves some kind of reporting fraud where you're being lied-to about how your investment was converted and how much of that converted asset there is.

I'm not saying these aren't some other kind of scam but lots of people use "Ponzi" as if it meant any kind of scam... And generally speaking "how many thingy-coins do I own" is the one thing cryptocurrencies focus on making very difficult.

TLDR: Everybody overuses "Ponzi" and it annoys me.

>>Terr_+(OP)
If everybody mis-uses a word then they're not mis-using it at all, the meaning of the word has simply changed.

>>Terr_+(OP)
Fraud logically can't be part of the mechanism of a ponzi scheme itself. A ponzi scheme is any financial scheme where old investors are paid exclusively by new investors, and without new investments the system doesn't generate any income at all. There are many different variations.

Lying about source of potential gains concerns marketing of it - which is something external and done by humans, and not part of the internal distribution of money flows. How can an algorithm itself commit fraud? It can't.

>>nootro+c8
> A ponzi scheme is ANY financial scheme where old investors are paid exclusively by new investors

No, that assumption (emphasis added) is popular but utterly false.

In a Ponzi scheme, cash from new buy-ins gets FRADULENTLY reported to existing participants as dividends from the underlying business or investment.

That fraudulent reporting of fake-dividends is essential to the scheme, because it's how the scammer lures in successive waves of investors to keep it perpetuated.

Unsustainable optimistic speculation != Ponzi Scheme

>>Terr_+Ub2
Again, the fraud requirement is literally impossible - it's a category error - an algorithm can't commit fraud.

It was conflated in the past because without smart contracts ponzi schemes were necessarily executed by people.

>Unsustainable optimistic speculation != Ponzi Scheme

Speculation on a token that doesn't generate any income and isn't backed by anything is one version of a ponzi scheme, yes.