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Merged Bitcoin - Part 3

psionl0 said:
I don't know if bitcoin treasury companies are pyramids or not but I don't see any MLM aspects there. That and the fact that you say they are leads me to conclude that they are not. (Finding somebody on YouTube who says they are doesn't change anything).
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lol there's a lot you don't know.

for those of you who are less incurious than psion, who doesn't know and doesn't want to find out, it's laid out in excruciating detail in that video.

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and by the way, there he is being rude again, but not having anything to actually say about the topic. no argument and refuses to engage at all with any evidence, just doesn't like me personally. well imo his biggest contribution to this discussion has been a laughing dog emoji so it doesn't particularly bother me. it's just getting sad.
 
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dirtywick said:
it's laid out in excruciating detail in that video.
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A pyramid scheme is one in which the real money is made by recruiting new people to sell a product - not selling the product itself. Can you explain in your own words how this is the case here or are you going to continue to hide behind a YouTube video?
 
psionl0 said:
A pyramid scheme is one in which the real money is made by recruiting new people to sell a product - not selling the product itself. Can you explain in your own words how this is the case here or are you going to continue to hide behind a YouTube video?
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i’m not going to force you to engage with any of the evidence presented. i don’t particularly like talking to you
 
well this seems like as good a place as any to leave it up to the reader at this point as to whether or not psion has made a good argument. currently it's taunting me into summarizing a video he refuses to watch about a topic he doesn't understand and when i won't, guessing at the contents. so, you know, that that how you want.
 
psionl0 said:
Yeah. The pool of people willing to invest in crypto or crypto investment companies will run dry - any day now. :rolleyes:

Incidentally, I noticed that you tried to sneak in the word "pyramid" even though it has been comprehensively been proven to be a lie to describe cryptos that way.
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Well they do say there is one born every minute, so the crypto "investment" companies are probably safe for a while!
 
For those who are interested in our discussions, this is where it all began:
psionl0 said:
dirtywick said:
to me crypto has much in common with an mlm, it has enough of a veneer of a legitimate business endeavor that it's legal
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List all of the common features. In particular, decribe each level, explain who is recruiting the sellers and how a seller moves up to the next level.
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yes, crypto has some things in common with an mlm. psion took that to mean it's exactly like an mlm and asked an bunch of inane questions and made bizarre demands hasn't stopped since, and i've provided dozens of links to support my reasoning he hasn't read. so thanks for that background information.
 
dirtywick said:
yes, crypto has some things in common with an mlm. psion took that to mean it's exactly like an mlm and asked an bunch of inane questions and made bizarre demands hasn't stopped since, and i've provided dozens of links to support my reasoning he hasn't read. so thanks for that background information.
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There is no need for you to make a fool out of yourself all over again. The discussion is all on record and I have linked to it. You failed to show any similarities whatsoever - except for some vague claim that they are both "barely legal" (your opinion only).
 
psionl0 said:
I don't know if bitcoin treasury companies are pyramids or not but I don't see any MLM aspects there. That and the fact that you say they are leads me to conclude that they are not. (Finding somebody on YouTube who says they are doesn't change anything).
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MLMs are pyramid schemes but not all pyramid schemes are MLMs.
psionl0 said:
A pyramid scheme is one in which the real money is made by recruiting new people to sell a product - not selling the product itself. Can you explain in your own words how this is the case here or are you going to continue to hide behind a YouTube video?
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Well no, not necessarily. There often is a product or a promise of a product, but the essential characteristic of a pyramid scheme is that those at the bottom give money to those higher up. Bitcoin shares some characteristics of pyramid schemes - the profits of the early adopters are funded entirely by the payments of the later adopters - but there is no pyramid structure.
 
dirtywick said:
well, no it hasn’t lol but i’m not rehashing that with you again, wasn’t enjoyable or productive the first time around.

regardless, we are talking specifically about bitcoin treasury companies. those are a pyramid scheme, and this video breaks that down in detail as to why

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Link is broken for me
 
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jeremyp said:
Link is broken for me
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sorry not sure what happened there, let’s try again

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idk i had to paste it in differently, it was working before. i’ll blame the forum. if you click it it should take you to youtube
 
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just in case the link doesn’t work, the channel is “Mark Meldrum” and the video “Is Microstrategy a Pyramid Scheme?”

he basically shows the math on why this investment strategy is doomed to fail due to the way it operates, for the same reasons a pyramid scheme fails.

again the big question is how a company accumulating lots of bitcoins generates some kind of yield to pay its investors without using money from new investors. you’ve raised fund, bought bitcoin, and then what?
 
jeremyp said:
Well no, not necessarily. There often is a product or a promise of a product, but the essential characteristic of a pyramid scheme is that those at the bottom give money to those higher up.
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Point taken. There are pure pyramid schemes that don't have a product at all. What is being sold is shares in the scheme itself. But this essentially means creating new shares in the scheme to sell. Participants sit higher up in the new shares. A famous example is the Airplane game. Recruiting new people into the scheme is still the main way that somebody can profit in the pyramid scheme.

Although some crypto investment companies might just be pyramid schemes, bitcoin itself can't be. It is impossible to create new bitcoins to sell and nobody is being recruited to buy or sell bitcoins.

Any profit or loss to be made by speculating in bitcoin is via the same mechanism that applies in speculating with any other commodity.
 
How much are you willing to pay to own the one and only IvorCoin?

It's only utility is that similar gullible smart investors such as yourself will want possession of the IvorCoin and will either give you real stuff or real money to own it.

Get in early and don't be the last person to want the IvorCoin!
 
psionl0 said:
Point taken. There are pure pyramid schemes that don't have a product at all. What is being sold is shares in the scheme itself. But this essentially means creating new shares in the scheme to sell. Participants sit higher up in the new shares. A famous example is the Airplane game. Recruiting new people into the scheme is still the main way that somebody can profit in the pyramid scheme.

Although some crypto investment companies might just be pyramid schemes, bitcoin itself can't be. It is impossible to create new bitcoins to sell and nobody is being recruited to buy or sell bitcoins.
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New Bitcoins are created all the time, currently about 450 every day.

It's true that there is a finite supply of them at present and, at the current rate, the last one will be mined sometime in the next century. However, BTC is defined by software. Should the majority of miners decide to change the software to remove the limit, there is nothing to stop them from doing that.

psionl0 said:
Any profit or loss to be made by speculating in bitcoin is via the same mechanism that applies in speculating with any other commodity.
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This is true, but most commodities have some utility and so demand will never be zero. If I have gold I can sell it to make jewellery or electronics. If I have oil, I can sell it to be refined into petroleum and plastics. If I have shares, provided the company is profitable, I can expect to get dividends. If nobody wants to speculate on BTC, any holding I have is essentially worthless.
 
jeremyp said:
This is true, but most commodities have some utility and so demand will never be zero. If I have gold I can sell it to make jewellery or electronics. If I have oil, I can sell it to be refined into petroleum and plastics. If I have shares, provided the company is profitable, I can expect to get dividends. If nobody wants to speculate on BTC, any holding I have is essentially worthless.
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if you start at about 2:30 and watch for like the next 10 minutes, this video breaks down the differences between bitcoin and gold and the scarcity argument is addressed if you listen up to around 20 or so.
 
jeremyp said:
New Bitcoins are created all the time, currently about 450 every day.
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You deliberately missed the point. The supply increases according to a formula but nobody can create new bitcoins (outside of this formula) so it can't be a pyramid scheme.

jeremyp said:
Should the majority of miners decide to change the software to remove the limit, there is nothing to stop them from doing that.
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You can't even get consensus about changing the block size. We don't have to give serious consideration to this possibility.

jeremyp said:
This is true, but . . .
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No buts! Speculation is speculation regardless of whether the object being speculated on has alternative uses (or even if it produces an income).
 
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