Hacker News Reader

Comment by RexetBlell | Hacker News Reader

They are as much a Ponzi scheme as gold (which has almost no practical use) and ugly paintings that cost millions http://www.therichest.com/luxury/most-expensive/10-ugly-piec...

If expensive ugly paintings are not a Ponzi scheme, then cryptocurrencies are not a Ponzi scheme.

View on HN

Gold isn't a "Ponzi scheme". Even if you believe that investing in gold makes no sense, and it's a useless metal with no practical purposes, and it's a bubble waiting to burst and so on, that still doesn't make it a Ponzi scheme.

Even if all of those beliefs above were true, it still wouldn't be a Ponzi scheme. As someone else posted in here, Ponzi Scheme has a fairly specific definition which "Gold" doesn't meet.

[Cryptocurrency] isn't a "Ponzi scheme". Even if you believe that investing in [Cryptocurrency] makes no sense, and it's a useless [tech] with no practical purposes, and it's a bubble waiting to burst and so on, that still doesn't make it a Ponzi scheme.

Even if all of those beliefs above were true, it still wouldn't be a Ponzi scheme. As someone else posted in here, Ponzi Scheme has a fairly specific definition which "[Cryptocurrency]" doesn't meet.

Gold has a lot of practical uses.

Ether is more like oil - it is a fuel source used to power smart contracts, token sales, and autonomous organizations.

This analogy is not accurate.

What analogy would you use?

It's the money you spend at the gas station to buy your fuel. The fuel is burned, the money is not.

"gas" is actually a common term used in the Ethereum community. [1] [2]

[1] https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/3/what-is-meant...

[2] https://www.ethereum.org/token

Yes but ETH and gas are not the same thing. You use ETH to buy your gas. The gas is burned up in use. ETH is paid to the miners, who can use it to pay their expenses.

Ether is not like oil at all. You only somewhat need ETH. Nothing stops you from using ETC. Or starting your own fork (either private or public). Your contracts will work there just fine.

On the other hand, it is not likely you can deploy some magic oil machine in your closet with almost 0 investments and start producing $5c / barrel oil.

Yeah, just like oil, except completely useless.

No... it's not like oil, or steel, or gold imo.

There's no way an economy can be defined by something of no practical value.

Except that oil is scarce to due to the laws of nature and that gives it it's price, whereas ether is artificially scarce. You could make a new piece of software called Blether that provided the exact same service and you could instantly 'double' the supply. Whereas with oil, you can't 'magic' your way into more of the resource by deploying some code.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com