
Bitcoin isnt the future of money – its either a Ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme - Libertatea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/08/bitcoin-isnt-the-future-of-money-its-either-a-ponzi-scheme-or-a-pyramid-scheme/
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MildlySerious
The headline says it's a ponzi/pyramid scheme, which doesn't get mentioned
until the second to last sentence, in the form of a speculative question:

"In the meantime, though, Bitcoin is still a little bit of a Ponzi—or is it a
pyramid?—scheme that its libertarian early adopters are trying to cash in on."

The general statement of the article is that Bitcoin is not as good as it
seems because it's infrastructure takes energy to run and lacks some features
banks have. While every other aspect gets compared to banks, the
infrastructure of them doesn't even get mentioned. Yet, the costly
infrastructure of the Blockchain is one of the main concerns raised in the
article.

The Blockchain costs a lot of energy. So does every Google search you make, if
you remember that comparison to how many hours of light you could generate
instead of a single search.

How much energy does it take to run the parts of banks that the Blockchain
could replace, globally? No one knows. My guess is that it puts the Blockchain
to shame.

As more and more things go digital, the biggest cost aspect of a lot of things
will be electricity. If it's not the Blockchain, something else will need that
much energy.

More than likely whatever industry develops around VR will eat loads of
energy. That doesn't necessarily mean we shouldn't go for it, or that it's
bad.

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jondiggsit
A rambling, pointless article. Possibly the worst article I've ever read on
the Washington Post. No substance to question of illegal scheme. Suggests we
don't know the true cost of Bitcoin because of the environmental impacts of
the energy use... even though the previous sentence explains that some miners
are located in Iceland because of abundant energy and cold temps...

