
Bitcoin.com Lists Ponzi Token, Hex, to the Dismay of Bitcoin Fans - kylebenzle
https://cryptobriefing.com/bitcoin-com-lists-ponzi-hex-dismay-bch-fans/
======
nemo1618
Headline is somewhat misleading: "Bitcoin fans" generally could not care less
about Bitcoin.com, which is actually the home of the Bitcoin _Cash_ altcoin.
Bitcoin.com has been widely discredited for a long time now, largely due to
its repeated attempts to conflate Bitcoin Cash with Bitcoin and thus trick
unwitting consumers into using the former when they intended to use the
latter; see e.g. [https://bitcoinist.com/1000-people-join-crypto-industry-
figu...](https://bitcoinist.com/1000-people-join-crypto-industry-figures-sue-
bitcoin-com-fraud)

~~~
adventskalender
The headline of the article actually says "BCH fans". Why does it say Bitcoin
in HN? Hope it will be corrected soon.

~~~
diogofranco
Besides the BCH part of that quote, the "fans" part is also interesting. Coins
having fans is... new.

~~~
TylerE
No it isn't.

Rabid fanaticism goes back to the early cryptocurrency days.

If anything, it's why us skeptics have a hard time taking ANYTHING the coiners
say seriously.

~~~
awrence
All monetary value is entirely socially constructed, very similar to religion.
And as with religion it naturally feeds on evangilizing and convincing others
to join. The more adherents you have the more powerful your network / adoption
gets. It's a natural consequence that any adopter of a given monetary asset
will try and convince others to join. That's how you have gold bugs, real
estate bugs, art bugs, fiat bugs and yes ... now crypto bugs. Don't hate the
player...

~~~
mikefivedeuce
Not that I disagree with your premise, but real estate and, to a lesser
extent, art and gold, have intrinsic value in that they can be used for a
purpose outside of a store of value. For real estate, utility is a much larger
share of the market value than the others.

~~~
awrence
I agree but that doesn't negate the point. Any economic asset with limited
supply has two sources of value. The first is intrinsic as you've correctly
pointed out which through intrinsic demand by people looking to use the asset
for its actual properties will gain intrinsic value.

The second is monetary. Asset values inflate beyond intrinsic values as a
result of monetary demand for them by users that acquire them not for their
intrinsic properties but for their potential capacity to be redeemed for value
in the future. This monetary demand lives on top of intrinsic demand and
drives overal value of the asset up the supply / demand curve.

My comments applied specifically to the monetary user base of any asset. This
base's choice of their monetary base is entirely elective, socially
constructed and reinforced. And their particular choice will gain favor if
they can convince people to get on same the band wagon. Under this specific
use case, they will tend to exhibit the perfectly understandable behaviors
I've described.

------
gerikson
The original title is “Bitcoin.com Lists Ponzi-like Token HEX to the Dismay of
BCH Fans”.

BCH is Bitcoin Cash, a fork organized/promoted by Roger Ver, among others.
It’s currently trading at $180.67, which is 2.3% of the current Bitcoin (BTC)
price.

Ver owns and operates Bitcoin.com.

Confusingly, /r/btc is where BCH is discussed/promoted, while /r/bch was
quickly taken over by BTC proponents after Ver failed to get exchanges to
recognize BCC as the ticket symbol for Bitcoin Cash. (BCC was already in use
by Bitcoin Connect, a ponzi/exit scam that imploded shortly after BCH forked).

Please note that using the otherwise innocuous “bcash” moniker will get you
branded as a troll in the Bitcoin Cash community. I’ve forgotten the specific
reason for this.

~~~
flyingfences
> I’ve forgotten the specific reason for this

It's because they desperately want you to call it "Bitcoin" to further their
ploy. Shortening "Bitcoin Cash" to a name that isn't "Bitcoin" exposes them.

~~~
spookthesunset
Well, why can’t they rightly claim they are “Bitcoin” and the current
“Bitcoin” is the altcoin?

~~~
flyingfences
Because they aren't. They hard-forked away from the Bitcoin protocol to a
protocol that did not adhere to the Bitcoin consensus at the time, that >90%
of the nodes, miners, and businesses did not accept.

------
mrosett
The religious wars within the cryptocurrency community are fascinating to
watch and are the single biggest reason I doubt we'll ever see a meaningful
use for cryptocurrency or blockchain other than speculation.

~~~
loceng
Bitcoin et al is indoctrination into religion tied to financial incentive,
greed.

~~~
solotronics
I think you can make the exact same argument about any form of money. Fiat
currency is definately has some religious aspects.

~~~
loceng
Actual currency - crypto-"currency" which misappropriate the term - doesn't
increase in value transferring wealth to the earlier adopters, that's why
currencies don't mimic Ponzi-Pyramid schemes. Currency is tied to tangibles of
a nation and the intangibles of trusting that society is stable, meaning the
value of the currency will be relatively stable.

------
tom812
This article is a total misleading piece of information. The code of the HEX
token smart contract is publicly accessible and one can clearly see it
implements the logic of a CD (certificate of deposit), you only need
javascript knowledge to verify that.

[https://etherscan.io/address/0x2b591e99afe9f32eaa6214f7b7629...](https://etherscan.io/address/0x2b591e99afe9f32eaa6214f7b7629768c40eeb39?__cf_chl_captcha_tk__=6c62c0c1ff88063aecf8bbe033e221e734811546-1576689550-0-Ae25k10o-gxjaLKM8MUigIeBK2kc1juIy2YHsF_PzXTWYnIaCPX2N5Sbu1UxBlEvufmbUqIjLg1xq63pf20CG4qWrME79dKuzgK-
OC-T-
TIjgCQPSBw4PV25rrwHMX5ptdyEPArpFcRFZp25C_HIDYu4Tw71l6Sf07fCkkxNd2ryf6xeTBKJDPL4VidzL9sXEwpPoeSfGl0Cv2O9oHHX25r7DMb60y2GH-
PWuNVcxozQ858TTEmlRNZU7sm9nny1QDVbuScmRJAGp0tpb5ypOC-
ANrnsr1Rp7n-7FXKwqRRp5aQqLVHubuqdByDGV_BkfN4dEIH6REUCcZQruXCtVvZbsoQK73MNwOVz5i1wdOz6grGka7Rl-
QvPlKuA7Ql81JCce6sBlxf0fAT-134h6HzXJ5w7kRmqky1ez0YmM5Qr66SrcMgFaM2AmJMXZCMdHA#code)

The initial airdrop amounts are totally arbitrary though, with a founder
getting more than everyone else. But that doesn't make something a ponzi
scheme.

To qualify as a ponzi scheme you need to directly use newcomers investment
money as return for old investors. There is absolutely no line of code in the
contract that does this.

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Aaronstotle
Bitcoin cash is a scam, so it's not surprising to see them list other scams. I
hope that bitcoin goes back to a few hundred dollars in order to purge the
market of weak crypto-currencies.

~~~
spookthesunset
Bitcoin cash is no more if a scam than “Bitcoin”. All crypto coins are scams.
Or at least a transactional layer for higher level scams (which often have
scams piled on top of those scams”)

One delightful thing about cryptocurrency is everybody thinks their coin is
the good one and all the others are “shitcoins”. With slightly more
introspection, they might realize that their chosen coin is just as scammy as
the rest.

~~~
jraedisch
Pretty sure that Bitcoin is the one exception, simply by being first. Thus, it
is the single most suited experiment to determine, whether a digital store of
value is possible at all, (the argument being that if it cannot be a SoV or
can easily be replaced, so can the next, thus none should be entrusted with
significant savings).

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m3kw9
Finally, the correct name for an ICO.

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iamaelephant
They're all Ponzi schemes.

~~~
behringer
What's all ponzi schemes?

