* Axie Infinity. That's a Ponzi in the collapse phase. Their Smooth Love Potion token is down 90% and in a screaming dive, and their Axie token is down 37% from peak. That one is going to hurt a lot of poor people in the Philippines. Many quit their jobs to play Axie's play-to-earn game. All the money comes from later entrants, so it's a Ponzi by definition.
* OpenSea. The NFT market is in worse shape than it looks. People are minting crap art like crazy, and people are buying it at inflated prices, hoping to flip it to a greater fool. If you look at actual resales on OpenSea, they're not happening much. The supply of greater fools is running out. As I've pointed out before, this works just like Beanie Babies on eBay. Asking prices around US$5000, actual sales around $50, most items show zero bids. NFT markets don't visibly crash, they just quietly stall. Most NFT markets don't show statistics which expose that.
2018 was the year the SEC brought the hammer down on ICOs. First, they had a few of the outright scams prosecuted, like the one that supposedly owned gold and real estate but didn't own either. Then they just sent out letters to every ICO they could find: "Please explain why your investment offering to the US public doesn't need to be registered as a public offering?" Suddenly a lot of ICOs were cancelled.
Pyramid is money flows up a hierarchy, Ponzi is money flows from new participants to old participants, in practice there is barely a distinction.
The price of the Axie coin is only supported by new buyers (by definition) and coins being sold are nothing more than early adopters cashing out. Any crypto "going to the moon" has this dynamic, coins being sold at 10,000% ROI is ponzi, early adopter paid by a late adopter, the person who bought at the top has already lost their money.
I guess Axie may be both, since there is also a multi-level dynamic.
Watching the gameplay trailer, I was flabbergasted when they were straight-up said "you can rent out your ingame items to make money!" meanwhile barely expressing the hook for the gameplay. People talk about power fantasies in games, but I never thought that would extend to being a landlord.
Which brings up my other point, that people know the risks they are taking. Casinos are still legal. Someone that yolos their life savings into Smooth Love Potion was going to lose it some other way. If you don’t know your 100% apy isn’t sustainable in a DeFi ponzi, that’s on you.
NFT is art (VERY LOOSE COMPARISON). If you believe that then of course there is TONS of art that not only has zero bids but also never gets sold. I think NFTs are overhyped now but there is clearly a market for them. Speculating on them is similar to art collecting, all speculative. So I don’t see anything inherently wrong with it (something being puffed up isn’t illegal)
It's not "NFT" as a tech, it's the ability for the OpenSea ecosystem to maintain real value throughout time. That's very dubious, it's a house of cards balancing an elephant on top imho.
Natural entropy and new novelty will erode the foundation of that specific ecosystem for something that provides a wider opportunity for more new users to create/retain value.
Memecoins can at least be tracked in value, the dynamics of these UGC meme driven communities, especially ones like doge, shiba uni, and now dogebonk, the exponential community growth effects are what matter most.
* Axie Infinity. That's a Ponzi in the collapse phase. Their Smooth Love Potion token is down 90% and in a screaming dive, and their Axie token is down 37% from peak. That one is going to hurt a lot of poor people in the Philippines. Many quit their jobs to play Axie's play-to-earn game. All the money comes from later entrants, so it's a Ponzi by definition.
* OpenSea. The NFT market is in worse shape than it looks. People are minting crap art like crazy, and people are buying it at inflated prices, hoping to flip it to a greater fool. If you look at actual resales on OpenSea, they're not happening much. The supply of greater fools is running out. As I've pointed out before, this works just like Beanie Babies on eBay. Asking prices around US$5000, actual sales around $50, most items show zero bids. NFT markets don't visibly crash, they just quietly stall. Most NFT markets don't show statistics which expose that.