Massive Cryptocurrency Ponzi Scheme – Pasadena Star News

The Bitcoin logo is displayed on the screen of a Bitcoin ATM on November 10, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

There is rarely something in this world that can be pronounced with absolute certainty as nonsense.

prattle. Belg, claptrap.

But there are a few of these things. Of one of them we can be sure. So every time I hear about someone taking crypto seriously, I have to ask them: Don't you realize it's all bull?

Not a little on the bullshit side of the ledger. Not just another gamble, a fun fad, a cool new investment, or an interesting alternative to that seemingly deadly real thing that is money.

It doesn't exist. It's a scam. It's a joke. It has no intrinsic value at all.

So why do we even have to talk about it? Lee is several years into the Bitcoin era. But the fact that your Uncle Nate still insists that you'll miss out on the next big thing by not exchanging legal tender for part of a Ponzi scheme doesn't make it not a Ponzi scheme.

It is true that in the wake of the elimination of the old gold standard, the value of a paper dollar in your wallet depends mostly on the fact that other parties will accept it in exchange for goods or services. It is somewhat true that it also has value because it is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. But the value of this dollar is usually relatively higher than any other currency issued by any other national treasury in the world, not because of the blocks of gold accumulated at Fort Knox in the old days, or because Washington, D.C., stands behind it these days. They are worth more than other Simoleons, mostly because of the strength of the US economy and lower risks.

And there's another good reason to tell Uncle Nate, next time he starts strapping horns to his head and doing some insurrection under the Capitol Dome, to smash it, you idiot. It messes with your net worth

It is also true that if you are ready to deal with an exchange system that gives new meaning to the word “volatility”, you can buy and find ways to spend cryptocurrency instruments.

But what do you imagine the said tool supports? Is an artist running you out of his plush office in Menlo Park?

Scammers who want to take your actual money in exchange for their fake currencies will tell you that cryptocurrency is just digital money that does not require a bank to verify its transactions, and which is recorded on the blockchain, “an immutable ledger that tracks and records assets and transactions. They will praise it as something very cool.” Because it allows people to make payments to each other directly through an online system.

And you'll answer: “Honey – have you ever heard of Venmo?”

There's a very old and very wise rule of investing that says you should never invest money in something you don't understand. And I'll admit that while I've never put a dime into the cryptocurrency market, I didn't understand one of the strangest things about it until very recently. I knew that cryptocurrency “mining” operations were widespread across the country, where vast clusters of powerful computers perform trillions of calculations per second as part of efforts to encrypt and prevent fraud.