Jorge_Stolfi.yml

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# Jorge Stolfi, Computer Scientist 

- quote: |
    Bitcoin is a Ponzi.
    Investing in bitcoin, like "investing" in lottery tickets, is a very negative-sum game. 
    Namely, at any time, the total amount that all investors have taken out is considerably 
    less than what they have put into the scheme; the difference being the amount that the operators have taken out. 
    Thus the investors, as a whole, are always in the red, and their collective loss only increases with time.
  date: 2020-12-31
  source: https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html

- quote: | 
    Bitcoin is a Ponzi.
    As a minimum, the operators should warn investors of the negative-sum character and negative expected profit. 
    In the case of bitcoin (and all other cryptos), not only that does not happen, 
    but there are thousands of promoters and "investment experts" who predict impressive price increases 
    and/or claim that bitcoin will have massive uses in the future that would somehow make it valuable. 
    Apart from the mendacity of those claims, those promoters never point out that such massive uses 
    would not translate into revenue for the investors.
  date: 2020-12-31
  source: https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html

- quote: |
    Bitcoin is a Ponzi.
    The observation that investing in cryptocurrencies is a ponzi scheme is not new or a cheap shot. 
    Among many others, it was expressed in 2014 by economists Nouriel Roubini of New York University  
    and Kaushik Basu of the World Bank and echoed by investment analyst David Webb in 2017 
    and by the World Bank's president Jim Yomh Kim in 2018.
  date: 2020-12-31
  source: https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html

- quote: |
    Bitcoin is a Ponzi. 
    Objection! The operator must lie to investors about the source of profit in a Ponzi!
    
    Crypto promoters from Andreessen to Zhao actively spread many lies and misleading claims 
    about the scheme, through malice or ignorance. Investment "experts" like Tom Lee, Mike Novogratz
    and Dan Morehead often give extremely optimistic predictions 
    for the price on business or mainstream media. Those predictions have no rational basis whatsoever, 
    and, while qualified with "perhapses" an "maybes" and "not investment advice" disclaimers, 
    they are obviously intended to promote investment in the coins.
  date: 2020-12-31
  source: https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html

- quote: |
    Bitcoin is a Ponzi. 
    Objection! The operator must lie to investors about the source of profit in a Ponzi!
    
    Crypto promoters also make dozens of claims about the virtues of the currency and/or the payment system, 
    such as that it will "one day" replace credit cards, replace national currencies, 
    protect people's savings from inflation or confiscation by government, make banks obsolete, 
    starve governments to death by depriving them of taxes or "money printing", 
    enable support of dissidents in oppressive regimes, "bank the unbanked", 
    allow free internet trade of drugs and other illegal items, 
    end corruption, poverty, and inequality, etc. etc. etc.
  date: 2020-12-31
  source: https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html

- quote: |
    Bitcoin is a Ponzi. 
    Objection! By that definition the U.S. Dollar (USD$) is a Ponzi! 

    No, national currencies fail to fit the definition, because people do not "invest" 
    in them with the expectation of gain. In fact, governments make their currencies 
    slightly inflationary precisely to discourage hoarding.
  date: 2020-12-31
  source: https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html


- quote: |
    If a transaction has two inputs of 3 BTC and 1 BTC, 
    and two outputs of 2 BTC and 2 BTC, you cannot tell which output came from which input.
    
    That is the basic principle of ~~money laundering~~ coin mixing services.
  date: 2021-01-04
  source: https://twitter.com/JorgeStolfi/status/1345873579116818437