> The missing part is just the central administrator.
No, the missing part is the actual fraud.
Bernie Madoff for example literally lied about assets under management. Dogecoin is just a digitally scarce ledger, with all there is to know about it publicly and clearly available.
It's not fraudulent, just silly--it was built as a joke after all.
It's a decentralized Ponzi scheme. That's the real magic of the blockchain: diffusion of responsibility. Nobody's guilty if everyone is.
The overwhelming majority of the liquidity and price action is driven by Tether which of course is backed by thin air. This fake money is used to pump up the price to drive in real money which can then be used to pay off the earlier investors. Taken in isolation no part of the system individually forms a classical Ponzi scheme. However, put the pieces together and it start to look awfully suspicious.
> The stock market is pumped up by dollar printing, but nobody calls the S&P a Ponzi scheme, because again, nobody lied.
That's not really how the financial system works. Money enters circulation when someone takes out a loan. It leaves circulation when that loan is repaid. It is low interest rates that cause an increase in asset values.
> Would you please elaborate on the connection between Doge and Tether?
Tether is 65% of the liquidity in the entire crypto space. Check out the chart for Bitcoin, I think it's even higher for alts but the DOGE coinlib chart isn't right today. [1]
> I can get Doge without ever using Tether. Not that I have any Doge.
That's my point, USDT is printed - unbacked - pushing the price of Doge up, which drives retail enthusiasm, and retailers then purchase Doge with real dollars.
There's other schemes too, I mean, at one point in 2017 99% of all of the world's Litecoin trading volume was two bots at Coinbase trading back and forth between eachother. [2]
> That's not really how the financial system works. Money enters circulation when someone takes out a loan. It leaves circulation when that loan is repaid. It is low interest rates that cause an increase in asset values.
But unlike me and my credit lines, the US Gov has no credit limit. It's akin to printing, since it takes out new loans to service its current debts and operational expenses.
The FED is mandated to purchase US bonds.
I do think you make a good point about Tether artificially inflating the price, but I do see that as Tether's issue. Not that it won't tank crypto prices, just that it's not Doge that's fraudulent.
> But unlike me and my credit lines, the US Gov has no credit limit. It's akin to printing, since it takes out new loans to service its current debts and operational expenses.
I think that's partially true. For the most part debt isn't held at the Fed, and in steady state the Fed unwinds their balance sheet over time. They hold $4.5T - a lot by any measure - but not out of the $28T total outstanding. The majority of that is held domestically by US entities. The next major holder is Japan.
The Fed isn't mandated to purchase bonds, per se, they have the ability to should circumstances necessitate. Their mandate is to maximize employment in the United States and to maintain a low, predictable rate of inflation. They have this tool in their chest to achieve these goals.
The US government has "no credit limit" in the same way your Amex charge card has "no credit limit." It's limited in how much it can borrow by its ability to service debt and also its ability to find new holders of its debt. That's not limited per se, but it's certainly not unlimited either.
After all a loss in confidence would lead to buyers demanding higher interest rates which could be catastrophic.
If it’s decentralised, it’s not a Ponzi scheme, by definition.
Where are the guaranteed returns? Where’s the person taking money from one, giving it to the “last” investors?
Where’s the fraud?
He neither owns DOGE nor does he have his own exchange. He and everyone else is abusing DOGE as a pump and dump, which it even wasn’t designed for, as it was just a joke.
It attracts pump and dumb schemes, but it’s not a Ponzi scheme, those are very different things.
To the OP point, that's just not a ponzi scheme. If the early investors were getting some kind of dividend that was actually just new investor inflows repurposed, then sure. But something with an advertised market value, that is just people buying and selling the shares, is not a ponzi scheme by itself. It's just misuse of the word. Pump and dump, sure. Ponzi scheme, no.
>It's not fraudulent, just silly--it was built as a joke after all.
You know, I'm not sure its so crazy to disregard that part if you're a regulator. Wouldn't scams just use this as cover? "Oh it's a joke, but people are making real money off of it. wink wink. It's silly but it's going up and up!"
Are you sure there is no lying involved with Dogecoin? What has the average buyer been told before they invest? What are their beliefs going into the scheme?
I’m not saying they have been lied to, but it definitely wouldn’t surprise me if they have?
That is still fraudulent behavior. If said stockbroker has made millions by lying to investors into making bad deals, that stockbroker needs to go to jail.
No, the missing part is the actual fraud.
Bernie Madoff for example literally lied about assets under management. Dogecoin is just a digitally scarce ledger, with all there is to know about it publicly and clearly available.
It's not fraudulent, just silly--it was built as a joke after all.