Bitcoin has no intrinsic value beyond it's mining cost and it's cash market value is far in excess of it's cost to mine.
It follows a familiar cyclical hype pattern of every few years of being pumped and dumped.
Hype is created by a market event (the latest being an number of trading platforms like PayPal jumping on board), a bunch of people buy in, pushing the traded cash value up, then those who bought in the last cycle sell down and take their cash gainz, at the expense of those who just bought in, until the next cycle - where those who HODL may have the opportunity to recoup their losses.
People make money from trading BTC - and that money is made from those who have bought in late to the scheme on that particular cycle.
"Money is never created, it only changes hands"
The only difference between BTC pump-and-dump an a traditional Ponzi or Pyramid scheme is that Bitcoin is cyclical - whereas a normal Ponzi or Pyramid scheme is "one shot" (i.e. it collapses after the first dump cycle - as confidence in the scheme collapses).
The fact that BTC is a market instrument differentiates it from a one-shot "scheme" and allows it to be an ongoing, repeated cycle.
Unlike a company (like Theranos, WeWork), where the lack of value becomes clear after the dump, BTC never had any real value to begin with - only a digital signature which authenticates the asset.
As long as the hype cycle remains, and people (i.e. HODLers) believe in the cycle, there is no reason this couldn't continue indefinitely ... but it's still a Ponzi scheme.
... then again .... I'm no economist.
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