Hi Erik,
Great read! I just have a few questions here. Satoshi literally posted this in 2009:
In this sense, it's more typical of a precious metal. Instead of the supply changing to keep the value the same, the supply is predetermined and the value changes. As the number of users grows, the value per coin increases. It has the potential for a positive feedback loop; as users increase, the value goes up, which could attract more users to take advantage of the increasing value.
This directly contradicts what you said in your article:
He didn’t tell the first buyers of Bitcoin that “Bitcoin will replace fiat, buy now and make huge profits!” He never promised profits whatsoever.
he claimed rather that Bitcoin would work according to the specs of his whitepaper, and then demonstrated that to be true. That’s it.
You ever bolded the line above to make sure to get your point across. A point that is directly refuted by who you claim to be speaking for.
Also, as I read more, it appears that you completely missed the point of his article completely. He never claimed that that the IDEA of Bitcoin was a Ponzi scheme. He was merely stating it is being operated like one. I found he describes the way it is operating quite well actually.
People buy and hold, they ask others to come aboard and buy more. They spend their time tipping hoping people will hop on the trolley and purchase more Bitcoins, etc. All of this causes a rising price. People tell others to "hodl" so the price does not crash. If it were to be used as a successful currency, mechanisms would be in place to control the rising price to keep it stable so others could reliably store value in it.
Take the most important: that one can transfer any amount of it anywhere instantly without anyone else being able to stop it, at almost zero cost.
Also, please take this line out. It's utter horseshit and you know it. From a libertarian, you should know this is just not true at all. Decentralized systems will ALWAYS be more expensive but they bring the freedom of the system along with it. Bitcoin is absolutely insanely inefficient in what it does. It uses an absurd amount of electricity and miner subsidies to run the system right now. It's simple math and I hate when pro-bitcoiners spread these bullshit lies. It makes us look like complete con men.
Most of your article is long winded nothingness that doesn't actually directly refute anything he says. Your entire introduction is basically saying "Bitcoin is absolutely terrible for a store of wealth but it's super cheap (it's actually incredibly expensive) but I like it so therefore, it's the most important technology ever!" I mean, come on man. Come back down to planet Earth. You even contradict yourself in your own intro. You say North claims it will never be money, then you basically agree with him that he's not the target audience implying that basically a small percentage of people actually ARE the target audience.
And for god's sake Erik, something being a scarce resource does not make it valuable. I remember around November or so of 2013, someone asked you what would happen if the world used Bitcoin and your response was something along the lines of "everyone gets richer". Thankfully, you were downvoted because every time I read your shit I feel like you have absolutely no fucking idea what you're talking about. I don't even know how you came to prominence but it certainly wasn't through anything BUT Bitcoin.