It has a lot more in common with "I was an early employee in a successful startup" than "I participated in a Ponzi scheme early".

I like to think of the Bitcoin protocol as a transaction service and the coins as shares of equity.

I disagree, when I invest on a start up, those shares have inherent value because they are backed by a real company, not hype.

That's really cold, even though I'm not much of a bitcoin believer either. And actually, it seems he hasn't necessarily benefited yet, because he's going to hold on to his bitcoins for the future. I would urge him to sell, say, half of them, at the very least and put those in more conventional investments, for his kids' sakes.

At the very least make sure the important passwords he wants to pass on are kept securely and kept accessible.

He did mention the bitcoins are in a safe deposit box, and his kids are tech-savvy. With a paper wallet, instructions, and a proper will, they'll do just fine.

Yes, so the problem is more one of "all your eggs in one basket", unless he just left that out of the story.

Sounds like a good guy in any case, who worked on a lot of neat things, I wish him all the best.

Volatile object speculation, crapshoot, recurring bubble, vehicle of money laundering. There are plenty of disses against Bitcoin that at least have some validity. I'm sure there's more. But save Ponzi Scheme for things that actually fit the description.

The current trend with bitcoin is: buy bitcoin now, it'll go up, it'll be 10k by next year.

It's current valuation backed by nothing except hype, once there's not enough hype to keep the price afloat: there will be a lot of bag holders.

Thats all you have to say after reading such an article? Do you mean the guy is a bastard ?

Sorry all I got out was "I'm a butthurt and don't even understand Bitcoin".

The only reason BTC price rises is because of hype and idiots buying into the hype. Once the hype dies (as it's dying now), you can experience the pleasure of bag-holding.

Why don't you all in BTC? You are free to laugh at me when it hits 1k again.

technically, if it really is a Ponzi scheme as you state then you're saying that bitcoins will ultimately be worth zero. But in that case, he hasn't actually sold his bitcoins yet, so he hasn't benefited from the Ponzi scheme.

tsk tsk tsk.