Exactly. Nassim Taleb calls it an “open ponzi” — a ponzi that is openly known
Taleb got profiled in the New Yorker, his Black Swan book became popular, and he has rode that and Twitter ever since. I highly recommend people see him for what he is - a public figure that is a bullshitter like anyone else - at least until he shows proof that he is some sort of investor oracle. He has actively sued people who revealed how much money his prior fund lost, as those documents are floating around but he attacks anyone who publicly reveals them.
Mark Spitznagel, a cofounder of Empirica (Taleb's old fund), went on to start Universa which did pretty well with similar theories (tail-risk strategies and insurance via options against extreme market risk) in both the 2008-2009 period and last year, when they booked a huge return. So there's some evidence that the theories work to produce uncorrelated (or negatively correlated) returns that outperform the market[1].
[1]: Universa's flagship "Black Swan Protection Protocol" fund has produced a mean annual return on invested capital of 76% since the firm was created in 2008. https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2020/04/13/how-a-go...
I had always understood a ponzi as being something paid out by later investors, and where you had a plausible reason to believe in increase in value.
Here the plausible reason is “bitcoin will take over the financial system and everyone will need it” or “bitcoin will be the new store of value and everyone will want it”. In either event payout necessarily comes from later investors.
Ponzi appears to be an income-producing asset, but the income is paid out from the principal.