Should Beanie Babies have been illegal? Were Beanie Babies a ponzi scheme? If you answer yes to those questions, just understand that your evaluation of how the US legal system should work is not even in the same ballpark as where it currently stands, regardless of merit.
But those are all totally irrelevant to whether it meet's a specific set of criteria to be a Ponzi scheme. I'd be curious for you to lay out your specific definition of a ponzi scheme under which specifically both this and madoff are ponzi scheme but doesn't include every other asset that is in a bubble and doesn't involve your subjective assessment of if it is good or bad.
To be blunt I don't think you can do it.
It's popular on HN to complain that companies like Facebook or Amazon destroy value. Or do you mean, create value for shareholders? Facebook and Amazon have never paid a dividend. If you buy stock and hold it all the way to bankruptcy (all companies die, eventually), you will have received no value.
> public disclosure requirements
Dogecoin, stupid as it is, is far more transparent than the machinations of any corporation.
Many of the tech companies do share buybacks, which increases the ownership of the shareholders who hold the stock.
The value of a share is predicated on the belief that the company will start to pay dividends at some point. Apple, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft all pay dividends at this point.
If the executive team at Amazon or Facebook came out to say "we will never pay a dividend"; firstly, there would be a shareholder revolt and the board of directors would be removed and replaced; secondly, there would also probably be a massive shareholder lawsuit against the directors personally for violating their fiduciary obligations.
If you buy a share, you generally buy (a) a vote that you can use to kick out the board and replace them with someone who will pay a dividend, and (b) a share of the assets of the company if it’s dissolved.
Those are both tangible rights, the crypto ponzi scheme offers nothing of the sort.