Isn't that the definition of a Ponzi scheme?
With Blockchains, they are more stable, as there is no such guarantee. Many people choose to HODL instead, and this gives the coin some stability. As long as there is less interest in cashing out than people trying to cash in, the value is growing. And as long as the value is growing, people cash out.
For a Ponzi scheme with guarantees in terms of currencies not minted by the scheme creator, they are bound to collapse sooner or later. Blockchains could go on forever in theory. However, latter still requires more people to cash in than people to cash out. If there is enough people trying to cash out, maybe larger number of people will panic and cash out as well, leading to an avalanche like race to zero.
Both are united by the requirement for a "greater fool", just with Ponzi schemes, this greater fool is exponentially growing while with Blockchains it can grow linearly.
All it matters that it will stay more stable than other assets. And we know from economic history that assets tied to nations may disappear overnight, e.g. Cyprus.
The creators of small memecoins often are doing this, deliberately, of course. Some of them are amazingly open about this, often marketing their memecoins as, essentially, “it’s still early” (ie you, the buyer, get to get in before the scheme collapses; like early Madoff customers, you can be one of the lucky ones!).
A Ponzi scheme typically involves a small inner circle perpetuating a fraud; even if "everyone knows" it's hinkey, it is ostensibly returning fabulous returns through actual investment/economic activity. Eventually, the insiders stop being able to keep the game going, and go bankrupt, get arrested, flee the country, or some other ignoble end.
Crypto has lost its layer of fraud; it used to be "this thing will be the future of money and therefore have value", but for the last five+ years it's all just been "this will be worth more in the future because people will buy it so you should buy it," a naked Ponzi.
Meanwhile, it is distributed, even if it is highly centralized at every point from mining pools to exchanges. There's no single person who has to go to jail or disappear with his money to collapse the whole system. It's happened dozens of times, and every time it does a new set of criminals steps up to keep the fraud going.
In summary, even if individual enterprises (eg, FTX) are classic Ponzi schemes, crypto as a whole deserves to be the name of its own type of scam.
It is also different than a casino: "Even if crypto investing is considered gambling, there is a factor not present in traditional casino games: the time variable of holding. Holding roulette chips has no effect on their value, while in crypto markets, prices change in time. By holding crypto assets for a longer duration, investors can potentially benefit from market fluctuations and price appreciation, making it a unique aspect compared to classic gambling games." [1].
[1] https://www.coinfabrik.com/blog/the-science-of-crypto-asset-...
If for whatever reason, something my go up in price because there's demand for it despite widely available and mostly correct information about its utility or lack of it, that's not a scam. This is the case with bitcoin. It's growth has fueled interest in a bit of gambling by members of the public about possible future growth. There's no central party running it as something it isn't or perpetuating a core lie by hiding some key information about what bitcoin really is.
People insisting on buying something despite it having an unstable market value and debatable concrete utility doesn't make that thing fraudulent. A scam requires intent and misdirection, regardless of how you and others who share your view try to redefine the word scam arbitrarily. You might as well also call all forms of speculation a scam by the same ridículous logic.
Towing such big asteroid sounds very risky (for the stability of our own planet and of the moon) and expensive, way more than just sending robots.
When people buy bonds, stocks, commodities, or purchase a car, a house, or even an Xbox, they are taking into account the resale value of that asset. If you supposed that when you're done with your house, it would be worth $0, you would be willing to pay a lot less for it. There's nothing fundamentally different here wrt Bitcoin.
The other examples you mentioned generally have some significant additionally value beyond just resale value -- e.g. stocks pay dividends or are expected to at some point, a house is something you can live in or get an income from by renting it out, and so on.
To be clear, there’s speculation involved in buying stocks, too, to an extent (particularly buying _individual_ stocks), but ultimately you have a share of some real thing. That is not the case with bitcoin.
Sure, there's some value there, you can use it to make gold-plated contacts or shiny things, but if that was the only use case, it wouldn't be nearly as valuable as it is now.
Gold is valuable because people think it is valuable, and the same hodls true for Bitcoin.
You also shouldn’t buy gold; over any long period it is almost guaranteed to massively underperform the markets. If you had bought gold at its 1980s peak, you would have been down in real terms ever since; adjusted for inflation it has never reached that value since, and may never do. While you can say that about some individual _companies_, of course, you would be hard pressed to find a major index for which that is the case.
Oil and real estate are totally different, though investment in oil in particular _is_ rather speculative; you’re betting on future real demand, but that demand is at least, like, _real_; there are obligate buyers of oil, almost no matter how high the price goes. Real estate, as I previously mentioned, produces value in terms of either rent or not having to pay rent.
The Nikkei 225 comes to mind. It only broke its 1989 peak last year.