You think it's a ponzi scheme because you think early adopters have all the bitcoins. I would argue Bitcoins are much more spread out than you realize. Mining pools started in 2010 - that's when a large number of people work together to mine coins - each person only earns a fraction of a coin as a result. In 2010 when this started there were only 2 million coins - and not just in one guys wallet, but many - and many many people lost their wallets in the old days as well. Today there are almost 12 million coins - and I assure you those 10 million new coins are even more evenly distributed.