It appears that Gary North has used the falling Bitcoin price as an opportunity to reacquaint us with his condemnation of Bitcoin as a Ponzi Scheme. No doubt others will do the same in the coming days and weeks.

http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/staff-editorials/11338/bitcoin-ponzi-scheme/

And while many casually-ignorant skeptics have called Bitcoin a ponzi scheme, Gary North is one of the only professionally-ignorant individuals to still hold this view. Sure, there are smart, professional people who think Bitcoin is doomed, or is inferior to fiat, or is flawed for one reason or another, but to perpetuate in the Ponzi position, well, that's Gary North's domain. Mr. North originally penned this article in late 2013, but it seems he persists in the fallacy.

But why take the bait and respond? Because Bitcoin is ultimately a battle of ideas. I don't expect to change Mr. North's mind, but I'm uncomfortable letting sophisms persist unchecked. Here we have a private, free-market monetary system standing ready to displace the coercive machinations of fiat money. And if the Ponzi scheme arguments need to be refuted over and over for this to unfold, then so be it.

Ponzi Because Volatility

To his credit, Gary North clearly points us to his main argument: "The coins will never be the money of the future. This is my main argument." His justification for this position, carefully explained over several paragraphs, is simple as well, "The market value of one bitcoin has gone from about $2 to $1000 in a year. This is not money. This commodity is not being bought for its services as money. It is unpredictable to a fault."

Here is what saddens me… Gary North generally subscribes to the notion that markets should be left alone. That people are unique individuals, and that central planning cannot hope to effectively manage something with so many complex actors and relationships as that of a marketplace. He's right. Individuals are unique, and complex. So then why does Mr. North think that just because bitcoins' price is too volatile for him to prefer it as a form of money, that perhaps other rational actors, with a higher tolerance for volatility (or perhaps methods of avoiding it altogether – see Coinapult Locks, etc.), may find Bitcoin's other attributes desirable, and thus may prefer differently from him? Is that so far-fetched? Is Mr. North supposing that all humans are so intolerant of volatility that the only attribute of money they pay attention to is daily swings in market price?