Boris Johnson calls bitcoin a 'Ponzi'; Michael Saylor and others push back

Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson called bitcoin a "giant Ponzi scheme" in a Daily Mail column and on X, recounting a story from his Oxfordshire village about a retired man who handed £500 to someone in a pub who promised to double it. The man spent three and a half years paying fees and trying to withdraw funds, ultimately losing about £20,000, which Johnson described as "some kind of scam." He wrote that assets such as gold or Pokémon cards hold cultural or physical appeal, while bitcoin is "just a string of numbers stored in a series of computers," and asked, "Who do we talk to if they decrypt the crypto?

There’s no one except this Nakamoto, who may be no more real than Pikachu or Charmander themselves." Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman of Strategy, pushed back sharply, saying, "Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi requires a central operator promising returns and paying early investors with funds from later ones.

United Kingdom, Oxfordshire

bitcoin, boris johnson, michael saylor, ponzi scheme, satoshi nakamoto, daily mail, pokémon cards, gold, oxfordshire, crypto skepticism