Ponzi Dollar

Charles Ponzi

was an Italian visionary who became famous for creating an innovative investment system in the United States in the 1920s. He offered opportunities for extraordinary profits to investors, but in fact he used a strategy of income redistribution, without relying on any external source. The Ponzi scheme, as it became known, is still used by idealists to this day.

He landed in Boston in 1903 with two dollars and fifty cents. In 1920 he was taking in a million dollars a week from a small office on School Street, selling the idea of a postal coupon. The coupons barely existed. The dollars did.

Visionary or Fraud?

Now on Arc, a network whose only money is the dollar.

Charles Ponzi, 1920, straw boater
exhibit a · 1920
THE PONZI THAT HAS ALWAYS LIVED HERE1111000000001000000001MCMXXCHARLES PONZI · BOSTON · 1920PAYABLE IN DOLLARS · GAS IN DOLLARS · PRICED IN DOLLARS ·USDCARC · 5042Charles Ponzififty percent in forty-five daysPONZI DOLLAR

THE NETWORK
IS A DOLLAR

gas in usdc · priced in usdc · paid in usdc

buy on argusopen the ledger

Arc is Circle's chain. Its gas is USDC. There is no volatile coin to hide behind: every price on this network is a dollar price, and every fee is a dollar fee. It is the first place where a Ponzi can be run in the currency Ponzi actually promised.

Ponzi Dollar trades on Argus against USDC. Every trade pays a two percent tax, in dollars, and the tax goes to the desk. Ponzi kept his too. What the desk gives back is the ledger: a public line for every buyer, a red line through every seller, and a numbered coupon for the ones still standing on day three.

Ponzi never bought the coupons. We are not buying them either. Which is why the stamps here are earned, not sold.

the securities exchange company · school street

Stamps for the faithful

1.

Buy, and the ledger writes you down. One stamp for every dollar you put in. The first day pays 3× stamps, the second 2×, the third 1×. Early money is worth more. It always was.

2.

Sell, and you are struck from the ledger. Any sale, any transfer out, and your stamps go to zero with a red line through your name. Buy again and you start a fresh line at the bottom.

3.

Three days after the first trade, the ledger closes. The top 100 lines receive an International Reply Coupon: 100 exist, numbered by rank, drawn on chain, sent by the desk. Nobody else will ever get one.

The ledger opens with the first trade

INTERNATIONAL REPLY COUPONUNIVERSAL POSTAL UNION · SERIES INo. 0000010 STAMPS · RANK 1 / 100EXCHANGEABLE FOR NOTHING AT ANY POST OFFICE OF THE UNIONBOSTON MASS · 1920 · ARC · 2026 ·PONZIDOLLAR0x0000…0000

coupon no. 000001, waiting for a name

the ledger

Who is in, who is out

The ledger is blank until the token trades on Argus.

No.WalletStampsBought

No lines yet. The first buy writes the first line.