Bitcoin offered “equality” in that anyone could mine it. But in practice, Bitcoin was substantially mined early on – early adopters have most of the coins. The design was such that early users would get vastly better rewards than later users for the same effort. Cashing in these early coins involves pumping up the price and then selling to later adopters, particularly during the bubbles. Thus, Bitcoin was not a Ponzi or pyramid scheme, but a pump-and-dump. Anyone who bought in after the earliest days is functionally the sucker in the relationship.
