Ponzi scheme

plural Ponzi schemes

1. A fraudulent scheme where earlier investors are paid with the money taken from new investors, giving the impression that the scheme is a viable investment.

   Now, a long-running Ponzi scheme requires a narrative — and the narrative is where crypto really excels.

   2021 May 20, Paul Krugman, “Technobabble, Libertarian Derp and Bitcoin”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   2 more examples

   After the presidency, Grant invested almost every penny he had to create a financial brokerage house with a controversial investor named Ferdinand Ward. Ward, a Bernie Madoff of his day, turned it into a Ponzi scheme, and publicly bankrupted Grant.

   2016, Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy, page 115

   Bernard L. Madoff, the one-time senior statesman of Wall Street who in 2008 became the human face of an era of financial misdeeds and missteps for running the largest and possibly most devastating Ponzi scheme in financial history, died on Wednesday at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C. He was 82.

   2021 April 14, Diana B. Henriques, “Bernard Madoff, Architect of Largest Ponzi Scheme in History, Is Dead at 82”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: Ponzi scam