Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called out Bitcoin a “giant Ponzi scheme,” prompting a quick rebuttal from strategy chairman Michael Saylor and others online.
In a column published in the Daily Mail and posted on the social media platform He recalled a story from his Oxfordshire village about a retired man who handed over £500 ($661) to someone in a pub who promised to double the money using Bitcoin.
According to Johnson’s account, the man spent three and a half years paying fees and attempting to withdraw funds. He ultimately lost around £20,000 ($26,450), referring to what he admitted was “kind of a scam”.
Johnson argued that assets such as gold or even collectibles like Pokémon cards hold a certain cultural or physical appeal. Bitcoin, he writes, is “just a string of numbers stored in a series of computers.”
He also questioned why people should trust a system created by a pseudonymous entity, Satoshi Nakamoto, without institutional support.
“Who do we talk to if they decrypt crypto?” » Johnson asked. “There is no one except this Nakamoto, who is perhaps no more real than Pikachu or Charmander themselves.”
The community pushes back
In response to this column, the cryptocurrency community took exception to Johnson’s claims.
Saylor, executive chairman of the world’s largest bitcoin holder strategy (MSTR), refuted the claims, saying a Ponzi scheme requires a “central operator promising returns and paying early investors with late investors’ funds.”
Bitcoin, Saylor added, has “no issuers, no promoters, and no guaranteed returns – just an open, decentralized monetary network driven by code and market demand.”
Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi requires a central operator who promises returns and pays early investors with funds from later investors. Bitcoin has no issuer, no promoter, no guaranteed return: just an open, decentralized monetary network, driven by code and market demand.
-Michael Saylor (@saylor) March 13, 2026
On
“Bitcoin has no issuer and its value is purely determined by the free market. The code is completely public and voluntary. No one can force you to run a particular version,” the note said.
Other responses ranged from technical explanations of Bitcoin’s design to broader critiques of the government’s monetary policy.
Other responses ranged from technical explanations of Bitcoin’s design to broader critiques of the government’s monetary policy. Some users have pointed to Bitcoin’s fixed supply and decentralized network as evidence that it differs from classic Ponzi structures.
Others took a more combative tone, posting memes and criticizing central banks for increasing the money supply during the pandemic. As for who is in charge, BitMEX Research responded: “no one is in charge.”
