Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson said he long suspected that bitcoin resembled a financial pyramid after a personal acquaintance lost a substantial sum on BTC.

Johnson’s remarks

Johnson highlighted the absence of a central responsible party for cryptocurrencies and described how that lack of accountability affects affected investors in practice.

«There is no one to fire and no one to complain to»

He argued that if a system loses value or suffers a breach, users cannot address grievances through a conventional corporate or regulatory channel, leaving them without clear remedies.

Saylor’s counterpoint

Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy, responded by distinguishing the defining features of a Ponzi scheme from the structure of bitcoin and its network.

Saylor noted that a classic Ponzi requires a central operator promising returns, whereas bitcoin has no issuer, no guaranteed yields and no single managing entity.

Implications for investors

Observers of both statements point out the tension between decentralised protocol design and traditional accountability frameworks, which complicates regulatory and legal recourse for losses.