Really, you sound like someone whose only awareness of the dollar is from reading about bank robberies. Bitcoin is sound money with provable scarcity - unlike worthless dollars that have no scarcity and thus no long-term value.
I'm sorry your friend was scammed due to his greed (yes, that's what the Ponzi angle plays on), but you shouldn't be buying bitcoin out of greed anyway. You should be switching to it out of fear (at what is happening to the dollar).
Just buy bitcoin people. Don't buy and then give them away to some idiot telling you that you can earn 10% monthly with him. It's not the buying bitcoin that is the problem with that scenario. It was the giving it away to someone and believing in their ridiculous promises.
I was describing - CLEARLY - a scam situation, and the article is preying on people's fear. Yet you and asshat attack me as though I've blasphemed your Creator.
It's a very good thing - for you - that you and that other asshat aren't in my personal space.
Don't go away mad: Just jump off a cliff. Both of you.