Ponzis and Pyramids

Abstract

This is the first of the project and game chapters that will take us through the remainder of the book. The first six chapters covered the basics of Ethereum and Solidity. We will now move away from theory and dive in to practical examples of Solidity code. Admittedly, Ponzi schemes do not seem at first glance to be the most practical of examples. Surprisingly, though, some of the first interactive smart contracts released on Ethereum were verifiable Ponzi schemes. In this chapter, we will first write a simple Ponzi contract and then explore examples that were deployed on the Ethereum mainnet.