Patri Friedman

1/ I doubt I'm the first to say this, but: #HODL is a cartel, one which (approriately) is simultaneously pedestrian and innovative in the same ways as #cryptocurrency itself.

2/ It's pedestrian because it's just a group of producers (hodlers) restricting supply to maintain price (Econ 101 - https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/economics/monopolistic-competition-and-oligopoly/cartel-theory-of-oligopoly …).

3/ A cartel works even better for a store of value than a good or commodity because there is no "use value" being compared to the price. The nominal (fiat) price almost doesn't matter, so demand is highly inelastic, hence price is highly sensitive to supply.

4/ But it's innovative because the cartel is massive and decentralized (much like the technology itself). Large cartels have been considered difficult to impossible due to coordination problems and the incentive to defect. But #BTC has, so far, proven that wrong.

a decentralized pyramid scheme. is it better than a centralized pyramid scheme or is it worse?

Well, kinda but also not. There is real value being built, unlike in a pure pyramid scheme. If the cartel can hold price long enough for Bitcoin to be a useful product (which will happen), they can cash out to end users.

it was a useful product and now its not. because of hodlers. value of a medium of exchange depends on people adopting it because they value it as a medium of exchage not hoarding it for merely exploiting.