To truly understand finance realize EVERYTHING is a Ponzi scheme. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Benefits are currently being paid by issuing debt and selling it to other countries. The payouts currently available to retirees won't be available to future ones. They'll be too busy paying back the debt. 

The dollar is a Ponzi having lost 98% of its value in the past 100 years while effectively stealing the value of saver's deposits by inflation along the way.

Everything is a Ponzi it's just that some Ponzi's are 'official' and universally accepted and some are not. Not to say that's a bad thing just that it needs to be recognized to be profitably utilized. 

If the dollar is a Ponzi and Steem is pegged to the dollar there's no way Steem couldn't be a Ponzi as well. Again, not saying that's good or bad, just pointing out that's the way things work. One could even say the crashing of the housing market or something similar is a generational Ponzi collapsing. Our economic system runs and reloads Ponzi schemes continuously by its very design.