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So this is a political problem -- here's my prediction of what will happen (given that we live in the real, political, world). A political entity -- not necess

So this is a political problem -- here's my prediction of what will happen (given that we live in the real, political, world). A political entity -- not necessary a sovereign government, but perhaps a bank or financial institution -- will offer a currency swap to existing blockchain holders to adopt their crypto currency. The inducement will be a limited time window to put in your claim, with all unclaimed but mined numbers going to the financial entity to reward their followers or stakeholders. In the real world, this is called escheat and it is a power of the crown. Bitcoin is essentially a system for recording deeds to digital land. They aren't making more numbers, so the problem is the political resolution of competing claims to the same resource. This sort of claim comes, in the end, to a network consensus of who is the sovereign.

patio11 11y ago
Ethereum is one prominent example of this: we'll swap currency on your blockchain for currency on our blockchain, ours will totally be worth more due to enhanced features. They aren't making more numbers "We can conveniently restrict the supply of numbers" is one of the fundamental failures of the imagination among Bitcoin enthusiasts. "There's only 21 million. Trust us. We counted." "But couldn't I make a new 21 million with a one character code change?" "Well yeah but they'd be so much less cool than our 21 million and you'd have to convince people to use them." "But wouldn't I be able to use the Satoshi adoption strategy -- give them away for cheap to bootstrap a distributed boiler room then gradually make them more expensive, enriching early participants in the scheme at the expense of later participants?" "But that's crazy, it will never work. Nobody wants worthless currency units tied to a transaction network that provides absolutely no value. They want spendable money." "Of course people want worthless currency units tied to a transaction network that provides absolutely no value, if they have the expectation that they will not be the last people to want those currency units. That describes why you invested in Bitcoin!"
- Adlai 11y ago
  You can restrict the supply within a single system, and value follows the network effect due to fear and greed. https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/ lists 650 alternate value storages which take up 650 million dollars. Bitcoin alone takes six billion.

patio11 11y ago

Ethereum is one prominent example of this: we'll swap currency on your blockchain for currency on our blockchain, ours will totally be worth more due to enhanced features. They aren't making more numbers "We can conveniently restrict the supply of numbers" is one of the fundamental failures of the imagination among Bitcoin enthusiasts. "There's only 21 million. Trust us. We counted." "But couldn't I make a new 21 million with a one character code change?" "Well yeah but they'd be so much less cool than our 21 million and you'd have to convince people to use them." "But wouldn't I be able to use the Satoshi adoption strategy -- give them away for cheap to bootstrap a distributed boiler room then gradually make them more expensive, enriching early participants in the scheme at the expense of later participants?" "But that's crazy, it will never work. Nobody wants worthless currency units tied to a transaction network that provides absolutely no value. They want spendable money." "Of course people want worthless currency units tied to a transaction network that provides absolutely no value, if they have the expectation that they will not be the last people to want those currency units. That describes why you invested in Bitcoin!"

Adlai 11y ago
You can restrict the supply within a single system, and value follows the network effect due to fear and greed. https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/ lists 650 alternate value storages which take up 650 million dollars. Bitcoin alone takes six billion.