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The continued censorship on the main bitcoin subreddit and the main bitcoin forum is ridiculous. It makes the whole bitcoin community and ecosystem look like a

The continued censorship on the main bitcoin subreddit and the main bitcoin forum is ridiculous. It makes the whole bitcoin community and ecosystem look like a joke, which isn't something anyone involved should want. If the currency can't handle an open debate between adults, how do they expect to weather attacks from serious bad actors (criminal, state, or otherwise)? This article is pretty detailed and does a good job of depicting the events of the roundtable - but as someone who didn't attend, I'd be curious to see how a Bitcoin Core member would choose to describe things. I imagine their perspective would be very different. On the other hand, the history of this whole controversy seems to suggest that the Core crew are as bad at communication as Mr. Armstrong suggests, so I doubt we'll ever see that alternate perspective :( The risk of miners dropping out en masse once the difficulty goes up isn't something I've seen mentioned before, and it seems pretty scary. I would have assumed that difficulty adjustment would happen more often, so if it continues to have such a long interval, that seems like a threat to the long-term health of the currency. I can imagine some other event knocking miners out of the network, like a sudden spike in the cost of electricity for large mining operations - so even if the immediate risk is addressed it seems like this is still a threat going forward. Ultimately, it's really sad that what seems to have happened with Bitcoin is that Satoshi put together some really stellar technology and completely overlooked the human component. Handing the project off to a random group of contributors seems reckless under any circumstances, and then it turned out that the random group of maintainers got along poorly. Now the de-facto control of the currency is in the hands of a small group of people with an obvious profit motive, because they have control over the central bitcoin forum and central subreddit. Hindsight is powerful, but it feels like it should have been obvious that the human risks needed to be addressed if Satoshi was serious about constructing a new currency.

patio11 11y ago
completely overlooked the human component That's unfair: Satoshi got the incentives for Bitcoin brilliantly right, in such a fashion such that "Satoshi scheme" should replace "ponzi scheme" because it is better in every conceivable way. Ponzi schemes rely on a central operator who has to do their marketing, and who generally can't tell participants "Hey I'm running a Ponzi scheme so bring all your friends because that's the only way you make money." Satoshi schemes use the Internet to set up self-organizing distributed boiler rooms. (Also, mediocre payment networks, but the payment network is not the interesting part of Bitcoin.) They can be totally upfront with participants on exactly what is happening -- early adopters (arbitrarily large number, arbitrarily geographically distributed) get enriched by convincing later adopters that the things the early adopters got for free are a) in fact actually money and b) going to be worth even more in the future. And this empirically works on intelligent people! Very well, in fact! You can even attach it to a memeplex which suggests that you are doing the later adopters a favor by creating a Satoshi scheme!
- kevingadd 11y ago
  Sorry, are you implying that Satoshi's intent all along was to set up a ponzi scheme, so the current state of affairs is intended? If so, okay. I mean, I don't find that especially implausible? But if so, that's also really depressing.
  - patio11 11y ago
    Do I think Satoshi intended to set up a ponzi scheme? Punt on this question. It requires me reading his mind and making judgments about sincerity of purpose. Do I think Satoshi knew what he was doing with regards to incentive compatibility of making tokens widely distributed and essentially free early with the implicit promise of them being highly valuable later if adoption occurred? Yes, absolutely. He told people that that was the plan. He asked them to avoid actions (such as GPU-compatible mining applications) which he was worried would kill the goldrush phase before it had attracted sufficient cryptocurrency evangelists to gain traction [+]. Should any evil person use a ponzi scheme when Satoshi schemes are now a technology which exist? Surely not. Satoshi schemes strictly dominate ponzi schemes. [+] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12.msg54#msg54 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12.msg54#msg54
- robk 11y ago
  I love this phrase Satoshi scheme! We should indeed be using it more
- scotty79 11y ago
  > "Hey I'm running a Ponzi scheme so bring all your friends because that's the only way you make money." That's exactly what MMM says and people happily participate.

patio11 11y ago

completely overlooked the human component That's unfair: Satoshi got the incentives for Bitcoin brilliantly right, in such a fashion such that "Satoshi scheme" should replace "ponzi scheme" because it is better in every conceivable way. Ponzi schemes rely on a central operator who has to do their marketing, and who generally can't tell participants "Hey I'm running a Ponzi scheme so bring all your friends because that's the only way you make money." Satoshi schemes use the Internet to set up self-organizing distributed boiler rooms. (Also, mediocre payment networks, but the payment network is not the interesting part of Bitcoin.) They can be totally upfront with participants on exactly what is happening -- early adopters (arbitrarily large number, arbitrarily geographically distributed) get enriched by convincing later adopters that the things the early adopters got for free are a) in fact actually money and b) going to be worth even more in the future. And this empirically works on intelligent people! Very well, in fact! You can even attach it to a memeplex which suggests that you are doing the later adopters a favor by creating a Satoshi scheme!

kevingadd 11y ago
Sorry, are you implying that Satoshi's intent all along was to set up a ponzi scheme, so the current state of affairs is intended? If so, okay. I mean, I don't find that especially implausible? But if so, that's also really depressing.
- patio11 11y ago
  Do I think Satoshi intended to set up a ponzi scheme? Punt on this question. It requires me reading his mind and making judgments about sincerity of purpose. Do I think Satoshi knew what he was doing with regards to incentive compatibility of making tokens widely distributed and essentially free early with the implicit promise of them being highly valuable later if adoption occurred? Yes, absolutely. He told people that that was the plan. He asked them to avoid actions (such as GPU-compatible mining applications) which he was worried would kill the goldrush phase before it had attracted sufficient cryptocurrency evangelists to gain traction [+]. Should any evil person use a ponzi scheme when Satoshi schemes are now a technology which exist? Surely not. Satoshi schemes strictly dominate ponzi schemes. [+] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12.msg54#msg54 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12.msg54#msg54
robk 11y ago
I love this phrase Satoshi scheme! We should indeed be using it more
scotty79 11y ago
> "Hey I'm running a Ponzi scheme so bring all your friends because that's the only way you make money." That's exactly what MMM says and people happily participate.