3 ms·
completely overlooked the human component That's unfair: Satoshi got the incentives for Bitcoin brilliantly right, in such a fashion such that "Satoshi scheme"
by 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 agoSorry, 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 agoDo 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 agoI 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.