3 ms·

> If a handful of early adopters controlled 80% of the IP space, if they were the ones now charging rent to those seeking to utilize that space, would there be

by rossng 10y ago

> If a handful of early adopters controlled 80% of the IP space, if they were the ones now charging rent to those seeking to utilize that space, would there be such rapid uptake? Would you be happy leasing your IPs from some third party who was simply fortunate enough to be there first and stake a claim? This is effectively exactly what happened with IP. There are a bunch of (many now-defunct) companies allocated huge portions of the IPv4 space, and they get to sell those addresses to people that need them. It's not ideal, but you can hardly claim that it has hurt adoption. I think the ownership distribution issue is the least of Bitcoin's problems. There will always be people who are rich for no justifiable reason.

astrodust 10y ago
The impact so far has been minimal despite the constraint of supply, the cost of IPs is still marginal. It's also a situation that has unfolded recently, long after the rampant success of the platform. It's also possible to make more efficient use of limited addresses now either through NAT, or IPv4 to IPv6 bridges, where once again IPv6 permits large numbers of addresses to be issued with zero cost. > There will always be people who are rich for no justifiable reason. There are a lot of people that profited in a huge way on early internet plays "for no justifiable reason", but that didn't hinder growth because it didn't constrain supply. Someone hoarding Bitcoin does.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  And someone hoarding Bitcoin can seriously disrupt the Bitcoin economy by releasing it in massive amounts at a later point. Even an uncoordinated (deliberately) collection of hoarders can screw it all up, see market crashes. Bitcoin, having little in the way of a stable economy to be valued on, is too closely tied in value to its current exchange rates. This leads to it being more of a commodity (like stocks) than a currency. So if someone sees the price drop, they sell (at the now reduced price), which triggers others to sell, and others still. This is not the mark of a stable currency or even a potentially stable one. Until a significant population can conduct the vast majority of their business in BTC, it's not a viable currency.
  - astrodust 10y ago
    Yeah, it's things like that which make the dynamics entirely different. If someone flooded the market with IP addressees there wouldn't be people losing their minds about the collapsing value of their holdings, they'd be celebrating.
    - theseatoms 10y ago
      Interesting. Naive "econ 101-ism" would suggest that Bitcoin's marketplace is "better," with its finer-grained and more evenly publicized price discovery, (i.e. efficient markets.) But it seems this situation is worse for Bitcoin itself, since mass-involvement in price discovery can induce bubbles and panics, and therefore less confidence in the underlying product/service.
      - astrodust 10y ago
        The thing that was so revolutionary and powerful about the internet was the elimination of scarcity. No longer were things walled off behind pay-by-the-minute systems (Compuserve) or provided on a cripplingly expensive subscription basis (LexisNexis), instead it was made free, open, and accessible to everyone with a way to connect to it. Bitcoin seems to be following the "classical" economic model where preserving scarcity is paramount, it only has any value whatsoever because of the artificial constraints placed on the currency. If Bitcoin's transaction ledger was instead simply a record of exchanges (e.g. A paid B $40, C paid D £30) and worked as a proof-of-payment system it would probably be more successful. Locking people into Bitcoin as both a transaction tracking system and a currency will likely be its downfall. Consider a free-market alternative: Anyone can provide their own currency or facilitate conversion to an existing fiat currency, but they can use the blockchain to manage transactions and resolve disputes. Blockchain participants (miners) are rewarded for their contributions by a small share of the transactions performed in whatever currency was transacted. They're free to be selective about which transactions they're willing to process: It's a truly free market. There's no incentive to destabilize the blockchain, history can't be re-written, double-spends can be ignored by the parties providing the endpoint of the transaction. There's no stored value at all to steal. There's also no way for a single entity to dominate the network and dictate terms, a significant problem now with Bitcoin being driven by mega-miners in China with peculiar requirements that are often contradictory to the long-term health of the network.

by rossng 10y ago

astrodust 10y ago

The impact so far has been minimal despite the constraint of supply, the cost of IPs is still marginal. It's also a situation that has unfolded recently, long after the rampant success of the platform. It's also possible to make more efficient use of limited addresses now either through NAT, or IPv4 to IPv6 bridges, where once again IPv6 permits large numbers of addresses to be issued with zero cost. > There will always be people who are rich for no justifiable reason. There are a lot of people that profited in a huge way on early internet plays "for no justifiable reason", but that didn't hinder growth because it didn't constrain supply. Someone hoarding Bitcoin does.

Jtsummers 10y ago
And someone hoarding Bitcoin can seriously disrupt the Bitcoin economy by releasing it in massive amounts at a later point. Even an uncoordinated (deliberately) collection of hoarders can screw it all up, see market crashes. Bitcoin, having little in the way of a stable economy to be valued on, is too closely tied in value to its current exchange rates. This leads to it being more of a commodity (like stocks) than a currency. So if someone sees the price drop, they sell (at the now reduced price), which triggers others to sell, and others still. This is not the mark of a stable currency or even a potentially stable one. Until a significant population can conduct the vast majority of their business in BTC, it's not a viable currency.
- astrodust 10y ago
  Yeah, it's things like that which make the dynamics entirely different. If someone flooded the market with IP addressees there wouldn't be people losing their minds about the collapsing value of their holdings, they'd be celebrating.
  - theseatoms 10y ago
    Interesting. Naive "econ 101-ism" would suggest that Bitcoin's marketplace is "better," with its finer-grained and more evenly publicized price discovery, (i.e. efficient markets.) But it seems this situation is worse for Bitcoin itself, since mass-involvement in price discovery can induce bubbles and panics, and therefore less confidence in the underlying product/service.
    - astrodust 10y ago
      The thing that was so revolutionary and powerful about the internet was the elimination of scarcity. No longer were things walled off behind pay-by-the-minute systems (Compuserve) or provided on a cripplingly expensive subscription basis (LexisNexis), instead it was made free, open, and accessible to everyone with a way to connect to it. Bitcoin seems to be following the "classical" economic model where preserving scarcity is paramount, it only has any value whatsoever because of the artificial constraints placed on the currency. If Bitcoin's transaction ledger was instead simply a record of exchanges (e.g. A paid B $40, C paid D £30) and worked as a proof-of-payment system it would probably be more successful. Locking people into Bitcoin as both a transaction tracking system and a currency will likely be its downfall. Consider a free-market alternative: Anyone can provide their own currency or facilitate conversion to an existing fiat currency, but they can use the blockchain to manage transactions and resolve disputes. Blockchain participants (miners) are rewarded for their contributions by a small share of the transactions performed in whatever currency was transacted. They're free to be selective about which transactions they're willing to process: It's a truly free market. There's no incentive to destabilize the blockchain, history can't be re-written, double-spends can be ignored by the parties providing the endpoint of the transaction. There's no stored value at all to steal. There's also no way for a single entity to dominate the network and dictate terms, a significant problem now with Bitcoin being driven by mega-miners in China with peculiar requirements that are often contradictory to the long-term health of the network.