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Early adopters are rewarded proportionally to the risk they took (and the work they put in). Bitcoin wouldn’t even be here today if the early adopters hadn’t s

Early adopters are rewarded proportionally to the risk they took (and the work they put in). Bitcoin wouldn’t even be here today if the early adopters hadn’t spent many years making it usable and valuable. Why would anyone who was uninvolved expect to profit from that?

Cut_N_Paste 9y ago
I'm not sure why you're being down-voted, you speak the truth. I myself didn't participate beyond a cursory download and trial years ago, because I perceived it too risky and fad-like for my time... boy was I wrong :/
AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
What's the incentive for anyone uninvolved in the early stages to become involved? The hope that the value will increase indefinitely? If that's true then there is will be no liquidity as no rational person is willing to part with an appreciating asset. It's precisely this deflationary effect of earlier adopters profiting at the expense of later adopters that makes the whole thing seem like a pyramid scheme.
- centimeter 9y ago
  The incentive is that bitcoin is (for some uses) superior to existing payment/wealth storage technology even if you can’t make a bunch of money on it.
  - dleslie 9y ago
    It really isn't. If my physical wallet is stolen I can call my bank and have the cards cancelled and interim charges reversed; and I am guaranteed fraud protection at their expense. If my BTC wallet is stolen I'm fucked.
    - posterboy 9y ago
      that is unless the bank themselves are fraudsters.
    - DennisP 9y ago
      Personally, the more I use my cryptocurrency hardware wallet, the more I feel horrified that in legacy systems I make payments by giving merchants the ability to withdraw as much of my money as they want. It's a fundamentally insecure system, made sort of workable by layering on hacks like manual overrides, statistical fraud protection, and banks just eating the losses.
- elif 9y ago
  Even if the price stagnates, that beats fiat inflation. But infinite growth is on the table too since there are mathematical guarantees about rarity and few fundamental means of crashing it.
- taysic 9y ago
  I don't understand what the difference is to a stock - those investing hope it will continue to go up but it's a risk. And they hope to sell at the right moment.
nunyabuizness 9y ago
I don't think it's accurate to say that the risk of spending $1 per Bitcoin in 2011 is proportional to the $4000 reward I have today.
- centimeter 9y ago
  It is proportional, humans are just bad at multiplying extremely low expected payoffs. There were millions of other equally (a priori) viable things you could have invested $1 in that didn’t pan out. It’s also more obviously proportional for people who put in over $1000 a few years ago.
kamaal 9y ago
>>Early adopters are rewarded proportionally to the risk they took (and the work they put in). I hope they thought through that risk properly enough, because we didn't sign up for it and don't care what happens if you end up losing it all. >>Bitcoin wouldn’t even be here today if the early adopters hadn’t spent many years making it usable and valuable. Bitcoin wouldn't have to be anywhere. Either way we will ditch it and spawn our own currencies as we deem fit. Why should be start poor in any scheme. >>Why would anyone who was uninvolved expect to profit from that? We won't. We don't even want bitcoin, we will start our own ones later.
- centimeter 9y ago
  > I hope they thought through that risk properly enough, because we didn't sign up for it and don't care what happens if you end up losing it all. I agree, anything else would be hypocritical of me. > Bitcoin wouldn't have to be anywhere. Either way we will ditch it and spawn our own currencies as we deem fit. Why should be start poor in any scheme. Unfortunately you won’t have a choice, due to the network effect. You can’t, in general, expect to make money out of nothing. If you think that’s a viable business model, you probably don’t fully understand why bitcoin became valuable or the work involved. > We won't. We don't even want bitcoin, we will start our own ones later. Better get started soon!

Cut_N_Paste 9y ago

I'm not sure why you're being down-voted, you speak the truth. I myself didn't participate beyond a cursory download and trial years ago, because I perceived it too risky and fad-like for my time... boy was I wrong :/

AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago

What's the incentive for anyone uninvolved in the early stages to become involved? The hope that the value will increase indefinitely? If that's true then there is will be no liquidity as no rational person is willing to part with an appreciating asset. It's precisely this deflationary effect of earlier adopters profiting at the expense of later adopters that makes the whole thing seem like a pyramid scheme.

centimeter 9y ago
The incentive is that bitcoin is (for some uses) superior to existing payment/wealth storage technology even if you can’t make a bunch of money on it.
- dleslie 9y ago
  It really isn't. If my physical wallet is stolen I can call my bank and have the cards cancelled and interim charges reversed; and I am guaranteed fraud protection at their expense. If my BTC wallet is stolen I'm fucked.
  - posterboy 9y ago
    that is unless the bank themselves are fraudsters.
  - DennisP 9y ago
    Personally, the more I use my cryptocurrency hardware wallet, the more I feel horrified that in legacy systems I make payments by giving merchants the ability to withdraw as much of my money as they want. It's a fundamentally insecure system, made sort of workable by layering on hacks like manual overrides, statistical fraud protection, and banks just eating the losses.
elif 9y ago
Even if the price stagnates, that beats fiat inflation. But infinite growth is on the table too since there are mathematical guarantees about rarity and few fundamental means of crashing it.
taysic 9y ago
I don't understand what the difference is to a stock - those investing hope it will continue to go up but it's a risk. And they hope to sell at the right moment.

nunyabuizness 9y ago

I don't think it's accurate to say that the risk of spending $1 per Bitcoin in 2011 is proportional to the $4000 reward I have today.

centimeter 9y ago
It is proportional, humans are just bad at multiplying extremely low expected payoffs. There were millions of other equally (a priori) viable things you could have invested $1 in that didn’t pan out. It’s also more obviously proportional for people who put in over $1000 a few years ago.

kamaal 9y ago

>>Early adopters are rewarded proportionally to the risk they took (and the work they put in). I hope they thought through that risk properly enough, because we didn't sign up for it and don't care what happens if you end up losing it all. >>Bitcoin wouldn’t even be here today if the early adopters hadn’t spent many years making it usable and valuable. Bitcoin wouldn't have to be anywhere. Either way we will ditch it and spawn our own currencies as we deem fit. Why should be start poor in any scheme. >>Why would anyone who was uninvolved expect to profit from that? We won't. We don't even want bitcoin, we will start our own ones later.

centimeter 9y ago
> I hope they thought through that risk properly enough, because we didn't sign up for it and don't care what happens if you end up losing it all. I agree, anything else would be hypocritical of me. > Bitcoin wouldn't have to be anywhere. Either way we will ditch it and spawn our own currencies as we deem fit. Why should be start poor in any scheme. Unfortunately you won’t have a choice, due to the network effect. You can’t, in general, expect to make money out of nothing. If you think that’s a viable business model, you probably don’t fully understand why bitcoin became valuable or the work involved. > We won't. We don't even want bitcoin, we will start our own ones later. Better get started soon!