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The original parcels of Urbit address space went for a lot more than $20.

by lisper 6y ago

tripledunit 6y ago
You have no idea what you're talking about. The original parcels of urbit address space were given away for free or as contest prizes. Then there were two crowdsales in 2016 and 2017 which both priced address space at less than one cent! There were a few early seed investors as well. I'm not sure what their terms were, but I highly doubt they were massively worse than the crowdsales which occurred later in the project
- lisper 6y ago
  I have some idea what I'm talking about. I was pitched on Urbit by Curtis himself on April 20, 2012, long before it launched, and before it was even called Urbit. He tried to sell me a block of Urbit address space at the time. I don't remember the asking price, but it was substantial, many thousands of dollars. I declined. Yes, the crowdsales priced individual addresses at less than one cent, but it's a 64-bit address space, so even at one cent that puts the gross valuation of Urbit at many orders magnitude greater than the gross planetary product since the dawn of human history. I'd say that's overvalued. Also, the addresses are not sold individually but in large blocks, with part of the pitch being that people who get in early can turn around and sell parts of their holdings to greater fools. If memory serves, the first crowdsale raised $500k. So even at 1 cent per, someone ended up writing some pretty big checks.
  - tripledunit 6y ago
    No, you don't have any idea what you're talking about and you continue to display this ignorance >He tried to sell me a block of Urbit address space at the time. I don't remember the asking price, but it was substantial, many thousands of dollars Okay, many thousands of dollars for how big a block of address space? I'm guessing it was FAR, FAR less than $20 per planet. Because, you know, that's how technical projects like this work. The price of address space has been going up over time as development of the project and engagement with the network increases and risk decreases >Yes, the crowdsales priced individual addresses at less than one cent, but it's a 64-bit address space, so even at one cent that puts the gross valuation of Urbit at many orders magnitude greater than the gross planetary product since the dawn of human history Oh boy. No, the price I quoted you there was less than one cent per planet, because that's the unit that we're talking about here. Planets are the 32 bit level of the address space, so that puts the gross valuation at around $40 million Maybe you think that's still overvalued; I have no interest in speculating myself. But the point is that you are absolutely wrong about the $20 per planet figure above being a lot less than earlier figures >the addresses are not sold individually but in large blocks, with part of the pitch being that people who get in early can turn around and sell parts of their holdings Which is true of pretty much any digital asset, corporate stock investment, etc. Yes, people investing money early in an experimental software project with explosive growth potential are probably speculating to try and make money down the line. You think this is shocking news to anyone?
  - Splined 6y ago
    You're either confused or the details have changed since you looked at it 8+ years ago. The address space for sale is 32-bit. There is also a 128-bit space that is free https://urbit.org/blog/the-urbit-address-space/ https://urbit.org/blog/the-urbit-address-space/
    - lisper 6y ago
      Actually, it's just a 128-bit address space (so I was wrong about it being 64-bit, but this just makes the problem that much worse). Parts of this space are divvied up IP-address style into 96-bit-wide blocks (and some other parcel sizes as well), so that carves out a 32-bit sub-space. But no matter how you slice it, the fact remains that they are selling a digital asset at a valuation that exceeds the total economic output of the known universe by several orders of magnitude. If that's not a scam, I don't know what is.
      - defen 6y ago
        > they are selling a digital asset at a valuation that exceeds the total economic output of the known universe by several orders of magnitude. If that's not a scam, I don't know what is. But they're not. There are 2^32 planets. A planet is the minimum unit of personal identity and is meant to correspond to a "responsible adult human". Within a planet you can have 96 bits of sub-identity, if you want to have things subordinated to your own identity (e.g. your IOT stuff, your phone, your router, your car, your kids, whatever). No one is buying a 128 bit identity. You can buy planets right now for $10-$20 on opensea. $20 * 2^32 is about 10% of the annual military budget of the United States, not several orders of magnitude larger than the total economic output of the known universe.
        lisper 6y ago
        OK, so the market price has gone down since I last looked. Still, even at $10, that's still a valuation of $40 billion. That's in the same league as Dow Chemical and Capital One. So I very much stand by what I said above about fools and their money.

The original parcels of Urbit address space went for a lot more than $20.

by lisper 6y ago

The original parcels of Urbit address space went for a lot more than $20.

You have no idea what you're talking about. The original parcels of urbit address space were given away for free or as contest prizes. Then there were two crowdsales in 2016 and 2017 which both priced address space at less than one cent! There were a few early seed investors as well. I'm not sure what their terms were, but I highly doubt they were massively worse than the crowdsales which occurred later in the project

lisper 6y ago
I have some idea what I'm talking about. I was pitched on Urbit by Curtis himself on April 20, 2012, long before it launched, and before it was even called Urbit. He tried to sell me a block of Urbit address space at the time. I don't remember the asking price, but it was substantial, many thousands of dollars. I declined. Yes, the crowdsales priced individual addresses at less than one cent, but it's a 64-bit address space, so even at one cent that puts the gross valuation of Urbit at many orders magnitude greater than the gross planetary product since the dawn of human history. I'd say that's overvalued. Also, the addresses are not sold individually but in large blocks, with part of the pitch being that people who get in early can turn around and sell parts of their holdings to greater fools. If memory serves, the first crowdsale raised $500k. So even at 1 cent per, someone ended up writing some pretty big checks.
- tripledunit 6y ago
  No, you don't have any idea what you're talking about and you continue to display this ignorance >He tried to sell me a block of Urbit address space at the time. I don't remember the asking price, but it was substantial, many thousands of dollars Okay, many thousands of dollars for how big a block of address space? I'm guessing it was FAR, FAR less than $20 per planet. Because, you know, that's how technical projects like this work. The price of address space has been going up over time as development of the project and engagement with the network increases and risk decreases >Yes, the crowdsales priced individual addresses at less than one cent, but it's a 64-bit address space, so even at one cent that puts the gross valuation of Urbit at many orders magnitude greater than the gross planetary product since the dawn of human history Oh boy. No, the price I quoted you there was less than one cent per planet, because that's the unit that we're talking about here. Planets are the 32 bit level of the address space, so that puts the gross valuation at around $40 million Maybe you think that's still overvalued; I have no interest in speculating myself. But the point is that you are absolutely wrong about the $20 per planet figure above being a lot less than earlier figures >the addresses are not sold individually but in large blocks, with part of the pitch being that people who get in early can turn around and sell parts of their holdings Which is true of pretty much any digital asset, corporate stock investment, etc. Yes, people investing money early in an experimental software project with explosive growth potential are probably speculating to try and make money down the line. You think this is shocking news to anyone?
- Splined 6y ago
  You're either confused or the details have changed since you looked at it 8+ years ago. The address space for sale is 32-bit. There is also a 128-bit space that is free https://urbit.org/blog/the-urbit-address-space/ https://urbit.org/blog/the-urbit-address-space/
  - lisper 6y ago
    Actually, it's just a 128-bit address space (so I was wrong about it being 64-bit, but this just makes the problem that much worse). Parts of this space are divvied up IP-address style into 96-bit-wide blocks (and some other parcel sizes as well), so that carves out a 32-bit sub-space. But no matter how you slice it, the fact remains that they are selling a digital asset at a valuation that exceeds the total economic output of the known universe by several orders of magnitude. If that's not a scam, I don't know what is.
    - defen 6y ago
      > they are selling a digital asset at a valuation that exceeds the total economic output of the known universe by several orders of magnitude. If that's not a scam, I don't know what is. But they're not. There are 2^32 planets. A planet is the minimum unit of personal identity and is meant to correspond to a "responsible adult human". Within a planet you can have 96 bits of sub-identity, if you want to have things subordinated to your own identity (e.g. your IOT stuff, your phone, your router, your car, your kids, whatever). No one is buying a 128 bit identity. You can buy planets right now for $10-$20 on opensea. $20 * 2^32 is about 10% of the annual military budget of the United States, not several orders of magnitude larger than the total economic output of the known universe.
      - lisper 6y ago
        OK, so the market price has gone down since I last looked. Still, even at $10, that's still a valuation of $40 billion. That's in the same league as Dow Chemical and Capital One. So I very much stand by what I said above about fools and their money.