3 ms·

"these people are getting a significant proportion of value for simply being early adopters" I'm not one of them but have no gripes with that. What you describ

by dualogy 15y ago

"these people are getting a significant proportion of value for simply being early adopters" I'm not one of them but have no gripes with that. What you describe is also commonly known as the entrepreneurial taking-unknown-risks for an unknown-future-reward. It's the same with government currencies -- the government/banking complex gets newly created money first, and gets to spend it when the new money supply still has the purchasing power of the old money supply, ie. before inflation. This is their bonus for successfully defending their monopoly on money creation. Not that I'm in favour of such a privilegue. Which is the appeal to a growing number of users: yes, early adopters may be rewarded in proportion to how early they adopted, BUT no-one can unilaterally create new Bitcoins at the push of a button or by signing some law and even the early adopters could not initially create more bitcoins or faster than prescribed by the open source peer to peer protocol.

abulafia 15y ago
It's not the same as taking early risks; this is a very constrained and artificial environment in which bitcoins are generated. One can be pretty certain that if one generates coins early, one can then make money selling them to others. This is much more similar to a pyramid marketing scenario, where the earlier franchises are inherently worth more, and eventually the value generated for the terminal generation of participants is close to nil. I'd argue you're not exactly correct about the release path of currency in a fractional reserve system, although I don't disagree that elements are currently implemented in quite unfair ways. I'd also suggest, though, that government fiat currency works very much better than anything commodity based, or indeed than a partially fiat system that functions exactly like a commodity based system, as bitcoin does.
- wmf 15y ago
  One can be pretty certain that if one generates coins early, one can then make money selling them to others. I don't know about that. Back in 2009 or 2010, Bitcoins were worth practically nothing and almost everyone predicted that they'd never be worth anything. And if no one mined, maybe Bitcoin would never have taken off (to the extent that it has) and it would still be worthless.
  - abulafia 15y ago
    I'm suggesting that if you believe in the model, and even the most obvious ramifications of such an economy, the value of participating in the system is to be as far upstream as possible. I don't believe in the model, so, I'm not suggesting it has real value now or going forward. You're also actually assuming something that runs counter to the stated bitcoin model, as described in the FAQ (which seems to be down at the moment). That is that there's an investment in making bitcoins, which they would say is not so. The intent in burning cycles and power is simply to ensure security, while the value comes from faith in the currency. Hence, there is no investment in creation: the investment would instead be in accepting bitcoins in transactions, which iterates the pyramidal nature of the system.

by dualogy 15y ago

abulafia 15y ago

It's not the same as taking early risks; this is a very constrained and artificial environment in which bitcoins are generated. One can be pretty certain that if one generates coins early, one can then make money selling them to others. This is much more similar to a pyramid marketing scenario, where the earlier franchises are inherently worth more, and eventually the value generated for the terminal generation of participants is close to nil. I'd argue you're not exactly correct about the release path of currency in a fractional reserve system, although I don't disagree that elements are currently implemented in quite unfair ways. I'd also suggest, though, that government fiat currency works very much better than anything commodity based, or indeed than a partially fiat system that functions exactly like a commodity based system, as bitcoin does.

wmf 15y ago
One can be pretty certain that if one generates coins early, one can then make money selling them to others. I don't know about that. Back in 2009 or 2010, Bitcoins were worth practically nothing and almost everyone predicted that they'd never be worth anything. And if no one mined, maybe Bitcoin would never have taken off (to the extent that it has) and it would still be worthless.
- abulafia 15y ago
  I'm suggesting that if you believe in the model, and even the most obvious ramifications of such an economy, the value of participating in the system is to be as far upstream as possible. I don't believe in the model, so, I'm not suggesting it has real value now or going forward. You're also actually assuming something that runs counter to the stated bitcoin model, as described in the FAQ (which seems to be down at the moment). That is that there's an investment in making bitcoins, which they would say is not so. The intent in burning cycles and power is simply to ensure security, while the value comes from faith in the currency. Hence, there is no investment in creation: the investment would instead be in accepting bitcoins in transactions, which iterates the pyramidal nature of the system.