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> Or are you more referring to Satoshi’s white paper when you refer to “altruistic motives”. There's little altruistic about an emission that allocates half of
by tromp 4y ago
> Or are you more referring to Satoshi’s white paper when you refer to “altruistic motives”.
There's little altruistic about an emission that allocates half of all supply (first four years) going to early miners including Satoshi himself, and leaves only crumbs for later generations.
- rafale 4y agoSatoshi picked that model probably because it's easy to divide by 2 (x >> 2). He didn't want to prematurely optimize or overthink anything because it was a simple experiment and nobody could have predicted that Bitcoin will become the mammoth it is now.
- mackman 4y agoShifting by two is dividing by four. Not so easy, after all!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mdolon 4y agoThis was my biggest “a-ha” realization around crypto, that the distribution model is utterly and irreparably broken for the most popular currencies. Whenever I bring this up with BTC/crypto maximalists their counterpoint is that fiat is also unevenly distributed and that it’s not a novel problem. The disconnect is truly puzzling.
- tromp 4y agoIt's not a novel problem, but nearly all cryptocurrencies exacerbate it by concentrating the majority of emission on the first few years. Non-pow coins even start with the creators holding 100% of supply. When they could instead minimize the problem (or limit it to the pre-existing fiat inequality) with a pure linear emission, i.e. fixed block subsidy. The resulting high supply inflation rate (1/n after n years) would have the side benefit of deterring speculation, and keeping prices (and hence environmental impact) low.
- lazide 4y agoIt's not so puzzling when you realize most people are perfectly fine about something if they get paid by it, or think they might one day get paid by it. Less fine if they won't and someone else will.