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One thing I never quite understood, but haven't really heard mentioned, is what makes this instance of a digital currency special. If I were to start another po
by jkarni 13y ago
One thing I never quite understood, but haven't really heard mentioned, is what makes this instance of a digital currency special. If I were to start another pool of bitcoins, with it's own mining etc. (like say, litecoin, but not necessarily technologically different from bitcoins) is the only disadvantage, from the perspective of adoption, that it wasn't the original, and is a little less prominent?
If so, I can empathize with the "losing faith" perspective. It only takes the tiniest bit of squinting to see bitcoins not at fundamentally limited, and therefore currency-worthy, but as completely unlimited.
- iand 13y agoThe computing power directed at bitcoin is already huge. You would need to persuade those miners (who also verify transactions don't forget) to switch to your new coin. If they stop mining bitcoins then they fall behind their competitors. They then have to swallow the risk of mining a new coin that has no users yet.
- jkarni 13y agoBut presumably the computing cost would be much lower for the new coin, since it'd be earlier on in it's mining history. Who knows where the respective expected values stabilize. Also, what if the new coin has some minor technical improvement? How do we know that won't outweight the established network effects?
- iand 13y agoWe don't know any of those things. That's why it would be higher risk to start mining it. The rewards might be huge or they might be nil.