5 ms·

I am completely on board with Bitcoin, but I'm a bit amazed (for lack of a better term really) on how wealthy current Bitcoin participants will become when Bitc

by thrush 13y ago

I am completely on board with Bitcoin, but I'm a bit amazed (for lack of a better term really) on how wealthy current Bitcoin participants will become when Bitcoin becomes ubiquitous. It seems that it would be more fair that everyone just transfer their current personal value into bitcoin value to avoid the inflation effect. There is no doubt that the current participants are creating incredible value for the rest of the world, and should be rewarded, but it's truly scary how much money they will have. I'd be interested to see someone do the math on how rich they would become, but I think it would be scary. I feel that democracy is to politics as what bitcoin is to the economy, but our founding fathers were not turned into trillionaires. My understanding is certainly limited, but I think the reality is plausible.

BlackDeath3 13y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong: are you suggesting that instead of allowing a small number of early-ish adopters to get wealthy, you want to ensure that the small number of currently wealthy stay wealthy, for fairness' sake?
otoburb 13y ago
What is the difference between bitcoin early adopters versus startup early investors in the unicorn club? Both sets of people would have "scary" amounts of money (presumably if both valuations increase rapidly). An on-going and updated analysis of the estimated wealth distribution of bitcoins shows up on the Bitcointalk.org forum[1]. [1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=316297.msg4779800#msg4779800 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=316297.msg4779800#ms...
1053r 13y ago
A few of the very earliest participants in the bitcoin community (who got in before the first big peak at $32) have 100K BTC. As a rough order of magnitude estimate, if Bitcoin gets to be as big a thing as gold, then it will be worth about $10 trillion. Since there will be about 20 million BTC by then, those individuals will be worth about $50 billion. This is a lot of money to be sure, but there won't be many of those people, and this is not out of line with the world's very highest net worth individuals. The people who got in after that peak will probably be worth at least an order of magnitude less. And if Bitcoin turns out to be a smaller deal than gold, it might "only" create fortunes worth 9 figures of USD.
- mcintyre1994 13y ago
  Apparently Satoshi has around 1 million BTC [0] which is staggering plugging your numbers. That'd put him at $500 billion which is insane. Since you said 20 million BTC (less than the total there will ever be), we're talking within about 20 years right? It would be incredibly interesting to see what happens if somebody ends up with a theoretical worth exceeding the top 10 wealthiest people in the world, but I wonder whether the mystery of who he is could actually stop that happening. Also only 4 individuals are worth more than $50B so that's pretty incredible too. [1] [0] http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/bitcoin-mints-its-first-billionaire-satoshi-nakamoto http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/bitcoin-mints-its-first-bil... [1] http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/ http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/
  - juliangoldsmith 13y ago
    That also assumes that he still has the private key to his address(es).
  - kgo 13y ago
    Inflation adjusted, that would put him in the range of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Mellon, etc. If (and it's a big if) bitcoin was worth as much as the world gold market, it isn't disruptive like an internet startup, it's disruptive like Marxism. We could argue about the insanity suggesting that bitcoin will reach that sort of value, but if it somehow did, then $500 billion isn't totally out of line.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - downer80 13y ago
    I think it's pretty obvious at this point that Satoshi Nakamoto is just Gavin Andresen's pseudonym. Is there anything wrong with that assumption? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Andresen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Andresen https://github.com/gavinandresen https://github.com/gavinandresen https://twitter.com/gavinandresen https://twitter.com/gavinandresen https://plus.google.com/117494054859918211010 https://plus.google.com/117494054859918211010
nugget 13y ago
Your post reads like penny stock hype, which ultimately just hurts us in the alt coin community. Many smart people on both sides of the market have priced in future expectations and determined current coin prices. Certainly the hope is it will rise over time but to imply a free market is mispriced by orders of magnitude is disingenuous.
- msane 13y ago
  Don't be silly. The statement above is not meant to manipulate anything. Bitcoin will do what it does regardless of what is said here. It's a very interesting thought. Wealth distribution is a concern is it not? In the fiat economies ~80 people hold half of the worlds wealth. There's nothing wrong with thinking about the present distribution among BTC, and how do we think it will evolve?
kordless 13y ago
Amazement is related to awe, which has components of surprise and fear: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Plutchik-wheel.svg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Plutchik-.... Fear will drive you to cognitive dissonance if you don't pay careful attention. Your second statement makes no sense from a practical standpoint as there would be no way to transfer all personal values into any system en masse. This implies an unresolved argument is forming. Your third statement confirms your fears and the reason for the argument. Decentralized crypto currency technologies can also conceivably eliminate the need for the current government structure. Your comparison excludes this and limits Bitcoin to just the economy. Our founding fathers were mostly wealthy to begin with and their involvement in forming our government helped build that wealth further. This is conjecture, but based on the fact we're seeing an unprecedented amount of sharing and giving going on in the alt coin ecosystem, I think any Bitcoin trillionaire/billionaire is going to turn out to be quite liquid with their funds, especially where building the ecosystem is involved. There's something to being able to trust whoever you choose to give funds to actually gets the funds without an intermediary getting involved. Add contracts to that, and you get massive intent initiated on a global scale for a given effort.
nostrademons 13y ago
Currencies circulate. If Bitcoin succeeds as a currency, it will be because those big holders put their bitcoins back into the economy, which gives them a chance to pool at the people and organizations who are creating the most value and not the people who originally mined them. If large Bitcoin holders do not put their money back into the economy, Bitcoin will fail as a currency and their holdings will be worth nothing. This is one reason I'm somewhat more optimistic about Dogecoin. Dogecoin culture is explicitly centered around tipping, donations, and goods & services, which is what you need to get a new currency going. It's also quite interesting that the whole progression of gold -> dollars -> Bitcoin -> Dogecoin follows Gresham's Law [1]. At each stage, currencies that are hoarded for their value are replaced by currencies that are intrinsically more worthless, because the lower value of those currencies means they can be held by a larger fraction of the population who has a demand for goods & services but no means of payment. This makes me wonder if in the absence of central regulation, currencies are subject to the same disruptive innovation forces as the tech industry, where the success of a currency sows the seeds of its eventual downfall.
- oafitupa 13y ago
  It's funny how each new copycoin tries to compare itself with Bitcoin, and assume Bitcoin will become a thing of the past. Every single copycoin does the same. Both Litecoin and Dogecoin users said "Bitcoin paved the way for Litecoin/Dogecoin". Now look at the Litecoin guys. They are starting to see how little value they added, and now that other coins like Doge did the same, their value is starting to get diluted and will probably just die eventually. The same will happen with Quark, Dogecoin, Shitcoin, etc. And don't get me started with the obnoxious doge tips. If the tips are worth less than a penny keep them to yourself please.
  - infectoid 13y ago
    I can see where you're coming from and kind of agree, but I'm cool with all the new altcoins popping up. I think it helps to legitimise the whole concept and shift it from a fringe movement to a more mainstream idea. While I understand your frustration with Dogecoin, I think it's power (other than not taking itself too seriously) is that it's extremely liquid. It means you see it move around a lot more and can be generally used in place of karma/upvotes (which aren't really worth anything). Ultimately I encourage all of this experimentation. I feel that entirely new economic paradigms will emerge from all of this if we let it. Who knows where it's all going to end up, hopefully somewhere none of us can predict.

by thrush 13y ago

BlackDeath3 13y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong: are you suggesting that instead of allowing a small number of early-ish adopters to get wealthy, you want to ensure that the small number of currently wealthy stay wealthy, for fairness' sake?

otoburb 13y ago

What is the difference between bitcoin early adopters versus startup early investors in the unicorn club? Both sets of people would have "scary" amounts of money (presumably if both valuations increase rapidly). An on-going and updated analysis of the estimated wealth distribution of bitcoins shows up on the Bitcointalk.org forum[1]. [1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=316297.msg4779800#msg4779800 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=316297.msg4779800#ms...

1053r 13y ago

A few of the very earliest participants in the bitcoin community (who got in before the first big peak at $32) have 100K BTC. As a rough order of magnitude estimate, if Bitcoin gets to be as big a thing as gold, then it will be worth about $10 trillion. Since there will be about 20 million BTC by then, those individuals will be worth about $50 billion. This is a lot of money to be sure, but there won't be many of those people, and this is not out of line with the world's very highest net worth individuals. The people who got in after that peak will probably be worth at least an order of magnitude less. And if Bitcoin turns out to be a smaller deal than gold, it might "only" create fortunes worth 9 figures of USD.

mcintyre1994 13y ago
Apparently Satoshi has around 1 million BTC [0] which is staggering plugging your numbers. That'd put him at $500 billion which is insane. Since you said 20 million BTC (less than the total there will ever be), we're talking within about 20 years right? It would be incredibly interesting to see what happens if somebody ends up with a theoretical worth exceeding the top 10 wealthiest people in the world, but I wonder whether the mystery of who he is could actually stop that happening. Also only 4 individuals are worth more than $50B so that's pretty incredible too. [1] [0] http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/bitcoin-mints-its-first-billionaire-satoshi-nakamoto http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/bitcoin-mints-its-first-bil... [1] http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/ http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/
- juliangoldsmith 13y ago
  That also assumes that he still has the private key to his address(es).
- kgo 13y ago
  Inflation adjusted, that would put him in the range of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Mellon, etc. If (and it's a big if) bitcoin was worth as much as the world gold market, it isn't disruptive like an internet startup, it's disruptive like Marxism. We could argue about the insanity suggesting that bitcoin will reach that sort of value, but if it somehow did, then $500 billion isn't totally out of line.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- downer80 13y ago
  I think it's pretty obvious at this point that Satoshi Nakamoto is just Gavin Andresen's pseudonym. Is there anything wrong with that assumption? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Andresen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Andresen https://github.com/gavinandresen https://github.com/gavinandresen https://twitter.com/gavinandresen https://twitter.com/gavinandresen https://plus.google.com/117494054859918211010 https://plus.google.com/117494054859918211010

nugget 13y ago

Your post reads like penny stock hype, which ultimately just hurts us in the alt coin community. Many smart people on both sides of the market have priced in future expectations and determined current coin prices. Certainly the hope is it will rise over time but to imply a free market is mispriced by orders of magnitude is disingenuous.

msane 13y ago
Don't be silly. The statement above is not meant to manipulate anything. Bitcoin will do what it does regardless of what is said here. It's a very interesting thought. Wealth distribution is a concern is it not? In the fiat economies ~80 people hold half of the worlds wealth. There's nothing wrong with thinking about the present distribution among BTC, and how do we think it will evolve?

kordless 13y ago

Amazement is related to awe, which has components of surprise and fear: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Plutchik-wheel.svg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Plutchik-.... Fear will drive you to cognitive dissonance if you don't pay careful attention. Your second statement makes no sense from a practical standpoint as there would be no way to transfer all personal values into any system en masse. This implies an unresolved argument is forming. Your third statement confirms your fears and the reason for the argument. Decentralized crypto currency technologies can also conceivably eliminate the need for the current government structure. Your comparison excludes this and limits Bitcoin to just the economy. Our founding fathers were mostly wealthy to begin with and their involvement in forming our government helped build that wealth further. This is conjecture, but based on the fact we're seeing an unprecedented amount of sharing and giving going on in the alt coin ecosystem, I think any Bitcoin trillionaire/billionaire is going to turn out to be quite liquid with their funds, especially where building the ecosystem is involved. There's something to being able to trust whoever you choose to give funds to actually gets the funds without an intermediary getting involved. Add contracts to that, and you get massive intent initiated on a global scale for a given effort.

nostrademons 13y ago

Currencies circulate. If Bitcoin succeeds as a currency, it will be because those big holders put their bitcoins back into the economy, which gives them a chance to pool at the people and organizations who are creating the most value and not the people who originally mined them. If large Bitcoin holders do not put their money back into the economy, Bitcoin will fail as a currency and their holdings will be worth nothing. This is one reason I'm somewhat more optimistic about Dogecoin. Dogecoin culture is explicitly centered around tipping, donations, and goods & services, which is what you need to get a new currency going. It's also quite interesting that the whole progression of gold -> dollars -> Bitcoin -> Dogecoin follows Gresham's Law [1]. At each stage, currencies that are hoarded for their value are replaced by currencies that are intrinsically more worthless, because the lower value of those currencies means they can be held by a larger fraction of the population who has a demand for goods & services but no means of payment. This makes me wonder if in the absence of central regulation, currencies are subject to the same disruptive innovation forces as the tech industry, where the success of a currency sows the seeds of its eventual downfall.

oafitupa 13y ago
It's funny how each new copycoin tries to compare itself with Bitcoin, and assume Bitcoin will become a thing of the past. Every single copycoin does the same. Both Litecoin and Dogecoin users said "Bitcoin paved the way for Litecoin/Dogecoin". Now look at the Litecoin guys. They are starting to see how little value they added, and now that other coins like Doge did the same, their value is starting to get diluted and will probably just die eventually. The same will happen with Quark, Dogecoin, Shitcoin, etc. And don't get me started with the obnoxious doge tips. If the tips are worth less than a penny keep them to yourself please.
- infectoid 13y ago
  I can see where you're coming from and kind of agree, but I'm cool with all the new altcoins popping up. I think it helps to legitimise the whole concept and shift it from a fringe movement to a more mainstream idea. While I understand your frustration with Dogecoin, I think it's power (other than not taking itself too seriously) is that it's extremely liquid. It means you see it move around a lot more and can be generally used in place of karma/upvotes (which aren't really worth anything). Ultimately I encourage all of this experimentation. I feel that entirely new economic paradigms will emerge from all of this if we let it. Who knows where it's all going to end up, hopefully somewhere none of us can predict.