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I just read at the top of Stellar's forum a note from Joyce Kim, CEO of Stellar: >We expect that as a price for stellar becomes more established, we'll have to

by jnbiche 12y ago

I just read at the top of Stellar's forum a note from Joyce Kim, CEO of Stellar: >We expect that as a price for stellar becomes more established, we'll have to continually adjust the total amount of the giveaway to make sure it keeps making sense. So they're already dialing back their distribution promise. This is exactly what happened with Ripple. When Ripple first started, there were assurances that all but 20% of Ripples would be distributed "as quickly as possible". That didn't happen. Several years later now, Ripple has decided to basically keep as many ripples as they can, which is supposedly part of what led to the split between Jed and the Ripple leadership/owners. All this is a funny commentary on human nature. As an outsider, it's as clear as day to me that in order to succeed, Ripple needed to rapidly distribute as many XRP as possible. After all, 5% of a lot of money is worth much more than 50% of nothing. The only other missing ingredient for Ripple was community engagement. And with Stellar I fear we'll see the same thing (at least with respect to a rapidly decreasing distribution rate). These issues are exactly why Bitcoiners are so scornful of "pre-mined" coins. All things considered, proof-of-work and proof-of-burn are still by far the fairest and most successful currency bootstrapping methods. Stellar uses neither. Bootstrapping a currency is the ultimate Zen undertaking: in order to make money as a crypto-bootstrapper, you must find ways to distribute it, either by giving it away or (preferably) by fostering entrepreneurship and spending it on those merchants who take a chance on accepting it. A lesson much of the Bitcoin community still hasn't taken to heart, which is likely the only reason why interest in the coin is failing to pass on from the early adopter to the early majority.

swamp12 12y ago
Sorry that wasn't clear. What she means is the amount given to each person. We are still and always will be committed to giving away the total 95B stellars. I just edited her post to clarify what we were trying to say.
- jnbiche 12y ago
  Thanks for the response. At the same time, I remained concerned by this idea that an increase in value of Stellars would slow down the rate of distribution. After all, new users are a limited commodity (particularly after the honeymoon period). So almost by definition, if you chose to decrease the amount of Stellars distributed because the price is increasing, then you're slowing down the rate of distribution. Which is exactly what Ripple has done. I'd be happy to be proved wrong on this one, but I'm definitely taking a wait and see approach.
mrb 12y ago
"interest in the coin is failing to pass on" What makes you think it is failing? Literally all the indicators show that interest in Bitcoin is growing: - Payment processors are growing very fast (eg. BitPay is signing up 500-1000 new merchants every week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8YSivdLKf0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8YSivdLKf0 and see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7974197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7974197) - Even very large companies began to accept Bitcoin: Dell, Expedia, Newegg, Dish Network, Overstock, TigerDirect... - BTC continues to gain value --chaotically through bubbles but still gaining value overall: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg730zigWeeklyzczsg2012-01-01zeg2014-08-03ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zl http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg730zigWeeklyzc... - Bitcoin VC investment reached $158 million this year, and is on target to reach $200-300 million, approximately 2x-3x more than last year: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-venture-capital/ http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-venture-capital/
- jnbiche 12y ago
  Interest among businesses and institutions has increased and to an impressive extent. Interest among users seems to have stagnated. If you can show any metrics pointing to an increasing rate of adoption among users, I would be greatly heartened. Instead, we seem to be reaching a wall between the early adopters and early majority. This is a well-known chasms in the technology adoption cycle, and I'm a bit concerned about Bitcoin's ability to jump it, particularly given the current "hodl" mentality of most users of the coin. On the other hand, if there's another big jump in price (not unlikely), then there will likely be increased interest among users. So I'm not saying Bitcoin will never gain majority adoption. I'm just saying that at this point, things don't look as promising as they did a year ago.
  - ghshephard 12y ago
    Ironically, a big jump in price is of of the negative things that can happen to Bitcoin. The best thing that could possibly happen to increase the utilization of Bitcoin as a medium for transaction, as has always been the case, is that Bitcoin gets pegged to normal a bucket of Fiat Currency, (USD, INR, EUR, GBP) and then flatlines. And, I don't know how much you use Bitcoin to buy things, but Bitcoin is about 20x more useful this year than it was last year in terms of making purchases, particularly now that Apple lets you put a wallet on your iPhone. Purchasing from your smartphone is going to be the way 99%+ of people use bitcoins on a daily basis, so that change is huge. The metrics that really need to be tracked are: What percentage of people have made a single, transaction from a wallet in the previous month, and, 2-5, 6-20, 21+ transactions a month. That will give us the best understanding of Bitcoins growth as a transaction medium. And, of course, this all ignores other innovative uses of the Blockchain, upon which Bitcoin as a currency might have just been the Trojan horse in enabling.

by jnbiche 12y ago

swamp12 12y ago

Sorry that wasn't clear. What she means is the amount given to each person. We are still and always will be committed to giving away the total 95B stellars. I just edited her post to clarify what we were trying to say.

jnbiche 12y ago
Thanks for the response. At the same time, I remained concerned by this idea that an increase in value of Stellars would slow down the rate of distribution. After all, new users are a limited commodity (particularly after the honeymoon period). So almost by definition, if you chose to decrease the amount of Stellars distributed because the price is increasing, then you're slowing down the rate of distribution. Which is exactly what Ripple has done. I'd be happy to be proved wrong on this one, but I'm definitely taking a wait and see approach.

mrb 12y ago

"interest in the coin is failing to pass on" What makes you think it is failing? Literally all the indicators show that interest in Bitcoin is growing: - Payment processors are growing very fast (eg. BitPay is signing up 500-1000 new merchants every week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8YSivdLKf0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8YSivdLKf0 and see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7974197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7974197) - Even very large companies began to accept Bitcoin: Dell, Expedia, Newegg, Dish Network, Overstock, TigerDirect... - BTC continues to gain value --chaotically through bubbles but still gaining value overall: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg730zigWeeklyzczsg2012-01-01zeg2014-08-03ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zl http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg730zigWeeklyzc... - Bitcoin VC investment reached $158 million this year, and is on target to reach $200-300 million, approximately 2x-3x more than last year: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-venture-capital/ http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-venture-capital/

jnbiche 12y ago
Interest among businesses and institutions has increased and to an impressive extent. Interest among users seems to have stagnated. If you can show any metrics pointing to an increasing rate of adoption among users, I would be greatly heartened. Instead, we seem to be reaching a wall between the early adopters and early majority. This is a well-known chasms in the technology adoption cycle, and I'm a bit concerned about Bitcoin's ability to jump it, particularly given the current "hodl" mentality of most users of the coin. On the other hand, if there's another big jump in price (not unlikely), then there will likely be increased interest among users. So I'm not saying Bitcoin will never gain majority adoption. I'm just saying that at this point, things don't look as promising as they did a year ago.
- ghshephard 12y ago
  Ironically, a big jump in price is of of the negative things that can happen to Bitcoin. The best thing that could possibly happen to increase the utilization of Bitcoin as a medium for transaction, as has always been the case, is that Bitcoin gets pegged to normal a bucket of Fiat Currency, (USD, INR, EUR, GBP) and then flatlines. And, I don't know how much you use Bitcoin to buy things, but Bitcoin is about 20x more useful this year than it was last year in terms of making purchases, particularly now that Apple lets you put a wallet on your iPhone. Purchasing from your smartphone is going to be the way 99%+ of people use bitcoins on a daily basis, so that change is huge. The metrics that really need to be tracked are: What percentage of people have made a single, transaction from a wallet in the previous month, and, 2-5, 6-20, 21+ transactions a month. That will give us the best understanding of Bitcoins growth as a transaction medium. And, of course, this all ignores other innovative uses of the Blockchain, upon which Bitcoin as a currency might have just been the Trojan horse in enabling.