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That's a fair point, but it doesn't seem like there's much of a practical difference in terms of user apprehension related to the consequences of pre-mining (na

That's a fair point, but it doesn't seem like there's much of a practical difference in terms of user apprehension related to the consequences of pre-mining (namely, that the creator controls a gigantic sum of coins at close to zero cost)

kinghajj 11y ago
It's a problem of fairness. Satoshi released Bitcoin publicly and only then began mining coins, just like everyone else was potentially able to do. It's hard to begrudge him from using his own invention, after all! Whereas pre-mined cryptocurrencies make others feel cheated.
- vectorpush 11y ago
  I understand the fairness argument, but I wonder where the line is drawn between pre-mine and low-key release. Just releasing the client doesn't seem like it'd be enough to evade criticism if the practical effect is the same as a pre-mine (i.e the creator gets a huge head start before people start to catch on).
  - tablewatcher 11y ago
    Before Satoshi's invention the concept of pre-mining didn't exist. I think the inventor of the worlds first decentralised currency is allowed to do whatever he wants. If you dont like it, make your own currency and stop bickering.
    - vectorpush 11y ago
      Huh? Of course he is allowed to do whatever he wants, the nature of Satoshi's prerogatives are not in question here. My point is that there's very little practical difference between pre-mining and early-mining during a time when the currency is basically unknown. It's not as if it's a trivial amount of coins either, Satoshi's stash completely dwarfs the holdings of every bitcoin user that has come after him, so it's hard to just write it off as blockchain finder's fee.
- mcs 11y ago
  The Satoshi fingerprinted mining carefully balanced the hashrate of the cluster, with the goal of historically viewable well-meaning intentions. http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2014/08/167-satoshis-hashrate.html http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2014/08/167-satoshis-hashra...
- sneak 11y ago
  There is absolutely zero evidence that those first blocks were mined by the author of the software. Certainly, it's a safe assumption. But we don't know that Satoshi ever mined a single main chain bitcoin.
celticninja 11y ago
I like how you think that creating bitcoin was no work at all. Look at where it is now, isn't that a bit like mark Zuckerberg making a large fortune from creating Facebook? And they were not zero cost, initially they would have expense to make something that had no value. Only because he has the coins is bitcoin worth anything , he has them because the network required a miner, he turned them off when there was a stable network that didn't need his mining power,i
- vectorpush 11y ago
  > I like how you think that creating bitcoin was no work at all. I never said or implied that. > isn't that a bit like mark Zuckerberg making a large fortune from creating Facebook? Facebook is a company, Zuckerberg made a large fortune because investors and advertisers gave money directly to his company. > And they were not zero cost, initially they would have expense to make something that had no value. I said close to zero; the point being that pre-miners and Satoshi put in a negligible amount of computational effort relative to the payoff, especially when you consider the staggering sum of coins mined. > he turned them off when there was a stable network that didn't need his mining power I'm not trying to judge Satoshi's intentions or values, though it's pretty obvious that continuing to amass even larger sums of bitcoin wouldn't have made the community very comfortable. Still, 5% of the entire money supply seems pretty significant for a currency that's the ostensible future of money.
  - celticninja 11y ago
    > Satoshi put in a negligible amount of computational effort relative to the payoff Yes but he put in a metric fuck ton of work imagining and coding bitcoin. Comparing bitcoin to a pre-mined alt-coin is disingenous. Bitcoin is different because it came first, it needed those coins to be mined for the network to exist. Alt-coins that were pre-mined were pre-mined specificaly to create an advantage for the author of the system after seein the success of bitcoin. Satoshi cannot be said with having done this. He didnt know the success that would follow on from his experiment and he didnt pre-mine, he just made up a large part of the network in the early days.
celticninja 11y ago
I like how you think that creating bitcoin was no work at all. Look at where it is now, isn't that a bit like mark Zuckerberg making a large fortune from creating Facebook? And they were not zero cost, initially they would have expense to make something that had no value. Only because he has the coins is bitcoin worth anything , he has them because the network required a miner, he turned them off when there was a stable network that didn't need his mining power,i

kinghajj 11y ago

It's a problem of fairness. Satoshi released Bitcoin publicly and only then began mining coins, just like everyone else was potentially able to do. It's hard to begrudge him from using his own invention, after all! Whereas pre-mined cryptocurrencies make others feel cheated.

vectorpush 11y ago
I understand the fairness argument, but I wonder where the line is drawn between pre-mine and low-key release. Just releasing the client doesn't seem like it'd be enough to evade criticism if the practical effect is the same as a pre-mine (i.e the creator gets a huge head start before people start to catch on).
- tablewatcher 11y ago
  Before Satoshi's invention the concept of pre-mining didn't exist. I think the inventor of the worlds first decentralised currency is allowed to do whatever he wants. If you dont like it, make your own currency and stop bickering.
  - vectorpush 11y ago
    Huh? Of course he is allowed to do whatever he wants, the nature of Satoshi's prerogatives are not in question here. My point is that there's very little practical difference between pre-mining and early-mining during a time when the currency is basically unknown. It's not as if it's a trivial amount of coins either, Satoshi's stash completely dwarfs the holdings of every bitcoin user that has come after him, so it's hard to just write it off as blockchain finder's fee.
mcs 11y ago
The Satoshi fingerprinted mining carefully balanced the hashrate of the cluster, with the goal of historically viewable well-meaning intentions. http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2014/08/167-satoshis-hashrate.html http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2014/08/167-satoshis-hashra...
sneak 11y ago
There is absolutely zero evidence that those first blocks were mined by the author of the software. Certainly, it's a safe assumption. But we don't know that Satoshi ever mined a single main chain bitcoin.

celticninja 11y ago

I like how you think that creating bitcoin was no work at all. Look at where it is now, isn't that a bit like mark Zuckerberg making a large fortune from creating Facebook? And they were not zero cost, initially they would have expense to make something that had no value. Only because he has the coins is bitcoin worth anything , he has them because the network required a miner, he turned them off when there was a stable network that didn't need his mining power,i

vectorpush 11y ago
> I like how you think that creating bitcoin was no work at all. I never said or implied that. > isn't that a bit like mark Zuckerberg making a large fortune from creating Facebook? Facebook is a company, Zuckerberg made a large fortune because investors and advertisers gave money directly to his company. > And they were not zero cost, initially they would have expense to make something that had no value. I said close to zero; the point being that pre-miners and Satoshi put in a negligible amount of computational effort relative to the payoff, especially when you consider the staggering sum of coins mined. > he turned them off when there was a stable network that didn't need his mining power I'm not trying to judge Satoshi's intentions or values, though it's pretty obvious that continuing to amass even larger sums of bitcoin wouldn't have made the community very comfortable. Still, 5% of the entire money supply seems pretty significant for a currency that's the ostensible future of money.
- celticninja 11y ago
  > Satoshi put in a negligible amount of computational effort relative to the payoff Yes but he put in a metric fuck ton of work imagining and coding bitcoin. Comparing bitcoin to a pre-mined alt-coin is disingenous. Bitcoin is different because it came first, it needed those coins to be mined for the network to exist. Alt-coins that were pre-mined were pre-mined specificaly to create an advantage for the author of the system after seein the success of bitcoin. Satoshi cannot be said with having done this. He didnt know the success that would follow on from his experiment and he didnt pre-mine, he just made up a large part of the network in the early days.

celticninja 11y ago