Bitcoin Forum

If Bitcoin ever did go completely mainstream and actually succeeded in killing off some fiat currencies, it would make just about every person on this forum incredibly wealthy. The new wealthy elite would be roughly 95% male, and dominated by geeks/nerds/libertarians/smart people. 

Speculate on how you think this would affect the world we live in.  What would be different vs today's world?

don't be a douche  mmmk?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12156

I would speculate that most geeks/nerds/libertarians/smart people will not be able to resist temptations and will not be able to run the marathon, most will be sprinters and will sell out most or all BTC holdings way under 1000$ per BTC to the banksters.

I agree with your speculations, but there is an idea:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77151.0;all


that could spread Bitcoin across the world in ( perhaps ) a matter of months.

The people who will be weak enough to sell their bitcoins for paper money will not be able to affect the value of Bitcoin if it is entrenched in multiple societies.

A fool and his money are soon parted.  Many of us who "would have been" wealthy would have lost it to money smart people and there will be a lot of people saying dam they wish they kept their bitcoins.

Nikola Tesla was very smart when it came to physics and electronics, however he was less than proficient when it came to understanding human relations and their wealth.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist that if I make something that gives people free energy your not going to get someone to fund it. The fact he could not figure that out and trick the fools that funded him is why he died poor and broken.  

The bottom line we all can't be smart at everything and common sense is not common.

Davinci
BTW: Just because I understand this does not make me an exception. ;)

Absolutely not. A lot of people around here have ~0 coins and another group are in bitcoin debt.

What % of world wealth do you think men have now?

But yeah, it'll be higher % smart people than now :-)

Had to quote you so I could read the text... Thats small!

If the power of currency creation is taken away from governments and big banks, we will have more freedoms and more limited governments. The intelligent people that take the time to understand Bitcoin and its possibilities earliest will benefit the most, as they should.

For Bitcoin to go mainstream, there must be incentive for merchants to take Bitcoin over fiat. Better yet, incentive for merchants to decline payments in fiat, and only accept Bitcoin. Unfortunately only illicit markets serve this functionality at the moment..

It wouldn't make sense for bitcoin to kill fiat currency since it is entirely backed by fiat currency.

Face it, if you couldn't exchange bitcoins for dollars, not one single person would bother with them.  Just go to any thread where someone is scamming/selling something.  Everything is translated in US dollar value.

This is only partly true. I personally would enjoy taking USD out of the equation.

I would accept only bitcoin, period.


All money is based on trust in a system, ability to be recognized, and usability. In this era of transition, digital money is an easy choice to make. Just make it. :)


I suggest seeing this → ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LaSrxtWfgc ) and making a final decision.

Where are the ones who really opened up the doors for the ↑above? Dennis Ritchie and Kenneth Thompson? ( http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Kenneth+Thompson+Dennis+Ritchie+unix )


Torvalds is worth maybe $20 million and his stuff is given away for free.


By the way, the richest man, Carlos Slim,  is heavily involved in mobile.

But you can't. Price something in bitcoin without looking at the exchange rate to dollars. (You can do it off the top of your head but lets say in 18 months)

Bitcoin just started the wrong way. If it were used for example trading pictures you made, or something else easily produced by everybody instead of buying somebody a pizza it would have turned out very differently. This is a social issue not a economical or technical one.

The only reason you can pick a price for a thing in dollars is that you are surrounded by dollar price tags. If the dollar was gone you'd have to find another way (like looking around at the BTC price tags, yes it's circular, it's already begun).

Ever played any online game with ingame currency? There are no pricetags in dollars. Well at least used to in Diablo III that is possible too. The difference here is item prices in dollar follow their ingame gold value not verse visa.
That's the point I'm trying to make if bitcoin started as a trading tool for something valuable but not necessarily costly (for example game items or pictures) it would have evolved very differently. It's already too late for that since we have almost half of all bitcoins valued in dollar instead of something fundamental.

It is more accurate to say that fiat is backed by Bitcoin than to say Bitcoin is backed by fiat. Money, in whatever form, is only as good as what it can be traded for, and it makes more sense to hold Bitcoin than fiat since one suffers from indefinite inflation and the other doesn't. Realistically, neither of them are backed by anything tangible. If America woke up tomorrow knowing what fractional reserve banking is, you'd likely see a financial revolution, and people would stop caring about USD, and instead care about trading resources and units of value that don't suffer from inflation.

I wouldn't say it's too late to change that…

I'm sure being incredibly wealthy will be nice, but am I the only one who's more excited about the "I-Told-You-So's"? Because those are gonna be epic. ;)

depends on whether or not there are other things you can exchange for (of value) at that price.

if we're where we are now, with little to buy and mostly the whole thing just being a medium of speculation, then yeah you're right.

In order for the internet to go mainstream, there must be incentives for merchants to run their business on the internet than have a brick an mortar store.  Better yet, incentives for merchants to have no physical store.  Unfortunately only kiddie porn traders use the internet.

NOTE: If you don't know, many NEW businesses where invented by people who saw the POWER of the internent as "brick and mortar" stores lagged behind.  Understand that old style businesses do not need to accept bitcoins, new businesses that use bitcoins because its a useful and powerful tool that gives them tremendous advantage over old style businesses.

+1

Yes, people will sell bitcoins all the way up.  (duh, for every buy there's a sell)  The demographic will change.    

In the end we will have eliminated a certain amount of fraud from the monetary system but we will still have a bunch of rich assholes making many of the same dumb mistakes as the rich assholes of a century ago.  

I can and I do. Even in currencies that you would not think. But what is the history of money?




You are right, and in most every social issue there are leaders and followers. How did those funny little pieces of paper with their pyramids and such get to be in our hands? Someone simply decided it to be that way. What is the history of the paper money we use today?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LaSrxtWfgc

How did gold start out as a money?

All you have to do is to decide to use bitcoin as money, and boom, it is money. If you convince everyone you deal with to use it, job is complete. :)



For world domination to take effect, it takes 15 to 18 percent adoption:

http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html



How many here are in the "innovators and early adopters" group? If that is you, you will have a bright future, in my opinion. But there will be a fight to get there.

I think nearly everybody here belongs to those groups (with regards to Bitcoin).

Here's my 2 satoshis, I think that the best that bitcoin can achieve is to replace all cash in circulation in the economy. Bearing in mind that cash in circulation is only a small fraction of the total money supply. Maybe even this is a bit ambitious of a target. I can't see it being used as a significant store of wealth for the masses as people just don't have the due care and dilligence to protect and look after their bitcoins properly I'm afraid to say.

Personally I somehow doubt that it could ever get that far (although I would love to see it do so) - I think the best that can really be hoped for (realistically) is for Bitcoin to become a major currency for online services and virtual goods as well as a new form of stored wealth that is much more easily transacted than gold (or other commodities).

Governments (while they continue to exist) are extremely unlikely to ever give up control of their fiat currencies (or of course their taxes).

+1

BTW, the libertarian party in the US is polling at about 10%, so potentially - assuming Bitcoin can become widespread among libertarians - Bitcoin is not that far away from mass adoption.

I just wrote that because I can't think of any.
I'm open to suggestions... and I mean it.

Its not just potentially. Its the "the law of diffusion of innovation". That is how it works.

It does't matter, if it happened as you said (game items for bitcoin), then you can know the exchange rate between dollars and bitcoin by knowing the price in dollars of the game items. Dollars, and currency in general are used as the common denominator because it is a more widespread commodity than game items. That's the function of money, to serve as a means of comparison.

I dont half look forward to that "I told you so" day - the amount of stick I get for being into "magic internet money" is stupid lol - be nice to say "I told you it was awesome".

i look forward to the day u can buy a banana for X bitcoin and pay ur rent with YYY bitcoin. with no mention of FIAT in the trade talk at all..

bitcoin would need to develop a commodity pricing index to use as a comparison for true btc value to be able to go main stream.
the first step is setting a minimum/average wage and look at how much product can be made in that time to get a cost value.

EG how much banana was picked from the tree in a day divided by a days worth of minimum wage = banana costs

EG if u can mine 1BTC a day thats ur daily wage.. if someone can pick 500 banana's in a day then a single banana would be worth 500th of a bitcoin(0.002) for that banana picker.

which by the time food distributors get all the banana's to shops and all the profit/expenses are calculated in bitcoins a banana might end up being worth 50th of a bitcoin..(0.02) based on each level of the production/delivery/retailer getting a profit which would still be value.

which if using those same maths in FIAT terms
US average minimum wage $7.25 =15c banana
UK average minimum wage £6.19 =12p banana

You have no idea what you are talking about, do you?

At least read Subjective theory of value (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value) and Labor theory of value (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value), then come back.

subjective theory. is about supply and demand which is what a retailer would work out as the value.. EG reccommended retail price which can be anything from my 500th of BTC commodity price to a GUESSSSSSSSSS i made of the retail price of 50th.

that 50th (0.02btc) could be any number.

but to get to the first step of globalising BTC u need to get commodity prices sorted.

as for the labor theory.. thats based on setting wage based on how much production can be done..

which is where slavery started.. but in modern days a minimum wage needs to be set to avoid the slavery days of distant decades we have tried to forget about. and then base product price on those costs. note i said theories. not rules :D

thus making the world a fairer place.

but hey everyone has their own opinion.. i personally dont want to be the slave lord whipping people so i can be rich at the expense of others. i want an equal world where if im in control of my money i can help other people out.. others have the wannabe rich mentality..

money in the pocket is not as valuable as the happiness in your face.

why use rules and theories already in existance, which have resulted in the current epic failure of current economic status of FIAT. we can set our own theories on how to create value

I think the same thinking could be passed along to the world. If you want, make a site that reflects your idea. Make a directory with a voting system for every part of the world.

It would show what people in their part of the world would pay in bitcoin for anything, just like you said, a banana for "X" or rent for "YYY".

Let me know if you do it, please.

i might make a website that is like a bitcoin commodity listing. im right now trying to find live data on how many new coins / rewards are made a hour/day /week or whatever. searching the pool stats pages for average income seems to be the starting stage of working out a minimum wage to then get some prices rolling from that.

e.g time to reward found / active users = average user income.

still doing some maths to find a fair income calculation

yeah but this list is bullshit, it consists of the people the elite want us to think control the wealth. If you don't think Putin and HW Bush have way more money than Bill Gates, you are nuts.

that's my 0.02 BTC anyway.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Blocks


Also:



I heard another "halving" will start in December.

It does greatly matter....
In case of online games the ingame currency is more broadly used than dollars. The scenario I was proposing is one where bitcoin would be more broadly used than dollars for some niche market, at least within the community it is used for.

Taxes would change for one.

Obscure taxes would be impossible to claim in a BTC world as it is too easy to hide.

Instead things easily controlled like property and personal permits/IDs would be taxed with flat taxes. If you can not pay those things will be claimed by the government.
The tax level would then be determined in such a way that government take-overs become rare enough that it does not cause public dissent.

Tall office buildings and stores would be taxed more than farmland.

Income and VAT taxes might disappear or be levied only on those who don't hide well enough.


Governments could still improve as such taxes would create a lot of political pressure on what the taxes are spent on - as opposed to inflation which is invisible and flies more under the public radar.
Massive bailouts and debt would simply become impossible.

On the other hand rich people may selfishly benefit from a flat tax rate and the ease with which they could hide wealth - this however may turn out fine if governments in turn are pressured into spending more on the poor and middle class to justify taxes, instead of rich men's subsidies.

It's not another halving, or a special one, it's just the first (regular) halving. Block number 210,000 is expected to be mined sometime in December of this year (which is just under four years after the Bitcoin network became operational).

Thanks for the correction.

ok so i put some numbers together..
based on the american national minimum wage, working 40 hours gives an income of $290 a week.
so i see this as a fair minimum weekly income.
i have used this to calculate using the FIAT commodity prices to show what the price would be if it equated to 'labor time'.

http://i46.tinypic.com/2emo9df.jpg

so imagine you quit your real life job, and your only income was from bitcoin mining. you would still want to know that the percentage of time you put in eachweek in your old job, still roughly gets you the same products and lifestyle you get purely on bitcoin.

for example GOLD works out as just over 6 weeks worth of income for a guy on minimum wage to buy a troy ounce, and silver works out as just 4.64 hours (roughly) to buy a troy ounce.

now the next step is to figure out the 'international' average income of bitcoins. but for now whether you own a rig-farm or just a couple GPU's, ask yourself this question.

how many coins do you get rewarded in a week. divide that number by 100. then multiply it by the numbers in the column %weekly income. so you can work out how many bitcoins it would cost in a non FIAT world to get these commodities. im still working on a website so you just put in your weekly bitcoin reward and it converts it into commodity prices.

so lets make it simple, u solo mine and u only solve 2 blocks a week giving you 100BTC.

well it would cost you just over 11 BTC for a silver ounce and 606 BTC for a gold ounce.

When giving this some good thought, government may seem to control fiat currency (issue, taxes etc), but it is not in charge of the most important element: trust. In fact, when approached differently, fiat is controlled by the people and the people alone. If trust ever leaves fiat, it is game over for fiat, regardless of the 'control' of government.

Of course, the same applies to Bitcoin.

sorry for a stereotype i might next say, but in countries like russia. vodka has a value to use as trade between individuals, it has done for years. if you wanted your car fixed, you could go to a garage and give the mechanic a bottle of vodka to cover his labor and it would work.

that being said russian government still have not lost control of their FIAT holding, even when vodka is deemed more valuable and useful then fiat.

i do not think fiat will disappear, just that a new government will be voted in with new laws and new promises, they may even reprint a new banknote worded differently. but the government will not just give up.

the thing to think about is trying to fight government to drop their control of FIAT is flawed and futile. its basically their intellectual property licenced for public use. we do not own FIAT we are just allowed to use it.

what we can do though is highlight that FIAT is not the only choice. many people do not know better and think that FIAT is the only way to trade for goods and services. so instead of trying to fight control of FIAT from our armchair army. we need to make bitcoin as consumer friendly, reliable and robust far beyond what FIAT is. So that it can compete WITH fiat, and not against.

we need to get to a point where if employers wanted to pay their staff in satoshi's, they can. but the struggle is not government power that is to blame, its real world opinions of what bitcoin is used for that needs to change. that is the true first hurdle.

the government blame is at the 3rd or 4th hurdle. so lets not let the government be an excuse to not get bitcoin some positive notoriety.

we want a professional currency that stand up against FIAT and exceeds it in every way imaginable. so help get bitcoin to have a more positive image, for merchants and consumers. dont worry about government control just yet.

and if you are going to go on any news reports or make some real world press highlighting bitcoin. DO NOT use max keisers PR guy.. Max Keiser is currently losing his reputation with his sheep noises sounding like a loonytoon on a international news station. that is not what we want.

that being said, i personally hold the opinion that anonymous illecit traders out number the legitimate traders so getting bitcoins bad press swept under the rug is a big first hurdle. instead im considering litecoin as viable option. so far it is clean and has no bad press.