Bitcoin Forum

Don Laughlin,
the 81-year-old billionaire and founder of the Riverside Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, is also placing his bets on cryogenics for everlasting life. He is a future customer of Alcor, a Cryonics preservation facility is based in Scottsdale, Ariz. Upon death, his body will be cryo-preserved at minus 360 degrees following his death until he can be revived and cured of any health problems. He plans to take his money with him: His assets would also be frozen.


http://money.cnn.com/gallery/magazines/fortune/2013/04/04/live-forever.fortune/2.html

Ha. What the point to live forever if noone knows what they live for?

By that reasoning you should shoot yourself in the face.

I'm too lazy. I just wait for 60-70 years.

Indeed, investing some millions in bitcoin would be a good idea for him! Well, it is for everyone, but especially if you plan to wake up after some centuries

1 BTC should be enough to get him through when he wakes up.

He should buy 1 BTE either. Just in case.

Given the importance of merkle trees etc in Bitcoin and the fact that Ralph Merkle is a Board member at Alcor it is a wonder that there is not more cross pollination between the bitcoin community and Alcor.  Both groups are looking to the future and are firm believers in the probable advances in technology so it would seem natural to at least see common interests and potentially some mutually beneficial relationships.

Wonder how he will freeze the rest of his assets :) Gold?

The government gets like 40% of your money when you die.

Dumping 1M into bitcoin, wake up in 95 years, have 150 trillion?

... Or wake up with nothing. Don't forget that possibility.

He's going to wake up with nothing anyways due to inflation taking all the value out of his billion.  Seriously, I don't know what asset would be safe enough to put a large amount of money in for a century...

Some people can't seem to be able to accept death.

Others can't seem to be able to accept life.   ;D  Or at least the possibility of extending it.

Using BTC as part of his asset investing plan would be a smart move.  And then let a trustee invest the rest of his money in things that are low-cost, long-term growth. 

Even if the chance of revival with his plan is 1% (or even 0.001%) it is greater than zero.

No, not really. It's just kind of absurd when people try to become immortal as God.

I would put all of my money into Justin Bieber's record company. There is no stopping the Biebs.

What's the most valuable thing to humans, that will always be of value even in a post-apocalyptic world? Farmers. We all need to eat, and always. So what he should do, is buy farms, and freeze them too. Isn't it perfect?

now now...

what if he buys all BTC...

what will happen to us? lol

Price increases and our bitcoins will be worth even more. Is that bad?

Fixed that for you

If one guy had all the BTC, BTC would be worthless.  Think it through.

If by all BTC you mean all of the current BTC and the one that hasn't even been mined yet then yes. If not then then miners would become rich and the rest of my theory comes into action. Then bitcoin pretty slowly goes back to the previous levels.

If only all of the current bitcoin fell into single hands, the value would be ... what?  Bitcoin would revert back to a clever curiosity, it will become no different than a random bitcoin fork, with most of the coin already premined.  If you disagree, tell me how?  
edit: clumsy wording, but i hope you get what i'm trying to say.

It would simply reset the bitcoin to the start postion except with a huge community already there and a huge price of it.

With you thus far


You mean the few miners who'll point their hashpower to the next alt?  No one else will be *in any way invested in Bitcoin*.


This is where you lose me.  Why would the price be any higher than any copycoin?  Because people once trusted it?  So what?  The miners will start mining Bitcoin 2.0, where the difficulty will be low, more than half will not be premined & they'll have a chance to get a bunch of coin quick :D  Am i missing something important?

If there is such alt that is suitable for such position then yes, you are correct. Just out of curiosity, which alt coin would become used the most if bitcoin failed?

The problem with this logic is it fails to account for every other limited resource in the universe as well, do I need to point out gold and silver?

Well, just look at the posts directly above yours, and tell me how that scenario fails to take anything into account.
As far as gold & silver go, they're a bit different than Bitcoin in the sense that they have *some* (i think they call it "intrinsic value" in commerce).  You can use them for "stuff" -- both are pretty useful in electronics & other specialized fields, and some people like the look & feel.  Bitcoin's value is purely instrumental:  if it's not used as a currency/store of value, it's nothing.  And nothing that needs a good hashrate to maintain.  But i don't think gold & silver are anywhere as valuable as the price suggests:  They're just another misinterpretation of rarity = worth, people trust that noble metals are worth money, and thus they are.  A bit like people's faith in fiat.  People make mistakes all the time.  :D

The counter argument then is, do you take antibiotics?  Vaccines?  Chemo?  Radiation?  CPR?  Bypass surgery?  Other surgery?  Try to save a premature baby?  Why not just "live your natural lifespan" without any external intervention? 

There is nothing wrong with trying to extend one's life, people do it all the time and all of us benefit from it. 

This is just a different kind that may allow him to be cured of whatever disease he had in the future.  If he died from cancer and someone in the future developed a cure for it, should it be denied to people alive then?  What about him?  What is the difference?

There's a limit until a person has to live. Trying to revive yourself from death is passing the limit, it's trying to become god. Antibiotics and other means are used to save people who are still able to move rather then sit like a vegetable rather than a human being. It's used to save people from death not to revive an already dead person.

The difference is you hit reductio ad absurdum.  There's nothing fundamentally wrong or evil in trying to live forever, most people simply think it's sort-a silly.  With the population growing being what it is, some even think it selfish.

People don't think it through... With the population growing too fast, the best thing we can do is start putting people in cryostorage until we can start uploading them or moving them off-planet. It is incredibly energy-efficient to store cold things in bulk.

I have 5.5 bitcoins saved up at 1Jdn36JUwvJdr3Qiie4aAseFdcoTsND9Qo (https://blockchain.info/address/1Jdn36JUwvJdr3Qiie4aAseFdcoTsND9Qo) -- I plan to use them to fund cryonics research and/or buy free cryonics storage in bulk for people who can't afford it. Whatever turns out to be most useful.

I wonder if a brainwallet would be a good idea for a cryo patient? You could make payment be contingent on thawing the person in good enough condition that they can remember their passphrase. But if you get woken by someone with no ethics they could revive you, scan your brain for the passphrase / torture it out of you, then kill you. (Or maybe scan your brain for the info and not bother reviving you at all.)

Anyway yeah there definitely ought to be more cross-pollenation between the two groups (it's basically the same demographic).