Bitcoin Forum

could it be possible for a mining pool to collectively become employees to a company or individual for a set wage regardless of the amount mined?

for instance the miners get say 1k a month fiat or whatever is agreed by the buyer of the whole pools btc and the miners. then the owner of the rights takes all the BTC the miners get a set wage regardless. could this help the stability of the price of btc?

would a union of miners be able to stabilize the price?

How? New coins are mined at a known rate, no matter what. Also more than half of all the existing bitcoins have already been mined.

the  mining pools collectively stick together and wont sell unless for a set price all the participating pools agree on. if nobody is willing to sell the new coins unless it is for a set unionised price then nobody gets the new coins.

there is a low barrier to entry for miners, and it's very easy for unionized miners to strike break anonymously.

its low entry maybe for people with fast pc's, me though with a laptop cant mine let alone find it hard to even buy the things in the uk. im just saying if a collective of miners decided to form a union this could stabilize the price. they could set a fixed union rate to sell to the market at. strike breaking would be dangerous to stability and also just dumb as they would more than likely get less than union rates for the btc.

Except there will be pools that don't want to join the union and who will sell at whatever price they want. (or continue to distribute coins to miners proportionally to each miner's hash power, i.e. the current system)

Bitcoin related activities can't really be regulated like traditional ventures.

The only way a union could set a fixed rate would be to find someone willing to buy at this fixed rate.  Who would buy coins at a rate x when they could buy when market value is <x, and what miners would agree to sell their coins for x when they could sell them for >x at market value?  

Price fixing doesn't work for bitcoin since there's be no way to enforce it.

so it really is a survival of the richest ahem fittest. the ones at the start or the ones with the most cash to buy the fastest pc/s win. sounds kinda like the old ways to me. rich get richer poor are left behind.

That's how a free market works.  Except the poor are free to come up with creative ways of generating wealth therefore becoming rich.  Bitcoin mining requires a somewhat substantial initial investment but there are other ways to make money that don't require as large of an investment, and actually have faster ROIs.  Mining is only as attractive as it is because it's easy. :p

businesses may buy at this fixed rate if union bought back at a fixed rate then stability is created. plus if the union didn't sell the coins as a collective until the set price was reached then the strike breakers would be daft. they may feel like their getting a good deal today but tomorrow if the union price was reached the strike breaker would be a fool.

yes id like to trade but keiser hasn't made his uk exchange yet and im left high and dry now without anyway of entering the market therefore I thought a nice union would help create stability then when uk government finally allows me into a exchange I can playing around with ideas. till then im gonna be year behind the rest of the world.

Curious as to what those other ways with faster ROI are, especially if they don't involve trading at an exchange.

I was being pretty general; I meant that as "you don't need to mine bitcoins to make money" since OP was saying something about "rich getting richer and poor getting poorer".  While it's true that you need to have money to mine bitcoins, you can do other things like work a traditional job, start a business that produces and sells something that people want, trade securities (btc or regular stocks), etc. to make money.  Kind of strayed off topic, oops.

Cool, just wondered if there was anything specific about it.  :)

I'll let you know if I figure it out... in the meantime I'm just another in the mining rat race. :p

Cool idea.
But you cannot control the "workers". Which is fine with me, but how will you know if theyre not working for the company next door which tries to build up a "mining-company" like you? I think this ould be interesting but dangerous biz concept.

Cheers

There are many ways to lower the barrier of entry. Finding these ways is hard. I am trying to work out just such a way, where you can get in for a small amount and build up your investment to a full blown rig, or 2 or 3. The point is even now a small amount can get you far.

The hardest part for anyone no matter at which point they are is scaling. This is why some places are failing to deliver what they should be. Also sometimes I think people get to far ahead of themselves and are unable to deliver because they think they can offer the world. When in reality they are only able to offer part of it.

more mining companies would stabilize the price even more so more companies would be good I think especially if the mining companies are the sole sellers of the mined btc, I wouldn't want this to be a top down company but a bottom up company i.e. the workers get the best deal set the price even, a fully unionised workforce of miners who call the shots to the selling topman the topman makes a tiny fraction of profit. itd work much better than mr.x selling for 120 one day then mr.y selling for 180 then mr.z selling for 80 to undercut. if they all thought to sell at say 150 and enough miners joined the company then the price would be pretty stable at around 150 only if enough miners thought this way, they could however selfishly go solo and sell for 200 but in the long run they would only be harming themselves and the whole btc economy.

I don't understand what you are even suggesting, honestly. Bitcoin was DESIGNED to be decentralized. Why would miners stay in a pool that was losing them potential money when the price rises?

If I'm a miner, and my hashing power is dedicated to a unionized pool, I'd be happy to continue mine for them as long as the return is equal or greater than non-unionized pools.

If I'm a buyer, I'm happy to buy from the unionized pool, only as long as the price is equal to, or LOWER than non-unionized sellers/pools. There's clearly a misalignment of interests here.

The second unionized miners realize that they can get more money elsewhere, they're going to jump ship and go non-union.

The second that buyers realize they can pay less money elsewhere, they're gonna jump ship too.

In a truly free market, everybody is free to do what serves their own best interests, and the market naturally follows, and everybody's best interests are served when interests are aligned.

In overly-regulated markets, everybody else is forced to adjust to the market/regulations, and only special interests are served.

A decentralized free market which serves the people over the special interests is EXACTLY what Bitcoin was designed to do. If you can't compete on a legitimate level, without putting your regulatory fingers up the collective assholes of everybody else, Bitcoin ain't for you. There are plenty of markets that have been gerrymandered by the self-serving special interests groups. Go find one of those, and you'll fit right in. ;)