Bitcoin Forum

Article from January, but I think it's worth sharing.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthasharf/2014/01/15/10-one-perspective-on-what-bitcoin-will-be-worth-in-2014/

Hilarious. That will go down in history like Microsoft's prediction on RAM memory.

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."~Bill Gates

Probably the author is sad he didn't buy at $10.

Does it not bother you guys that 47 people own a third of the bitcoins?

Not very decentralized to me.

Did you meet them in person? Quite the exact number you have there

No, it does not. They earned them.

LOL, even if that were true, I trust those people more then the people running the FIAT show now (rothschild).

Bitcoin has greater wealth distribution than the rest of the economy. Guess it all depends on what you compare it to.

Yes, greater wealth distrubution; but you can't deny the fact that it favors the early adopters (like almost everyhting in life does, though.)

Well there is early adopting and its rewards, and there is meritocracy. I don't know that being tech savvy enough to conjur up crypto currency is the same talent as controlling a financial system. Viz Mt Gox and all the prowess demonstrated there. The world can't be run like that and really the point of Bitcoin was decentralized.

I don't know, that's what sold me on Vertcoin. Only 19 people with more than 10,000 coins and top holder has 50k, and that will probably not get much more skewed than that as the price is already prohibitive and likely to get more so. They can cohabitate obviously and serve different functions but I would rather have a truly decentralized option on the table.

 

Lolwot. How can you be so certain about the distribution of Vertcoins

Bitcoin would never have gotten off the ground without hefty early adopter reward.

At least they can't print.

I don't see a problem.

This

http://graph.vertcoin.org/balance_count.json

Updates every 2 hours. Granted there may be multiple wallet holders but its not much more than that as they have only existed for less than a month and no premine, and no couple years when a couple dozen guys were the only ones who knew it existed. You can see it is fairly concentrated in VTC same as bitcoin except there are only about 1. 5 million of 84 million so those percentages will drop to nil in a few months, the way bitcoin would have been had it been properly distributed from the get go.

I love bitcoin, I am really glad they have a toehold on mainstream breakthrough. But I do worry they will get choked by the powers that be and the best deterrent for that is good forks and truly distributed alternatives. If nothing else to make the point that they aren't going to kill it. Russia et al will have to come around because we are going this way with or without them and that is all there is to it.

Early adopters who HELD. Lazlo traded his early adopter advantage for a couple of pizzas. BTW, we're all early adopters.

There may be. For now it is decentralized by nature of the algorithm. No premine, no asics can mine it so no centralized mining either. That may change but for the first few million coins even distribution is pretty much assured. So its a natural evolution of bitcoin. And hell yes btc is the right direction. I know we need it to be the backbone of the new system and if it survives this sh*tstorm I think we are good to go. As for vertcoin not as early as  i wish, but hopefully still early enough. I think it can make a run at litecoin pricewise. Got half way there two weeks out of the gate so that is encouraging.  

Your pump and dump alt coin is off topic. I'm sure you don't give a shit if you're being rude, but this scam has got to be reaching diminishing returns by now.

Well, no you're right I don't. But the article is about the centralized nature of bitcoin and how it is all based on the Greater Fool Theory (that might be you) of the 47 guys who own a third of it. I'm not really interested in pump and dumps, I sorted through a few hundred piled of trash and found one that actually has the merits bitcoin was supposed to have, that addresses the weaknesses that are legitimately pointed out the article. I'm a huge bitcoin supporter but it is not perfect. My main concern is governments squelch it (see Russia again) and destroy its value. I see altcoins (good ones) as vital to preventing that, in the same way I would have opposed AOL owning the whole internet.

Didn't mean to step on your religion. I will let the mods decide if it's off topic. Later...

So did all the powerful banking families earn their power, wealth, and influence.

That stuff doesn't grow on trees you know. Takes a certain level of guile, intelligence, determination, fearlessness in the face of vast risktaking over several generations at that.

So in other words you're not certain about the distribution of Vertcoin. Stop spreading untruths as fact. Thanks.

Let me play Devil's Advocate on this one a little:

If its true that 90% of Bitcoins are hoarded .... wouldn't it stand to reason that if that 90% were suddenly dumped into bitcoin commerce, the availability would go up by 90% and therefore the price must go down by 90% ?  Supply and Demand.

Tell me why that's wrong?

I suppose more importantly, it could be totally right, but nothings says its going to play out that way.  And the chances of it doing so are probably microscopic.

-B-

The distribution (factual) is right there in the link. I don't know who has how many wallets but since less than 2% of the coins have been mined there is basically no way it can centralize from here. I think the reality is setting in that bitcoin is a breakthrough, but it is by design neither novel nor irreproducible. So it doesn't make all that much sense to be paying 800 no 700 dollars each for them.

I guess it makes sense. The idea of bitcoin wasn't to make 50 people rich.

I disagree, early bitcoin adopters were in large part not risk takers but just lucky or had good foresight. I think the average user now who is willing to drop a few grand on just 3-5 bitcoins hoping to strike it rich has much more nerves of steel than the college kids who hoarded hundreds or thousand for pennies 3-4 years ago and just happened to hold onto them.

Until 'Satoshi Nakamoto' reveals his or her true identity we don't know that.

It has become more and more obvious that Mark Williams is using Bitcoin to make money. Not by buying BTC, but by capitalizing of the fear of the unknown and controversy. And it has worked. He has gotten himself speaking gigs, appeared on TV in front of the world at the NY regulatory hearings. He is becoming an anti-bitcoin celebrity.

But if you listen to some of his very last comments at the NY regulatory meetings, he literally conceded that bitcoin has a lot to offer and simply needs more professional guidance and that it was his hope that it would get that guidance. GASP!

Mark doesn't hate bitcoin as much as he wants you to think he does. He is just looking for some fame and fortune.

True. I believe that was not the purpose. Having felt a certain sense of dissatisfaction at the time, my interpretation of the message about the bailouts embedded in the first block was i was the first step towards decentralizing the monetary authority and leveling the playing field. I think it is safe to assume he/they had no idea what would become of it. I would like to see multiple channels evolve from bitcoin though or it will cease to live up to most of its potential.

Why do you assume 1 address = 1 person.

MtGox cold storage address likely holds the coins for tens of thousands of users but in your "math" it is all owned by one person.  The same would apply to every major exchange, eWallet, and bitcoin related business.

Likewise under similar math you would say 80% (or some asinine number) of all the dollars in the world are personally owned by four people named Chase, BofA, Wells Fargo, and Citibank.

What Professor Bitcorn fails to see is that cartels don't work in a free market.  These 47 whales who supposedly coordinated to drive prices higher had more reasons to mistrust each other than any other cartel in history. Even OPEC can't keep oil prices high. The reason is that the higher the price goes, the greater incentive to defect.

It's a variation of the Prisoner's dilemma in game theory. Always screw the other guy if you can and your incentives are purely selfish.