Bitcoin Forum

As best I can tell 35.5% of all bitcoins have already been minted. These 7,473,950 coins are all property of existing bitcoin users. There seem to be about 41,280 registered members of this site. I'll be generous and say there are ten times as many bitcoin users as there are members. That means about 410,280 bitcoin owners with on average 18 BTC each. Clearly BTC ownership is more concentrated than this, but lets be egalitarian for the moment.

If we pretended all bitcoin owners were all Americans that is about 0.13% of the population. It's not of course. Bitcoin is intended to be a world currency. So 0.0068% of the world population own 100% of all current and at least 35.5% of all possible bitcoins.

The view on this forum is that the world will come to their senses, throw out fiat currencies and move to something rational like Bitcoin. This of course means 6,000,000,000 people basically begging to use a resource owned by a relative handful of people. Say we just minted up the remaining 13,526,050 BTC and scattered them to late adopters purely out of the kindness in our hearts. That means about 0.00225 BTC for each of them to use in rebuilding their economy. Sure 18 BTC on average doesn't make us feel very rich. But it is 8,000 times what everyone else would have if we stopped competitive minting today.

But we won't stop competing of course. Sometime around Pearl Harbor Day of next year Bitcoin will hit the 50% distributed mark.

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By that day, how many active Bitcoin users and daily goods trades do there need to be to make a sustainable Bitcoin economy viable?
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Because to potential new adopters, after that point Bitcoin is going to look like a new a 21,000,000 coin currency with a 10,500,000 coin pre-generation that went to the creator and his "friends". Certainly people will stop caring about Bitcoin long before they show up on our doorsteps with signs saying,

"We are the 99.9932%!"

This post is full of so much win.

This is so beautiful it almost brings a tear to my eye. Well done.

 ;D 10/10

Thanks for the kind words. I didn't really mean to be a total kill joy.


I really think the 14 month deadline is pretty set in stone though.

Does anyone see a path to sustainability? I think if the bitcoin community were to throw a couple million coins at the Wall Street protesters. And they were to use them to trade among themselves rather than immediately cashing them out for pizza. Maybe there would be a plausible path.

But, I really think that scenario is a fantasy. The protesters seem to be more "on strike" then productively producing goods they could be traded among themselves.

A very thought provoking post. I feel that you are missing something crucial, but I will have to think on it a while.

In the mean time, I wanted to respond to this in particular. We are not Satoshi's "friends", we are the individuals that built all of the infrastructure surrounding Bitcoin, and believed in it before anyone else. If it does become widely adopted, should all the work done up until this point be dismissed as useless? Were it not for this work, would it ever become adopted in the first place?

I'm convinced that come block 210,000, the discussion as to whether the 21 million is a good idea will pop up, and whether we should go with what some have called "inflatacoin".

I'm not saying I think that's what will get adopted... but the more people think about this disparity, and the more people think about miners disappearing because transaction fees aren't quite working the way it was hoped, the more heated the discussion surely will be.

Anyone who have built infrastructure or services around bitcoin would profit from bitcoin2. Switching from one to the other is a simple move and they would profit. It's the early miners and hoarders that would be hurt.
I've had similar thoughts myself but couldn't have put it quite as elegant as Red.

Without the early miners and "hoarders", why would there be any infrastructure created in the first place?

You completely dismiss the fact that if it were not for them, you would not be here, discussing how evil those early miners and hoarders were.

True. They do however not contribute much any more. They are the 1%. They're not rich because they contribute something now. Now, those who put that capital to work and try to better the infrastructure around BTC do deserve whatever riches comes to them. Those who were just lucky enough to find out about bitcoin a year ago and mined a crapload doesn't.
Hence, only those who don't contribute would object to a reboot of bitcoin.

What is the basis for this assertion?


To compare those who mined or bought Bitcoin early with those who use the political system to extract wealth from those who do not is ridiculous.


You continue to baselessly assume that the two groups are mutually exclusive. Wouldn't it be in the self interest for who "mined a crapload" to spend part of that "crapload" building infrastructure? Do you assume that they are stupid as well as selfish and greedy, and that they cling to every last satoshi even if it means that Bitcoin never becomes widely adopted?


If you want a reboot of Bitcoin, start your own fucking block chain. By advocating a reboot, you're merely exposing your jealousy at not being an early enough adopter. After the first reboot, let say Bitcoin reaches a similar stage as it is at now, with 1% of the world population using it. Oh no, those dreadful early adopters are back! Reboot Bitcoin again!

1) A hoarder hoards. That's the definition. If you just stockpile resources you're not contributing.

2) While the history/methods are different the end result is the same. Major concentration of wealth in the hands of a select few.

3) I assume nothing. I'm certain they're not mutually exclusive.

4) Plenty of people have started new blockchains. No need for another useless chain. It's not jealousy, it's pointing to Red's assertion above. Perhaps regular reboots are the way to go until you have mass adoption of bitcoin? Perhaps not. But looking at Red's original text it's quite clear that there's a problem in the current setup. N'est-ce pas`

I just reread Satoshi's paper. I still feel ignorant about Bitcoin's inner-workings. Is there something else that comes with owning a Bitcoin? I am almost positive it's only treated as currency by the network. I don't see how somebody having more credits than the other could pose a technical problem. Is there something I am not seeing?

Hey, watch this, see the awful hypocrisy:

If you want a reboot of Bitcointhe dollar, start your own fucking block chaincurrency. By advocating a reboot, you're merely exposing your jealousy at not being an early enough adopterborn earlier and into a rich family. After the first reboot, let say Bitcoin reaches a similar stage as it is at now, with 1% of the world populationSatoshi, Gavin, Magical Tux, and BitterTea using it. Oh no, those dreadful early adopters are back! Reboot Bitcoin again!

Hypocrisy? I give you a 1/10 troll score. Try again with logic.

Bitcoin = new currency, not a reboot of the dollar

You're asking for a way to sustainability and ignore the way towards your scenario by depicting this as if it would happen over night.

With the price going way down and difficulty following suit, it will become very easy again for new people to acquire Bitcoins. New, more efficient GPUs will also give newcomers an advantage over established mining enterprises.

Also, let's assume the price rises again in a few months - don't you think many who now hold the bag will cash out as soon as Bitcoin reaches, say 6 dollars again? Bitcoin will stay very volatile for a long time and there will be many more bubbles popping along the way - plenty of opportunities for new people to buy or earn a few cheap coins.
And even if there was a sudden hype of Bitcoins some time in the future - it will only result in just another bubble. You have to keep in mind that Bitcoin will _never_ be the only currency/store of value available, so nobody will suddenly be forced to use Bitcoin.

In the long term, the distribution of Bitcoin wealth will likely "even out" to similar disparity levels as wealth in traditional forms of value.

tl;dr: The "path to sustainability" for me lies in a slow steady growth of the average userbase - and that's what will happen most probably anyway.

I didn't mean to cast aspersions by calling anyone Satoshi's friends. I myself spend time corresponding with Satoshi. I have great respect for everything he did. I also have great respect for everything current Bitcoin operators are doing. As best as I can tell, people are investing close to $1,000 a day (http://blockchain.info/) in electrical cost to maintain Bitcoin's accounting. That is a huge commitment of resources.

However, to the 6,000,000,000 current non-Bitcoin users, the lack of broad adoption creates a bit of a landed gentry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landed_gentry) situation. Even if we were to give the remainder of the BTC out to the masses for free to speed adoption, we still have a privileged class. It is pretty clear that knightmb could live the rest of his life off of his $5,000 investment (371,000 BTC). Then he could leave his estate to his children who could live the rest of their lives. That is the wonder of planned deflation. Each billion new Bitcoin users makes knightmb increasingly richer.

It just doesn't seem like the great masses are in a mood to create such a situation. Even if we were to convince them of the wonders of anonymous p2p crypto-currency (which I desperately want), it seems more likely that a general assembly would wave jazz hands (http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/10/occupy_wall_street_hand_gestur.html) at cutting knightmb and the other "more than equals" out of the loop.

We all know that 85.74932% of statistics are made up on the spot.  The only thing that makes that better is making approximations on those statistics.

You had to quote my entire post to say that?

The dynamics of this would make an interesting discussion. I mean who would get to vote? It seems like those with the coins would be the ones granted the vote. However, if the future adoptees don't agree with that vote, then any resolution doesn't bind them. They can either go elsewhere or not-adopt any coin.


It doesn't cause a technical problem. It causes a perception problem. However the plausibility of the system becoming widely adopted is based purely on the perception of the potential adoptees.


I guess the point of my post was that, from my point of view, the likelihood of "slow steady growth" becomes less plausible as the percentage of generated coins grows. And at some point you need to hit geometrically increasing growth. That should come sooner rather than later.

Donating some CPU cycles to a project before the world knows about it is not work. Difficulty was 1 for a whole year: http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-ever.png

People do the same for free for folding@home etc. It’s certainly not work that ought to be rewarded with 1% to 0.1% of the money supply.

The truth is that the Bitcoin generation curve does not model a natural resource in that we started out with "Peak Bitcoin" rate in 2009. Now guess the relation of how many people there were in 2009 and how many people there are now - that’s the ROI. Normally, the extraction of ressources models a sigmoid curve where the Peak production is approached as the extraction becomes more efficient.

In Gold, an equivalent to Satoshi et al. would have been the first gold miner who doesn’t even own a pickaxe, but just finds and carries 1% of the Gold supply home with his own hands. Laughable.

Donating some CPU cycles to a project is also, at least for most people in the first world, not risk.

I have mentioned this many times, and the generation curve enhances the disparity by the quickness of "Internet Speed" and the fact that the pool of users was very small to begin with.

Is this a fact or an opinion?

Opinion of course. You may, like many people, hail the people who got in with a mere CPU in 2010 as the great early adopters who took the incredible risk of volatile exchange rates, exchange hacks, MyBitcoin, b-OH WAIT. That’s right, it’s the latecomers (May+) who took the true risk and got nothing in this system!

Another difference between Gold and Bitcoin I forgot to mention:

When the Gold Rush happened, the people who made the real money were not the first miners, but the merchants who supplied goods and enabled commerce. In Bitcoin, it is apparent that whoever now steps up and supplies goods/services will never be able to catch up with people like Satoshi or knightmb, or less extreme, someone who mined 30k BTC.

It is also worth thinking about "marginal utility of BTC incentive" vs. "disincentive for latecomers" due to how the system is made up. There probably is some sweet point in between where the transition becomes most fluent and non-problematic, but I believe that Bitcoin has had such overkill incentive that it degenerated into a pyramid-scheme like thing. For the sentiment this has caused, check https://www.quora.com/Bitcoin/Is-the-cryptocurrency-Bitcoin-a-good-idea

Wealth has never been about risk or what somebody "deserves". It's what people are willing to throw money at. If people happen to value your Bitcoins at $10,000 a piece a few years from now just from you mining, who's to say this should come into question? What evil are you imposing by earning wealth, even if you didn't do all that much?

I think Satoshi picked a fine incentive to encourage early adopters. However, the early adopters didn't manage to translate the excitement outside of the crypto-anarchist libertarian community.

If there were 5 million daily bitcoin users today with a geometrically increasing goods transaction rate, then the incentive he chose would have seemed brilliant. It looked like that might be the case earlier in the summer. However, it now appears the early adopters have failed at their promotional duties. If this remains the case, they are really only failing themselves.

However, I still don't see why the masses will come around once the early adopters have even more advantage. Everyone seems to be hoping it gets easer to push boulder up a steeper hill.

"Ragnar Redbeard", btw, is an obvious SA troll, please ignore him. Though he does accurately parody many libertarians in here. I almost took him seriously.

I just think Satoshi fucked up the first part of the curve. The very first adopters are those who are interested in the tech etc., the ones who build the system and gather knowledge. They don’t need financial incentive, and certainly not one that equals Peak Bitcoin Rate/number of earliest adopters. I think this created a disparity that only strengthened the perception of a "pyramid scheme".

My first reaction to Bitcoin was that I thought it’s really cool – this NEW p2p digital currency was a novel idea. Then I found out that such a large portion of it was already distributed, and coupled with the extreme disparity where 6 months make such a huge difference and the runup to 1.1$, I almost turned away from it.

The early adopters aren’t important, they come anyway because they are genuinely interested. What’s important is reaching the EARLY MAJORITY, crossing the chasm. We almost managed to do that, but it is apparent now that we have failed.

First I was compared to a child. Now something about trolling?

Anyways, to address the argument, I have yet to see an issue with users having a large portion of the credits. Bitcoins went up to 7 or 8 decimal points, if I recall correctly. There is more than enough supply to go around. I can't see any constraints when it comes to getting more users.

Also, isn't this project only two years old? It's a bit early to be saying this project has failed. I just discovered Bitcoin two weeks ago.

I suggested the same thing 18 months or so ago. I was soundly shouted down by the existing folks who thought it was the greatest idea ever. Very Austrian. I turned away because the consequences seemed obvious. I should have bought up a few and held until the boom though. I always see the future too soon! :)

I do, however, still want an anonymous digital cash to be used over the internet and elsewhere. I'm even OK with the quasi-anonymous nature of nakamoto chained transactions. I'm actually in favor of the FBI catching major criminals. I just want a currency that is not broadly and needlessly profiled.


Yes this seems to have failed. The major problem was, merchants and goods purchasers should have been the focus of the currency. However, many were turned off by the excessive philosophizing.


In all honesty, litecoin is probably the fairer bet for you. If you started today with it, you would be an early adopter. With bitcoin, you are way behind the curve.

Why does it matter if I am early? I am looking at LiteCoin and it seems like a complete copy of Bitcoin with little differences. Isn't a more popular crypto-currency more secure anyways?

http://blockchain.info/

Bitcoins cost roughly $3.41 in electricity to mine. They sell for $3.67. That is a 26 cent profit if you mine and sell today. But in general the prices have been falling. If you don't sell immediately, you risk losing any profit.

With Bitcoin, you are competing against the owners of 7,479,400 BTC. Most of these owners bought there BTC for pennies a BTC. Say for example, knightmb who bought 371,000 BTC for $5,000. That is (1.35 cents/BTC) if you are keeping score. So basically, the early adopters are still making piles of money selling their hoards. There is no solid bottom to BTC prices at the moment.

If you mint and sell immediately, you are not really doing much to support bitcoin as a growing economy. If you buy with cash you are basically enabling the speculators and early adopters to sell off their hoards at a profit. (Good for them!) If you hold these coins you will likely lose value (at least for a while). In that case you would be better to hold off your purchase until BTC bottoms. If you spend these coins immediately on goods, you are building the economy. (Go Bitcoin!) Convince enough people to do this and the early adopters will cease selling there coins because their wealth is increasing and hoarding is preferable again. BTC prices will spike and you still won't have any.

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Litecoin is the same as bitcoin in everyway, except it is designed for CPU mining so you aren't competing with the big boys. You are also not selling against giant hoards. It is like a "do over" for bitcoin. Might as well test all your theories at your lowest cost, and highest potential profit.

Please don't contribute to that fallacy: Litecoin isn't designed for CPU mining, it is designed to be unfavorable for current GPU architectures, that's all.

Should it get popular, a suitable FPGA design will be developed and the FPGA miners will compete with the botnets for 99.9% of the coins. The mining disparity will therefore be even worse than with Bitcoin today.

Spot on.

I'd gladly join a system better than the current(fiat) one. I don't think Bitcoin is that system, although the idea intrigues me.  In a few iterations perhaps BitcoinX could be a fair system that doesn't have the same economic flaws as the current(fiat) one does.

In principal I see nothing wrong with early adopters and them holding more coins than others.  Most everyone that would have had interest in mining had an equal chance to do as they did.  I found out about it MUCH too late to make any appreciable profits but I don't at all begrudge others that did.

However I agree that the system doesn't have to be "wrong" for it to fail due to poor perception from jealous new adopters.  I don't think a new bitcoin that panders to insecure people will ever be the answer though.

You're saying that the bitcoin early adopter should be paid. OK, maybe right, but don't you think you're planning pay yourself toooooooOOOoOOooooooo much???????

No, I am saying they necessarily deserve every Bitcoin they have mined or traded for.

How do you propose that "too much" or "too little" is determined?

the units of bitcoin mutiplied by the exhchange rate roughly described how much the early adopters are paid, if we don't consider the shock the early hoarders bring to the market. maybe it's not the early adopters' fault to have such a big fortune, but you have to be honest enough as Warren Buffett admit that they billionaires don't deserve to paid sooooooooooo much. and Red's OP have told everyone enough, that if

1) you just put your 5000 USD investment of bitcoin away,
2) bitcoin were somehow "widely" adopted

how much you're paid. You have to admit that, you're paid toooooooooooooooooo much.


P.S.  "You" in my post maybe not personally about BitterTea, maybe include myself. 

we human being are created from monkey (maybe God works step by step, too), and monkey know about "fairness", too.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_monkeyfairness.html (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_monkeyfairness.html)


the distribution of bitcoin is not fair.

Those who say that they deserve every coin they mine are not honest enough, if they at the same time consider bitcoin is an alternative currency system to our traditional fiat money system.

The early adopters you're talking about are ones that haven't significantly liquidated their bitcoins, so this is by definition incorrect.


Fault? This really sounds like pure jealousy.

"maybe it's not Google's founders' (or their early investors') fault to have such a big fortune" - it makes no sense


That's one man's opinion. One man that can give away 99% of his wealth and still live happily, yet only gives away a tiny portion.


You've still not defined "too much".

Tell you what. When you give away everything you don't need to absolutely sustain your life to those who have 1/100th of your wealth throughout the rest of the world, then we can talk about "fairness" without hypocrisy.

I don't remember when primates became the objective standard of economic equality. As a strong advocate of evolution, I also know that we came from an ancestor to primates and not directly from them.

Anyways, fairness is arbitrary. The fact is people who hold Bitcoins aren't hurting anybody.

Some ppl are still talking as dreamers that they mine bitcoin at very early stage, and they should own such big amount of big bitcoin, WoW, how smart they are!

the fact is that, the money itself is nothing but an opinion, yes, it's an opinion. Gold worth something, it's an opinion, which is widely accepted.

if ppl don't feel this right, they are jealous or not is not important, but they just address their opinion that it's not the MONEY they want, which 100 ppl like you hold 80% of the total money in the system. and if most of ppl don't agree the situation, then bitcoin is not a MONEY, as "bitcoin worth something" cannot be widely accepted.



So I guess it will be only you several players play with the bitcoins, as you are the several ppl think such situation is agreeable.

but it won't be too agreeable, I guess.

P.S

This ID is new, but I have catch up bitcoin not too recently, I have another old ID.

I don't remember when primates became the objective standard of economic equality. As a strong advocate of evolution, I also know that we came from an ancestor to primates and not directly from them.

Anyways, fairness is arbitrary. The fact is people who hold Bitcoins aren't hurting anybody.








Yes, they only hurt themselves.

What a single person do the best for himself, but the whole group act in the same way, they just hurt themselves. As they hold the bitcoin which get at such a low price, ppl don't agree that this is a good enough money system.

Yes, maybe you early smart holders can say that you hurt nobody, but the ppl who get to know bitcoin late feel "jealous" (some of ppl' word) or "unfair" (my description) is not hurting anybody, too. But it's pointless, and the point is, as the money is a group accepted opinion on something, if most of the ppl feel bad about it, then most of the ppl will feel disagree that this is a money, and so it will NOT be a wide adopted money.

Do you understand? smart early adopters who hurt nobody?

I think this is a fair summary of why I started this thread. I don't think there is any such thing as "fair" in this situation. There is the state in which we start (the current state) and the state to which we want to achieve (universal acceptance). My question is, "Is there a plausible path between the two?"

There is no point in telling the six billion people who haven't adopted bitcoin yet, that they are just jealous they didn't get here first. You have to persuade them there is some personal value for them in the proposition of their using bitcoin. The argument of, "Think how rich you'll be when the rest of the six billion people get here," only holds for so long.

While I'm not as opposed to "fiat" currency as most people, I do look forward to a reasonable p2p alternative. I have been intrigued by bitcoin for going on two years now. However, from the beginning I have thought its monetary policy was flawed. "Flawed" of course is an argument word, but in this case the flaw I saw was that it would lead exactly to this current dynamic.

Lots of others saw the same "flaw". There was a French guy here arguing bitcoin should pay a Universal Dividend (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=796.0). It is a fascinating twist of logic. Morality in his view dictates that every living human receive and equal share of all new money created. The money supply itself should grow 5% a year in order to provide this universal dividend. When pressed the logic for this was to make up for the penalty of having been born later than your predecessors. Ostensibly, some people where here when all that money got created. "They got it for free! So we want some too!"

I just wanted a stable currency. One that wouldn't inflate or deflate over time. Indeed it looks possible to create. It was just that nobody was interested in such a currency two years back. What would be the point? Everyone was going to get rich on the bitcoin plan.

Isn't that Bitcoin, after the subsidy is reduced to nothing? Can you think of a better way to perform the initial distribution of p2p money? I can't.

Bitcoin is still sinking in for me but I think you are all being impatient. Bitcoin has only existed as a open-source project for two years. It has done very well in comparison to similar open-source innovations. I don't get the fuss over "a lack of adoption" when it's doing just fine.

I'm not really opposed to fiat currency either. I do however agree that there are a few flaws with that system. If you could eliminate those flaws in a new system while keeping things that work and not introducing new major flaws, I'd join that. If this is done through fiat or some other means really doesn't matter to me.

Actually, yes I can. I have a concept discussion thread here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47628.0) if you are interested.


It's not about how far bitcoin has come. I'm interested in how much farther it will go. The initial Darpa grand challenge was very impressive. However, no car got to the intended goal line. The second grand challenge seemed less astonishing after the first. However, cars actually got to the goal.


Perhaps you'll consider commenting on my above thread?

And the holders and buyers of those 10,500,000 coins created the infrastructure and network of bitcoin users that's in place. Without that pre-existing infrastructure and network, bitcoin would be nothing but data. It would have no value.

Yes, the early adopters, meaning any one holding bitcoins now, will profit if bitcoin becomes successful, but they will only profit once. Once you've sold your cheaply acquired bitcoin, you can't sell it a second time. A one-time profit off of a good investment pick that's associated with a facilitation of global commerce, is more than fair in my opinion.

Any way, the point of currency is to store value. Changing the pre-agreed and pre-set quantity of bitcoin would diminish trust in bitcoin's ability to store value.

You don't have to convince me. You have to convince the one billion people you want to come into bitcoin next.
Their opinion will be influenced by the magnitude of folks holding the initial 10.5 million and the quantity and quality merchants.

If Bitcoin hits the 10.5 million mark and a million people are spending 10 BTC each every month at thousands of merchants. Then the next billion, people rewarding the first million a little will seem fair and reasonable.

If Bitcoin hits the 10.5 million mark and a 100 people are hoarding 100K BTC each. And one thousand people are spending 30 BTC each month at a dozen silk road merchants. Well then your argument is going to be a really hard sell.

That's why a say the next year is Do or Die for bitcoin. All roads do not lead to the Orient. There are dead end paths and gaping chasms.



Bitcoin doesn't actually STORE value. It is critical to remember this. Bitcoin's value is based on the strength of a global shared delusion. Currently one BTC is worth precisely zero to most folks on the planet. It is possible, in the future, for BTC to be worth zero to every person on the planet.

So? The same can be said for any form of money.


It's possible, but not likely unless something better comes along, or there's a significant security flaw in the protocol itself. Otherwise, it will still serve a use for some people. If it is a medium of exchange, it has demand. If it has demand, it has value. If it has value, it can store value.

Currently the problem with using Bitcoin as a store of value, is the "global shared delusion" hasn't come to a strong consensus on the value of a Bitcoin in relation to fiat currencies.

Well, that's a good point...

I could come up with several possible features a cryptocurrency could do better like a damped early adaption curve, better hardware utilization and the inconvenience of pooled mining.
But it still would be a only a copy.

The problem is it is not unique, that is anybody can start another hashchain. What would be required of a successor to bitcoin is something where the proof of work consists of a unique mathematical property.

For example the task of finding certain numbers with an unique property where there is a mathematical proof that exactly a certain amount of these numbers exist.

There exist for example only a few prime numbers for which you can construct a regular polygon but there are also supposedly completely finite series of certain primes. If the only way of finding these numbers consists of sieving it could easily serve as a transaction system.
So the only way someone can come up with a competing solution would be to find another finite series which can be tested this way.
This would be way less trivial than simply changing a few numbers in the source code of satoshis software.

You are absolutely correct. This is true even for *Gold!*

That is why companies pay great sums of dollars to run "Gold Exchange", "Buy Gold Now!" "Gold had never been worth zero!" ads everyday, all day. They are maintaining the delusion.

Delusion maintenance is very important. That is why, "Refinance Now!", "Rates have never been cheaper", "Home Prices are skyrocketing" were all the rage a few years back. It was delusion maintenance. Now that real estate delusion fever has broken, there is really no point in trying to maintain that delusion. But that doesn't stop lots of people from trying. "This apartment once sold for 1.2 million! I got it for only 800K! I got such a deal!" The rest of us however rest secure in knowing that guy who bought the apartment for 200K and sold it for 1.2 million got "the deal".



The point of this thread was that very little is being done in the way of Bitcoin delusion maintenance. Everyone here seems to be saying, "The delusion is strong in me! So screw the delusion resistant. When they finally come around they'll be sorry they didn't listen to me. And anyone who thinks *we all* could become post-delusional at once us... Poppycock!"



That is the problem of the moment for Bitcoin. However I don't think that is the medium term existential danger to Bitcoin.

The real danger is that the other 6 billion people on the planet go from pre-delusional to post-delusional before they ever actually ever become delusional.

That happened for me with housing and with *Gold!* I never even got to participate in those delusions. I just became post-delusional. There isn't the least bit of draw for me to go rushing into those delusions now.

Red, labeling things that you don't like as "delusions" is not an intellectually honest debate method. I could just call you "we need a stably valued money" delusional and be done with it...

I'm curious though, do you still buy into the delusion that is national fiat currencies?

I'm completely convinced I'm delusional for even wanting to try it. My delusions are only supported by about 5 people so far. It is a wacko thing to even propose. I'm just hoping my delusion might become infectious among the masses. But for the life of me, I'm not really sure why I care. I won't directly profit. I'm not trying to replace anything.

Really, I just want internet cash that is not easily profiled. It is more a privacy issue than anything. I hate that every company gathers every detail about my life. Then the government/and others ask them for all the information in mass, so we can all be profiled, or targeted for re-education.



I buy into that delusion in the same way I buy into gravity. All theories about why it should function seem completely implausible. But it seems invaluable in getting me through my day.

That's what interested me in Bitcoin.

So let's go back to your first post. I understand that you believe due to the nature of Bitcoin's finite monetary base and front loaded distribution, there is the fear that early adopters will control a significant portion of the money. Are you personally of the opinion that such a scenario is likely (given widespread adoption), or is it merely that you think that perception will never allow Bitcoin to become adopted at all?

It is not so much a "fear" but a obvious potential perception among the folks who have not yet adopted Bitcoin. I only say "obvious" because I've seen dozens of posts here commenting on that particular perception. I also ran into random YouTube videos exposing the same sorts of perception. I wasn't even searching YouTube!



Not to be flippant, but there is unarguable certainty that the first (X) Bitcoin adopters control 100% of all generated coins. These (X) individuals currently control 35.5% of all Bitcoins that will ever be generated. All future potential Bitcoin adopters will realize this instinctively.

I'm not really concerned with how the current 35.5% of BTC is distributed among the current (X) bitcoin adopters.



So the perceptions I'm specifically worried about are:
1) How do newcomers to the Bitcoin concept perceive the magnitude of (X)? Do they see it as 10, 100, 1000, 10000, a million?
2) How do newcomers perceive the ratio (35.5%)/(X) versus the ratio (65.5%)/(population-X) as population tends toward 6 billion.
3) How do newcomers perceive the ratio between
    the value/$/goods brought into the Bitcoin economy by (X) in exchange for their 35.5%
versus
    the value/$/goods brought into the Bitcoin economy by (population-X) in competition for a minor share of other's 35.5%.
Specifically, if newcomers bring only $1 worth of value, but there are six billion of them, do they perceive their contribution as dwarfing the contribution of (X)?
4) Do perceptions change psychologically when the number of generate coins reaches 50%?
Specifically, do newcomers see an issue with (X) receiving 50% over 4 years, while (population) has to wait 100+ years to benefit from the remaining 50%.

My hypothesis is:

If (X) is perceived, by newcomers, as large (say one million) by the time generation reaches 50%. Then Bitcoin has hopes for a geometric growth rate that can lead to universal adoption.

If (X) is perceived, by newcomers, as small (say one thousand) at the 50% point, there will be significant psychologic barriers to broad adoption. Bitcoin from that point on best see niche (linear) growth.


As Perceptual evidence I submit:

1) The Satoshi has 1.5 million BTC debacle. This perception seemed to affect even true Bitcoin believers. It seems likely a generalization of that perception will effect each and every potential new adopter.
2) Endless pre-occupation with BTC speculation vs endless references to early adopter Ponzi schemes. Clearly the perception exists.
3) The Occupy Wall Street movement. These folks are busy chanting we are the 99%. (X) seems much less than 1%. Rich people and bankers are bad. This is more an extrapolation then evidence. But still I expect skepticism.


Keep in mind I'm not saying anything in Bitcoin should change technically, monetarily or otherwise. It is more a matter of how do you generate the perception that, "Bitcoin is the currency of the 99%?" You know... Marketing! :)

I think in order for bitcoin to replace currency then it will have to be more accepted by stores or emerchants as a method of payment, Its getting there but its not there yet IMHO.

One of the big differences between Bitcoin and the current government-controlled fiat currencies that rarely gets mentioned, is that use of Bitcoin is entirely *voluntary* whereas the government currencies are *not*.

If you live in the US you *have* to pay taxes and you *have* to pay them im in US$. You will be forced at gunpoint if necessary to do this. That is what we should really be protesting about.

Don't like Bitcoin? Then don't use it. Make your own currency.

This thread has been dead for long, but that doesn't mean that the original post doesn't have merit. I don't mean for people to keep posting in this thread, but to read the OP and understand why most people would never consider BTC a serious alternative.

The OP argument turns up a lot in different forms.  

It is, essentially, this: "bitcoins will never become successful, because if they are successful then a small number of people will hold all the value".

To translate: being successful will mean they aren't successful.  You'll forgive me if I find that argument... odd.

The fundamental fallacy here is the fallacy of the distributed middle.  Essentially the argument is that there are only two states for bitcoin: success or failure.  With success being defined as bitcoin being the only currency on the planet.

It's nonsense.  Bitcoin price can be any number of dollars.  If it truly is the case that the more successful it becomes, the less people will want bitcoins then that will be reflected in the exchange rate.  An equilibrium will always be found (even if it is short lived on any particular day).

For a more practical definition of success, bitcoin just needs to be in common use.  Paypal transmits $100 billion a year.  That is well within bitcoin's grasp and could easily be argued to be "success".