Bitcoin Forum

If Bitcoin is an experiment, as Satoshi Nakamoto has advocated, then what are the real chances of it--Bitcoin proper (not some other crypto-currency)--truly becoming mainstream?

~Bruno~

All new things are experiments.

about tree fiddy

Unless some flaw or scandal causes people to abandon bitcoin, I think the network effect will make it succeed over other cryptocurrencies.  Ebay isn't the #1 auction site because it's a hard site to make or there aren't any competitors, it's #1 because it got there first and did the job well enough that it gained momentum and reputation.  The same thing will happen to bitcoin unless something drastic happens to prevent it.

Extremely slim. Bitcoin has serious known flaws. Future competitors won't.

ebay wasn't the first auction site so you could really do to stop using that example people

FTFY :)

Satoshi's protocol when Bitcoin was first made available failed.  And so did subsequent revisions. On August 10th, 2010 [the leading implementation of the protocol] failed spectacularly even:
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents

But because the protocol can be modified through a certain process, the flaws are being solved (see BIP 30 as an example.).

Because the protocol started out as an experiment does not mean it hasn't or won't become a widely used and valued piece of our financial infrastructure.

What else could he say? "Here you go. This is money, no flaws, enjoy."? Even if the protocol was perfect it would still be a monetary experiment, no one knows what 6 billion people are going to do with something before any of them have even looked at it.

Implied in your question is the assumption (hinted at in braces) that a crytocurrency can become mainstream at this point in human history. I don't think technology that a crypto-currency will rely one will mature for at least 7 generations (150 years or so). One thing that worries me almost as much as the possibility of hardware and software back-doors is bandwidth caps. Data and storage used by bitcoin is expected to increase at least geometrically for a long time. The average person many be excluded from caching the block-chain on that alone.

However, even if current technology is "good enough" to work in practice, it will be an experiment. There is always a risk that the big mining pools will get together and implement protocol changes that are detrimental to the currency. Even "bugfix" protocol changes are experimental. How far ahead such changes should be planned is an open question, factoring in the severity of the problem and whether existing transactions can still be trusted in the future.

This is also a political experiment. Governments around the world are increasingly cracking down on "annonymous" financial transactions. For example, the Bank of Canada (http://www.bankofcanada.ca/2000/05/press-releases/bank-canada-stop-issuing-1000-note/?page_moved=1) has removed the $1000 bill from circulation because it is too easy to move around. Businesses dealing with Money are required to record who is sending money to whom. Bitcoin is (deliberately?) ambiguous. It is not really "virtual money" because there is no central issuer backing it. It also acts a lot like a commodity, which may have tax implications in many countries.

If space travel becomes possible, bitcoin will likely become obsolete. The protocol assumes that every node has a latency of less than 10 minutes (2 minutes if TCP is used). This can be violated on Earth as well if your Internet is cut off by the govenrment (or your ISP) and data must be smuggled out on foot. For the largest "island" of processing power, this is not a big problem. However, smaller islands of processing power face having their blockchain history re-written by malicous entites on the larger processing island.

Thank you, all, for your informative posts, for I needed this info to help me better understand where Bitcoin is potentially heading. Any further discussion on this issue would be most welcomed, for myself and others who'll read this thread in the future.

~Bruno~

The Euro is a large scale experiment started in the late 1990s. It's still in use in countries where it's a large scale failure.

This.

What is your definition of "truly mainstream" ?

If 1% of the world uses Bitcoin for 1% of their transactions, then I'd still consider it a huge success. I think there's a good chance that happens, but that doesn't fit my definition of 'mainstream.'

I think there is small possibility Bitcoin proper is used by a majority of people in some country somewhere in the world use it at least once a week to pay for things. I'd consider that mainstream success.

I think there's a tiny possibility Bitcoin will eventually become as popular as the dollar.

But I'm not very good at predicting the future, so you might want to consult you local fortune teller.

Yep, this a 100times.

Yes, more of a political experiment than technical

Encoin wasn't the first cryptocurrency but...

On the first draft of the OP, the modifier "truly" was not included, but opted to include for some unknown reason. I guess, at the time, I felt it read better. That said, thank you, Gavin, for your unique insight.

~Bruno~

Let's consider what Gavin is saying here for a moment. 1% of world txns is pretty enormous. Let's say there are only two future possibilities:
1) Gavin's dream comes true (Bitcoin accounts for 1% of world txns)
2) Bitcoin fails and value decreases to 0.

The current bitcoin price indicates a guess about the probability of the two scenarios. What is this guess? Let's refer to a back-of-the-envelope calculation

Japan accounts for about 7% of world economic activity, that is 7% of world txns. The Japanese narrowly-defined money supply (M1) was about 9 trillion USD in 2009. Therefore we might expect bitcoin market cap under possibility (1) to be about 1/7 of this. That is under scenario 1, bitcoin market cap should grow to about 1.25 trillion USD. Dividing this by the 21 million bitcoins in existence, each bitcoin should be worth about 60,000 USD.

Right now bitcoin sells for about 5 USD. Let's consider the two future scenarios again.
1) Each bitcion worth US$60k each in future
2) Each bitcion worth US$0 in future.

What probability is the market putting on scenario 1? If bitcoin has a 1 in 12000 chance of growing in value to 60k and a 11999 in 12000 chance of falling in value to 0, then a price of 5 USD implies a fair gamble. Thus the implied probability is 1 in 12000.

I am not opposed to putting some money down on a 1 in 12000 chance. It is reasonable to gamble away small amounts. However, I am opposed to describing this as a "good chance." Without any further details, your audience will likely get confused about their odds.
 
Note: it's worth noting that introducing additional, intermediate scenarios will decrease the chance below 1 in 12000. We can think of 1 in 12000 as an upper bound on the market-implied probability that Gavin's dream will come to pass.
 

Them damn good odds! Isn't there a mega lotto that currently has a record jackpot with odds a hell of a lot worse than this, yet people are standing in line to buy their losing ticket? The person who figures out a way to market Bitcoin to the buyers of said lotto would profit handsomely.

~Bruno~

1% is a pretty arbitrary number, IF it can assume international currency role, there's little reason for other value measuring unit to exist. Just like (almost) everyone  is using meters, grams, seconds etc.

It should count 50%~100% of global transactions. Then the implied probability now is 1 in 600K to 1 in 1.2 million.

It will be tough to tell when btc will get to 1%, except long after the fact, and with a very large margin of error. There is no reliable way to measure it's use in actual real life trade, except by relying on voluntary user reports. I think when bitcoin gets big, it will do so fairly stealthily.

He's clearly saying 0.01%, not 1%.

Sorry missed that. Reading comprehension fail. Should then be 1 in 120 then with a $600 valuation per coin. Comment about "good chance" being misleading still applies.

I don't know nuthin about pricing risk, which is why I tell all of my relatives I have absolutely no idea whether or not they should buy Bitcoins.

But: it seems to me you're assuming that the entire $5 current price of Bitcoin is pure speculation, and ignoring that they ARE functioning as money in some fledgling markets. And don't you have to factor in time value of money into the calculation?  I'll pay a lot more for bitcoin today if I think there's a 30% chance it will be worth $600 in a year than if I think there is a 30% chance in 100 years.

You're also assuming that the velocity of bitcoin will be approximately equal to the velocity of traditional currencies. I could image it being much higher (less friction in transactions, so more transactions) or much lower (maybe bitcoin will be used mostly as a long-term store of value, with infrequent transactions; what is the velocity of an gram of gold compared to dollars?).

Fractional reserve banking sounds like an even bigger experiment to me.

In addition, does anyone know how this works?:
Amount x in currency X buys 1 pizza.
Amount y in currency Y buys 1 pizza.
The pizzas represent a comparable broad basket of goods that are locally available in the respective jurisdiction of each currency.
However, when exchanging the two currencies, 1x buys 5y.
Why? Because one country has a more effective tourism marketing strategy than the another? It seems one possible answer is that one country stealthily inflates their currency with various trading instruments, and is temporarily able to con the other country by restricting their access to those instruments.

It is a back of the envelope calculation. You are right that there are many factors involved which will skew the numbers in one direction or the other. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that the implied probability is correct at minimum within an order of magnitude (i.e. should be between 1 in 12 and 1 in 1200).  

If you want to specify some detailed scenario (i.e. assume that it has a velocity similar to gold [implied probability will go way down (not sure about velocity of gold)], and develops to its full extent in 20 years [implied probability will increase by about a factor of 2.5], and has a current use value of $1 [probability will go down by a factor of 4/5]), then I would be happy to investigate the implied probabilities. There is no way of justifying what the right scenario to look at is.

The only thing that would likely lead to a substantial increase in probability is much higher velocity than other currencies. I'm not sure if I'm buying this though. If the currency is intentionally deflationary (like gold), its velocity is likely to be lower, not higher.

Finally, more or less, none of this stuff matters for the design of bitcoin. It is just about interpretation of its success probability. Don't be over optimistic.

I can't imagine you pulling the probability of a technology "succeeding" based on the current price of one of it's units out of your ass and at the same time anyone taking you seriously, I certainly don't.


I think it's practically impossible to quantify Bitcoin's chances of how Gavin described reaching it's success are because it depends on oh so much more than merely it's current price of a unit, market velocity or transaction volume. It's a technology after all. You can't predict how it will behave in all environments you can't predict all the breakthroughs, you can't predict all the problems, you can't predict all the sentiment changes of it's users. You just can't predict how the world using Bitcoin will look like. All you can do is guess. And when it comes to guesses, your's is as good as mine.

As far as I'm concerned people paying $5 to own a digital key that has the number 1 associated with it in a publicly shared copy of a ledger is already a huge success.

Empirical data suggests that Bitcoin currently has a lower velocity than "normal" money. Economic theories about money usually assume a single currency, or at least a territorial monopoly, so you're right, their usability is limited. Good point on the gold.

Just out of curiosity how many BTC do you need to be part of the 1% of the BTC market?

Does not compute. According to Wall St accounting (sic) principles (sic), all bitcoins in existence are a liability. ;D

call me crazy but when 1 Australian dollar = 1.0358 U.S. dollars
and 1 Bitcoin = ~$4.9 U.S. dollars

I think BTC are doing fine :D

Now this is a powerful post!

May I suggest expanding this list to show...

1 Canadian dollar = X USD
1 Antigua and Barbuda = X USD
1 Bahamian dollar = X USD
1 Barbadian dollar = X USD

etc., doing only the "dollar" currencies. Use this link to view the rest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_circulating_currencies.

Picture this generated list on a shirt, with Bitcoin (in slightly larger font) on the bottom. Wear the shirt at all major conventions where Bitcoin could be considered a concern.

~Bruno~

The question was not the probability of it "succeeding", but the probability of it accounting for 1% of txns carried out by 1% of people (weighted according to their income). This is easily calculated and the robustness of the calculation can be tested by exploring different scenarios which alter the math. If you don't believe in standard economics (which these calculations are), fine, then we won't have any language to communicate with each other in. Best just to flip the ignore button.

Not at all.. There will just be realms of crypto-currencies: here on earth and there out there. And exchanges for entities to trade between, perhaps facilitated with Open Transactions and RipplePay technologies.

Bitcoin is an experiment because there was nothing like it at the time of the release. Bitcoin is all types of experiments, it is a social experiment, an economic experiment, and a technological experiment.

• Social Experiment - By introducing a new currency, and the community around the currency, people need to adopt it. Bitcoin is an experiment in this sense because people had to adopt an entirely new idea, and build an economy and community around it. I often wonder, how Bitcoin as a whole would survive without the forum. Without the forum, how would Ideas spread? Or thoughts be shared? What about speculation?
• Economic Experiment - Much like the social factors of Bitcoin, people need to adopt the Bitcoin currency. Even if one Bitcoin were worth 1Billion USD, if there were no ways to spend it, then why own any?*
• Technological Experiment - Bitcoin is obviously a technological experiment because of all of the computers, programming, and other tech associated with it. Cracking that SHA256 isn't as easy as a gpu makes it in the micronanosecond it takes.**

Yeah, my .02BTC

* - Figurative. Obviously 1 BTC wouldn't be worth a $billion if you couldn't use it.
** - Speaking in terms of a single hash.

American Democracy is an experiment created by an algorithm called the Constitution. It requires constant attention, participation, and minor tweaking along the way whenever someone discovers exploits. I could go on about the analogy between cryptocurrency and democracy, but the point is that I feel that Bitcoin is the key to spreading freedom and democracy everywhere. Maybe freedom based democracy is not the best form of government, but I've never heard of anything better. The same goes for Bitcoin.

THIS. all day long. +1

Sir, please get your facts straight. Although I'm not a believer in minarchism (limited government), I actually despise democracy and think anarcho capitalism is the best way to structure a society, but I still have to correct you when you make a grave mistake like you just did.

The word democracy does not once appear in the U.S. Constitution. Not even once. That "algorithm" was suppose to create a republic, not a democracy but people didn't, as you correctly put it, give it enough constant attention, participation or guarding so through time it's interpretation by people in power changed where today they practically already scrapped the whole thing.

Another thing I have to correct you is thinking that freedom and democracy can possibly go hand in hand or be synonymous. Fact is democracy is majority rule, the direct opposite of freedom and actually actively working against it. (I cannot express how much I hate democracy.)

And finally Bitcoin has no similarity with a democracy. None. There is no majority rule. There is only the rule of the algorithm everyone voluntarily agreed upon using. Even if miners start using another algorithm, even if the majority of it's users start using a client with another algorithm, no one is forced to use it. Which is something that will get you imprisoned or killed in a democracy. (don't believe me? try calling your precious government and ask if you can renounce your citizenship without taking on another and see what happens)


I suggest you start learning the ugly truth about democracy and perhaps research the idea of a peaceful society living in spontaneous order and of which membership is voluntary but requires following a few mandatory but consistent rules if you really want freedom, peace and prosperity.

I stand corrected on my terminology, yes Republic is a better word. Democracy is often used to refer to the American style of politics by laymen such as myself. This does not change the facts presented. I choose to use Democracy because Republic reminds me of George W. and the current Republican Party.

Changing the Bitcoin protocol requires a majority agreement. Your argument about using a non agreed to algorithm is a strawman. Besides, democracies always have loopholes if you want to skirt the grey areas. In America there are many forms of alternate currency in legal use.

Democracy is not the same as majority rule, though majority gets more weight, at least in America.

Finally, minarchsm and anarcho capitalism are hypotheticals. I am talking facts. If you have an example of such a successful society, please enlighten me.

I think it would be more accurate to describe a democracy as proportional representation of opinions. Bitcoin is like a democracy with a minority government. The miners are simply casting votes that say "I should get all the Bitcoins!" And by a convoluted process, a ballot is drawn so that someone indeed gets all the Bitcoins roughly every 10 minutes.

Also, are you forgetting that political systems are generally shaped by history? If a so-called democracy evolves out of a monarchy, it's likely to have many features of the previous system, such as a large bureaucracy and a police force. Or, more generally: structure. What would democracy be like if it started out with no structure? Or at least a certain bare minimum that is needed to enforce the system?

How the reward is divided up has nothing to do with rules and forces no one to acknowledge someone's reward if they didn't follow the rules.


You are clueless about history and how the American republic looked like right after it's inception. It had 0, yes 0 "features" of a previous system, because there was no previous system. It's the last form of government, the last algorithm that was invented from almost a completely clean slate. People were actually nut just free, but sovereign and owned what they produced. Their privacy was sacred and they could do or own virtually anything that didn't hurt someone else. A far cry from today. What they have today is a gradually corrupted government into a fascist corporatism that evolved because while what little power that the original limited government had, there still was some power to be auctioned off, and guess what, special interest bought it all up and controls it today.

The only answer moving forward is not back to the same recipe for inevitable disaster but forward with something new and even more radical. No central government with no power to be auctioned off.

Btw I bet you don't even realize that you are a slave today and what it means to be a sovereign and truly free. I'm willing to bet money on it.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

And Bitcoin, if you didn't realize this, is a tool some slaves are trying to fight back against their masters.

Of course there is it just happens to be 1 hash = 1 vote instead of the more common 1 person = 1 vote (or 1 white land owning citizen = 1 vote)

I think that the assumption that BTC would collapse overnight if it was to be replaced has no grounds.

It's also a plausible scenario that future competitors would be exchanged with BTC and keep stable prices for some time.

Really? And what does this "vote"(not really a vote) mean for me as a bitcoins owner? Nothing. If I don't like what you're doing with your hashing I can sell my bitcoins the very next minute and put my wealth into another currency. I really don't see how that is possible in a democracy. In a democracy if you don't like how the majority votes, there's nothing you can do. You have to live under their rules or not live at all. Not so with Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has ZERO similarity with a democracy other than the fact that both are run by people. ZERO, period.

That's why we shouldn't have such a bit fucking federal government and states rights are so important. If you dont like what's going on in California, you can move to nevada (like I did).

I did my own thought experiement on this a few weeks ago. I envision MarsCoin, VenusCoin, JupiterCoin, KuiperCoin, etc, all traded at varying rates on a solar system wide crypto-currency exchange.

As if that gives you the freedom to keep the fruits of your labor, as if that solves the problem of not being able to own property or a house or a car, as if that solves the problem of legal tender laws, as if that solves the problem of not being free to travel, as if that solves the problem of being forced under threat of violence to get a license for virtually any activity you'd like to offer to the market.

Please, just stop before you embarrass yourself even more with your lack of knowledge about how the reality really looks like.

Everything.  If majority of hashing power agree that block reward is 50,000 BTC per block then it is. 
If the majority of hashing power implements a demurage on your wealth then it happens.
If the majority of the hashing power forces a 0.1 BTC min fee for valid tx then it is unavoidable.

So yes the votes by hashing power are very important.  Now for a Democracy to work the voters must be INFORMED and EDUCATED.  Most of the problems with modern Democracies can be boiled down to ignorance of the issues.  Life is "good enough" for most Americans in America.  Most voters don't feel the need to be informed, or question authority. Even bad legislation isn't bad enough to stir them to action.  Our govt has rigged it so most Americans don't pay income tax thus have no direct stake is how the govt wastes money.

The nice thing about voting by hashing power is the miners do HAVE a direct stake.  Their hashing power has a cost, the future economic value of that hashing power is a direct tangible benefit.  Most (maybe not all but most) miners tend to be relatively informed.  They are more likely to make decisions that enhance Bitcoin because it enhances their future economic value.


Um ever heard of moving, or convincing the majority to change their mind, or violent overthrow of the govt?

I can exchange my Bitcoins for a currency I feel is better aligned with my interests.
I can move from my existing country to one where I feel the govt is better aligned with my interests.

I can work to change the protocol rules and convince a majority of miners to support those changes.
I can work to change the laws of my govt and convince a majority of voters to support those changes.

I can attack the Bitcoin network and setup a competing network.
I can attack my govt in an attempt to overthrow it and setup a new govt.

The reality is, we will never not have a government. Your inability to comprehend that point is what should be embarrassing.

Typical slave ignorance. I cannot express how infuriating it is for me to read your post. I despise people that think like this.


Last I checked the dictionary that's not voting. They are running the show with everyone else running a client(mining or not), no question, but they don't vote. A vote carries necessary consequences for others, but what miners do with their hashing power does not necessarily have consequences on me. I can choose to not use it. I cannot choose not to live under a law passed by a government without being under threat of violence.

A more accurate description of what they're really doing with mining is enforcement of rules as a service not voting on rules.



And that's similar to Bitcoin how exactly? If I don't want to use Bitcoin I don't need to move or employ violence. I don't need to do anything, I'm left alone. The idea that a democracy owns the people on a piece of land abhors me. It's slavery and you're oblivious to it if you think I have a choice when my only options are to run or to fight.

I bet they said the same thing about your precious democracy back when kings ruled the people.  ::)

Of course it is voting.

I can vote to support a double spender.  I can vote to support a 51% attack.  Now I likely never would but each miner (well each informed miner, pools = uninformed miners) is voting on which block is accurate representation of the current status of the network.   Conflicting views are resolved via hashing power with the majority enforcing the consensus on the minority.

There absolutely are consequences for those votes.

I guess there's no point. You just aren't capable of looking at things like they really are.

It's funny too cause first you tell me it's voting and then you call it "the majority enforcing the consensus".

BTW I never said there were no consequences to what rules they enforced I only said that the crucial difference between Bitcoin and a democracy is that those consequences aren't necessarily applicable to me. I can choose to not use Bitcoin and avoid those consequences, something that I cannot do in a democracy without the threat of violence.

Let me add one more thing. If you did this in a democracy others would have no choice but to be subjected to what you enforced. But with Bitcoin if people don't like the rules you support they can fork off and let you enforce what you will while they continue to use Bitcoin as they wished. Something not possible in a democracy without being under the threat of violence.

They aren't mutually exclusive.  Hashing is voting 1 hash = 1 vote.  Majority of hashing power chooses the consensus.  Not sure why that is hard for you to understand.



False.  Move to a non-democratic state.   Tada the votes of a Democracy would have no more consequences than the votes of miners have on non-Bitcoin users.

The thing you seem to be missing is your claim is:
Bitcoin consequences don't affect me because I can choose to live outside of Bitcoin (i.e. don't use Bitcoin).

How is that any different than:
Consequences of voting in the US doesn't affect me because I can choose to live outside the United States (i.e. move to Somalia).

Now you may say "I don't want to move to Somolia" to which I would say that is no different than someone not wanting to stop using Bitcoin.  Also in both instances the effect or lack of effect on you doesn't change the fact that voting is occurring.

That is a false correction.

IT IS A VOTE.  I can't enforce ANYTHING.  I can only vote toward one of many possible blockchains.  The block chain with the most votes (via hashing power) BECOMES the consensus.  A block only remains in the primary chain because it has been deemed the best block by a majority of the hashing power.  

Anytime two blocks are in conflict is can only be resolved via voting.

Let me repeat myself before I stop replying to you:

The idea that a democracy owns the people on a piece of land abhors me. It's slavery and you're oblivious to it if you think I have a choice when my only options are to run or to fight.

Do I have to fight Bitcoin if I don't want to use it? No.
Do I have to run from Bitcoin if I don't want to use it? No.    -> freedom, not slavery.

Well your options aren't just run or fight.  They are acceptance, changing the view of the voters, fighting, or running.


Your opinions on democracy being slavery are irrelevant to the point at hand.  Slavery or not you rant only reinforces the fact that Bitcoin is very much like a Democracy.

If the majority of voters (1 citizen = 1 vote) in a democracy disagree with you then your choices are limited to:
1) accept the will of the majority
2) change the opinion of the majority (voting)
3) fight (doesn't have to be violence, you can encourage revolution/change by nonviolent means)
4) run (move to somewhere outside the realm of control by the majority)

In Bitcoin (1 hash = 1 vote) if majority of hashing power disagrees with you then you choices are very similar:
1) accept the will of the majority
2) change the opinion of the majority (voting)
3) fight (destroy the network from within to make room for a new network, or force a change)
4) run (yes making a fork would be running, you risk losing anything and everything you have created & invested in this fork)

The same thing applies in a corporation (1 share = 1 vote).  Your choices are limited to:
1) accept the will of the majority
2) change the opinion of the majority (voting)
3) fight (damage the company valuation to encourage aquisition by another company)
4) run (sell your stake potentially at a loss)

It would seem many, many orders of magnitude more likely that Bitcoin should rival Paypal, than that Bitcoin could rival the Dollar.

Bitcoin displacing Paypal makes a good yardstick for whether Bitcoin succeeds or fails in the mainstream .

The world needs to change very little for Bitcoin to die. The world needs to change profoundly for Bitcoin to replace the dollar.

No, no, of course not. The current minimum difficulty and the algorithm for it is really just a "guideline".


Clearly the world revolves around America so quickly that it created a wormhole and some of its people fell into a parallel dimension... While there, they found that America was discovered by "random dudes", not British subjects or missionaries. It was "Terra Nullius" with no sign of American Indian life. And the American Revolutionary War was this really epic cheer-leading routine. ::)

This doesn't affect the analogy. Bitcoin shares the weaknesses of a democracy. But it's not an enormous concern because it is not a government, it's a totally different thing. It would be better if it didn't have these weaknesses, but there is no other proven way that could make such a system work.

Does this also reflect the claim about democracy; that it's the best one that works despite its weaknesses? Yes. Does it mean anything at all? No, analogies don't work that way. So don't worry. :)

That's right! Bitcoin is not a government therefor not a democracy. Bitcoin is actually an anarcho capitalist system in it's purest form. It's anarchy. Anarchy in practice does not mean anything goes. Anarchy in practice means spontaneous order and a society with some mandatory and consistent but voluntarily agreed to rules.

This idea that because people are working together and enforce certain voluntarily agreed to mandatory and consistent rules somehow this constitutes to the concept of a democracy is just plain wrong. FFS check your dictionaries.


Bitcoin is a system. It has mandatory and consistent rules (they apply to everyone without exception). But participation is voluntary. HUGE DIFFERENCE from a democracy. Democracy is a form of government participation in which is not voluntary. You have no choice but to follow their rules. Being forced to run from your home or fight against violence is not what constitutes to a voluntary choice.

 

I bet a communist would say: "it's the perfect implementation of Marxism! A collectivist system under which everyone is treated equally. No exceptions!"

And a fascist would say: "it's the perfect Fascist monetary system! Only those who are truly worthy and capable of mining are allowed to do it. Primitives in faraway lands with no technological merit, cannot subvert the course of natural selection!"

So how much hashing power you have, or access to what processing power, electricity cost, internet cost you have is equal for everyone? Btw a vital part of marxism is that people have NO CHOICE whether or not they want to be even part of the system..


So those who merely running the client do not help keeping their copy of the public ledger honest? Btw a vital part of fascism is that people have NO CHOICE whether or not they want to be even part of the system..



Please. Those anologies make no sense what so ever, unless your goal was to troll me..  ::)

I was trying to demonstrate that it's very easy to focus on a subset of Bitcoin's results, whether intended or accidental, and then liken them to one's preferred ideology.

And you failed.