Bitcoin Forum

Some of these IPO currencies have received a lot of grief over it being unfair the way they were distributed.

Why is mining any more fair when early adopters can mine a lot more than later adopters? (very similar to an IPO.. except later adopters have to purchase the currency for higher rates)

So, what do you think is the most fair way to distribute a currency.. not necessarily run it but initially distribute it.

Define 'fair'?

Mining but with stagger block rewards starting at 0 and going to the eventual actual block reward then going back down over time is probably the fairest. Good examples would be WDC and DGC if you look at their charts its a nice smooth line over time. Both could be improved upon.

Almost forgot and a good lead time up to the announcement with wallet readily available from multiple locations.

Something issued to everybody is not fair in the long run, this is called an air drop and the end result is all the money flows to a few swindlers.   When you make something near worthless - people will give it up within a heart beat and this what results to concentration in an air drop.

 Eastern Europe had an air drop in the 1990s called the privitization vouchers (which the masses traded up for vodka and snickers - true story) and the end result was that a few Oligarchs got immensely wealthy at the expense of everybody else.   Digital currencies saw their own version of an air drop called Aurora and the country coins and people lost fortunes and a few people got rich overnight.



PoW is never fair because it has technological, technical and $capital requirements.   PoW is essentially a private IPO which in almost every coin results in whales due to instamining.


The fairest distribution in crypto history has been NEM.  True 7 billion people missed out on it (giving coins to that many is an air drop, see above).   The difference about NEM is that in a distribution of that scale there is no nepotism or cronyism - any stranger that was active in January-February of 2014 had a good shot of getting in as it was widely publicized at the time and the buy in cost was superficial.  I don't know any of the NEM developers on a first name basis or anything of that sort, but yet me (as a stranger) was able to get in.  This is compared to the typical alternate which has a distribution under 50 and you have to wonder how many of them are connected to the developers (friends?  relatives?  acquaintances?).

Was NEM 'fair' to people who missed the distribution period?  Well it is more like "inconvenienced" than 'unfair'.  That being said, NEM's distribution was not intended to be a planetary relief scheme but to prevent whales that we see in virtually 99% of alternates (whale to me is something who controls at least 2% of a coin or more).

fair from the tiny subgroup of mining within the btt memberships perspective  ;) for the rest of the world maybe not so  :o

in any case does any initial distribution method change the distribution outcome once a crypto can be exchanged for fiat (even if via btc)?

Roger Ver was not in the initial distribution but he bought in at $1 and he still has 100,000 BTC (he was able to buy this due to already being a quasi $Fiat millionaire at the time due to his computer company).


Theoretically, with the exception of lost or forgotten wallets, it is presumed at some time that most of the initial wallets of Bitcoin or any alternate will cash out for $Fiat (especially if the holder is stuck in a McJob or in some uninspiring middle class grind existence).

but there will always be whales like Roger Ver, who already have enough $Fiat in the bank, who'll hold to the grave like many world billionaires already do.


 

It must have been very difficult to tell the difference between NEM and one of the many scam IPOs when it was distributed. There was no wallet available, and how many times have you heard a "dev" asking for small payments for a stake in his new coin that turns out to be a scam. It's hardly fair if you are asking people to risk a small amount of money for a stake when there have been countless rip offs here asking exactly the same thing.

Thats the thing 90% of crypto users (and 100% of newbies) are more in it for the fiat then any real interest in cryptos.....but guess that comes with the territory.

I'm not familiar with any of these examples.  Maybe some could had happened in 2012 or 2013 but I wasn't really around.  NEM was the first time I saw anyone attempt that sort of distribution and they had 3000 send in funds (most of them being rather trivial, like under $20.  This is compared to most alternates where you are pressured to invest at least 1 BTC to get any decent amount).

IPO = scam 100% of the time imho.

I think you'll find also (having personally communicated with sec officials) that any exchanges listing IPO type coin are really playing with fire, and sooner or later (all have been off secs radar to this point) some will be made examples of (something lost on most the btt crowd).

Fair because in doing the work you reap the reward. "Work" is what make wealth so its the most fair everyone has the opportunity if they choose not to take it that is up to them.

That's what I'm anticipating sometime down the road, although the SEC's lawyers might have to do a bit of legerdemain because cryptocurrencies are defined by the tax authorities as regular property. By this standard, an "IPO" of a regular crypto is nothing more than a pre-sale like buying (say) Windows 9 before Microsoft releases it. Etherium's legal beagles are right on that point; myself, I think they lawyered up because they were afraid of lawsuits instead of regulators.

But that said, the definition of a "security" - at least in the province of Ontario, where I reside - is broad enough to get a lot of people around here into trouble. I'd peg this as a long-range developing story...

I know IPO sellers might be risking some sort of prosecution, but are IPO buyers safe from any kind of prosecution anywhere?

POW with long term reward reductions.

Myriad is a good example, block halvings every year, no premine, no instamine, 1000 coins minted every 30 seconds. Price is floored at 50 sats and is hard for whales to manipulate. THAT'S fair.

Fairness means the price ISN'T volatile. When will you people learn  ::)

Why is a decreasing block reward 'fairer'?  Wouldn't it be better to have an increasing block reward due to those getting onto the coin later on mining fewer blocks due to an increased number of people mining them?

Let's say fairer means more evenly distributed.  If you could get 1 unit of currency into the hands of every person out there, it would be ideal.

AND not have them dump it on the market the way Auracoin happened because they didn't need to risk anything to buy them.

of course mining by CPU or GPU.

Did anyone mention Auroracoin yet?

fairest distribution is the good old long term mining schedule.

And that, my friends, would be Myriadcoin. No other coin features a more fair distribution through mining. But looking at how unpopular Myriadcoin is one cannot help but conclude that nobody is actually interested in fair distribution. Hence, all these thousand threads on fairness are completely pointless.

PoW mining plus slow emission such as half every 10 years. A small percentage of mined coins is paid to developers.

I assume you are a miner then?

Good Points.

The Crypto holders of today have the advantage over future adopters of tomorrow. However there are always going to be new Altcoins and crypto assets which future entrants will mine/buy/support. In a sense this is the fairest thing. Everyone wants to buy a coin at its cheapest point, no one wants a currency whose price is spiking, that's why distribution is really dispersed across all the different currencies with each person holding some and not others.

As well as this a coin whose dev team and supporters put in time and effort deserve reward for that work, so when buying into a successful coin you are paying for that effort that has been put in, making the coin what it is. That's fair to.

Yup.