Bitcoin Forum

I don't believe that power corrupts, I believe that the corrupt get into power - and power reveals their internal corruption.

What do you think of this quote?



http://www.sibos.com/media/news/beyond-bitcoin

Have you looked at the speculation forum?

Its literally people decrying bankers for being scummy and rich.....followed by people self fellating eachother about how insanely rich they will be when BTC takes off and getting more people to buy in.

These are not the very early adopters. Yes even these want to become rich, but it doesn't mean that they will be as uncharitable as the current rich. I know that if I had $$$$, I would give much to the poor - like I have always done with my wealth.

I am thinking in terms of % of good people among bitcoiners vs % among the current elite - even if most turn out to be selfish.

As an entire group, I really don't think Bitcoiners are better or worse than any other large group of people, including the very rich. On the one side, you see scammers, frauds, Ponzis and the lazy who are attracted to Bitcoin because they think it's easy money. On the other, you see Bitcoiners who have donated hashrate to particular causes at some point in their careers and the ones who donate to Bitcoin crowdfunding campaigns. Somewhere in the middle are the ones who don't mind doing some honest work for a Bitcoin and maybe someday earning enough to leave to charity or their descendants in their wills. It's all in how you look at it. Bitcoin is a tool.

No , we rely on bitcoin mechanism not moral .
Trustless is the core of bitcoin spirit ::)

Anyone is better than leeches on wall st

let's see ... BFL, Mt. Gox, Bitfloor. GLBSE, CoinLab, MyBitcoin, Bitinstant, CoinLenders, Bitcointalk.org, Bitcoin Bounty Hunter,  ... tough question with no easy answer.

More average people then snobs.

Haha. Exactly. Sadly it seems that 99% of people who get into bitcoin now do so because they think it's some kind of magical money making machine cash cow that is going to make them all millionaires. These people are just greedy and probably even worse than the existing rich that they constantly decry just out of jealousy and envy. If they got rich the money would probably just go to their head anyway and fritter it all away on crap and then become the people they claim to despise.

I think yes they are but im bias. What do you mean by "better" ?

It seems the bitcoin elite are more charitable, more intelligent, more capable, younger vs current elite.   The world is in safer hands with bitcoiners but i get the feeling you wont get something for nothing like with our current system.

Oh sure.

I'm not sure if you're thinking right about this. Having a different means of transferring money isn't going to be a catalyst to drive a change in fundamental human nature. While you could say there is some notion of this with evolution - I doubt you'd see much change in people between periods of 20 years or so. All your going to do is get the list of current rich and power hungry people and add to it eventually.

{looks at the threads and suforums on bitcointalk.org, shakes head}


 ::) What ever you say... ::)

Yes, but once we are insanely rich, we will give it all to the poor.
You must have missed that part ;)

I don't think that character of some person depends of his own wealth, job, fact that he use crypto curency or not, religion, race, nationality...
Everyone develop his/her character in the family first, and through life experience, education etc.
This is my opinion.

Well this is a tricky debate and i am bias but i think having a different means of transferring money would create a massive difference - i still think people will be "greedy" and highly competitive (BTC early adopters are) but thats different problem not to be tackled while we are low rating on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale:

Heres how i see the differences playing out, lets say everyone in the world is using crypto (just to make it easier to highlight my point)

So.... some basic philosophy if i may... humans and the external world are part of the same thing and dont divide at the end at the outer layer of human skin.  The external environment can influence the fundamental nature of humans imo.  Human is just a word.

Next... No banks/gov controlling money (gov without money control doesnt have much, if any power) - this changes peoples fundamental outlook on life, end result = more direct human judgement on issues closer to source. You are your own master of destiny without banks and gov.  Currently bureaucracy is the master of our destiny's - even the very rich get caught partially in the bureaucracy trap.   Right now people dont even bother to try and do something good because there is no point, the system is too anti socially mobile.

So in this new world you have greater power with a more liberated version of money (crypto).  You can do greater good or greater bad without gov and banks control.  

Conclusion.... freedom > non freedom - provided the source of freedom is stable. (kinda contradictory oxymoron but you get what im trying to say in this whole context? bitcoin seems stable enough to fit current step of human liberation growth)

I'm not sure I necessarily agree. First of all, I fail to see the why people have this perception that having no banks and a completely deregulated monetary system would be entirely good. Banks are just like any other service, they exist because there is demand for them and that demand comes from the fact people need a place to store their wealth as well as go to as a means of finding capital for investment. Government policies exist to try and maintain steady growth within the economy and reduce the swinginess of business cycles. While you might not agree with the way governments choose to go about with their policy - most of their aims are sound.

For example, imagine if Greece had no means of being bailed out because money was entirely deregulated. You would have chronic unemployment, a significant reduction in quality of life (as no one can afford services/goods) and probably eventually starve out the population without some sort of humanitarian aid from other countries. If anything that's even worse than what we have now. I don't care about being free if I have to have a hole in my stomach and die because of it because I don't have food to eat.

Secondly, whose to say you aren't currently the master of your own destiny at the current time/status quo? Aside from preventing things which hurt society as a whole, the way most democracy's are set up means they allow the freedom to do nearly anything. The only reason you can't go out and stab people because you feel like it is because it negatively impacts others. You have the freedom to anything else you like really.

And if you wouldn't mind clarifying - are you wanting to not have a government (which would be anarchy and complete chaos) or just no government intervention in monetary policy?

I can only offer my bias opinion really because right/wrong/good/bad seems impossible to know objectively.  To clarify im thinking i want no government involvement in monetary system.  Im keen to keep some kind of less powerful gov perhaps some kind of donation based regulation authority.  

The inefficiency of the banking system comes at a cost even if we initially chose this system out of demand, do we get enough back as a society for that cost at this point?   The demand for banking in current format could be reassessed now technology has shown us improvements.  Many financial sector workers could be doing other things.   Maybe bitcoin needs more time to prove itself?

Government polices aims are meant with good intention im sure but if you have more individual direct control to environment via voting with your wallet you relate better imo, you have motivation to relate when your decisions actually count.  People/life is too complex to have a 100 million person sized tribes all following the same ways.

Common denominators in humans seem to be we are all drawn towards pleasure and try to avoid pain.  We also all seem to display sympathy. Seeing someone in pleasure > seeing someone in pain.  Maybe the problem is if you have some kinda crazy "anarchy" world people cannot find sympathy for other different kinds of people if they become too different and we all kill each other? Although we find sympathy for animals so dont think so...

As regards Greece, lf the people own the land and are free to trade how they wish they both have the control and motivation to preserve quality of life.  With government running the show they lose direct control.   What happened with Greece exactly? seems like their people gave other people power to make decisions and these other people made bad/unlucky decisions? or did Greece suddenly turn non compatible for human life?  If not those then must of been that Greece were unlucky?   (excuse my ignorance)

Lastly yeah im not ok with people going around stabbing people randomly for no reason, i would hope to keep donation style gov to police this, if this is not possible then yeah i guess more brainstorming needed before we change to mad max apocalypse ;D

To think about it, there are scammers that have more than the rich(TF, karpeles). So I guess that the majority of us are better, but some are also driven by corruption.

Meanwhile in the off-topic section we have threads like what would you do if you had a million dollars and most of the answers are like:  "Yachts, Cocaine, Hookers".


Not to say the elite can't engage in those vices but last I check most of them put up the front of a traditional marriage with children.

This is a rather tough question. When bitcoin shoots the moon, many early participants will become very wealthy. While that is good for early bitcoiners, we cannot ignore the fact that this newfound wealth is the result of a wealth _transfer_. Overall wealth is not increased, we are just transferring that wealth from fiat-holders to bicoin-holders. Others will lose so bitcoiners will gain.

Does this make Bitcoin no more noble than fiat? I say nay. The transfer of wealth to bitcoin-holders will be completely voluntary. In contrast, the transfer of wealth to fiat-holders that has previously occurred, has occurred through the violence of coercive government and the legalized thefts called 'inflation', 'partial reserve banking', and 'seigniorage'.

I might venture to guess that is as much a result of the self-selected age demographic than any other inherent bitcoin/fiat difference.

I hasten to add that there is nothing inherently immoral about yachts, cocaine, nor hookers.

Incidentally, it was international banking policies that drove Greece to the precipice of ruin. To claim that the bankster-schemed bail-in was their godsend is rather specious.

The last part seems rather dubious to me. ;)

The distribution on wealth in the bitcoin economy is even worse than the current fiat problem! Even less than 1% own a massive part of bitcoin.

1.  Poverty predates money.  As far as I can think of, every single society that has ever existed, since there have been what we call societies, have had a small wealthy elite control a much larger, poor\middle class\whatever you want to call it.  It isn't a bitcoin thing, or a fiat thing, or a currency thing in general. 

2.  In order for there to be a wealthy elite, there must be a working poor.  For one thing, if a small, wealthy elite is going to be able to syphon off wealth without producing, that wealth has to come from somewhere else.  But more importantly, if we all have the same amount of wealth, I can't very well pay you to do my work for me now can I? 

3.  Considering that this inevitably happens all over, in every society that has ever existed, I think it is fairly obvious a basic characteristic of humanity itself, and not some condition that only effects a small minority of people. 

I don't believe anyone is better than any other person it is all to do with environment and how you are raised with morals etc. Bitcoin focuses itself on exploratory ideas and freedoms.

I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who isn't a better person than the current rich.

Well you can't look at all bitcoiners since there are more of them than rich people (the recent list gives you a number).
If you pick out a handful of people here, they are most likely better than most if not all of the current rich people.

No, immoral behavior would be advocating the use of the violence of the state in order to prevent (or punish) purely consensual behaviors.

Depend or not you consider destroying your body with harmful substance or engaging in a denigrating and sexist trade "morally  acceptable".But I guess it's really up to you. IMO, I always thought paying for sex is quite pathetic, regardless of the moral debate concerning the purported profession.

To me, anything that is purely consensual is moral. OTOH, using the violence of the state to prevent someone from engaging in consensual behavior is clearly immoral.


While I've never paid for sex (at least in monetary, prostitution sort of meaning), I don't find it pathetic. Is it pathetic to pay the staff at the auto oil change place for the professional service they render?

Is that  what kids these days call hookers now ;D

Yes, some wealth transfer will happen. But major wealth of bitcoiners will come not from wealth transfer, but from wealth creation. Economy is not a zero-sum game, right? Bitcoin as a payment system is an institution of huge value. This value is being created right now and getting distributed between coinholders. Just like wealth of Google stockholders is result of value creation, rather than wealth transfer.

You seem to imply that the monetary value of Bitcoin will never be much greater than the sum of the value of the financial services of the network. I disagree. In any shoot the moon scenario whatsoever, the monetary value will completely dwarf the financial services value.

The financial services value is indeed a wealth created. However, the monetary value is wealth transferred. Ergo, as the monetary value dwarfs the financials services value, the vast majority of Bitcoin wealth will be wealth sucked away from fiat holders into the pockets of the Bitcoin holders.

If the financial services value of the network dominates, Bitcoin will have failed spectacularly as a money.

What is the (future) value of bitcoin financial services? I'm not sure how to measure it, but there must be some ways to estimate it. For example, Austrians believe that  business cycles are caused by current financial system. If true, then value of new financial system should include cost of busts/depressions/stagnations it's preventing.  How much the dotcom crash did cost? How much the Great Depression did cost? And the following (and partly caused by it) WWII?

Apart from bubble crashes and wars we can try to estimate the other component of bitcoin financial services value: regular (in/de)flation.
Fiat inflation is around 3%. What would be bitcoin inflation? After a couple of halvings bitcoin emission will reach 2%pa. But if it replaces fiat, the demand will grow at a rate of world GDP, which is, say 7%. So bitcoin purchasing power will grow at about 5% after following halvings going to 7%. That is instead a dollar that goes down 3% pa, user will have bitcoin that goes up 7% pa. That's 10% pa difference. Which capital gives such profit? For an average person real, inflation adjusted investment is 5%. 10/5=2. That is it's the same as if for each dollar you exchange for bitcoin you would get, as a bonus, two "virtual" dollars that give you 5%pa each.

tl;dr: At the switch from fiat to bitcoin, wealth created will be twice as big as wealth transferred. (And it's just a part of total Bitcoin payment system value).

I don't think we need an in-depth analysis to show that the wealth creation due to bitcoin financial services will be dwarfed by the wealth represented by the monetary value of bitcoin. Let me try another route.

The bitcoin financial services are the arteries through which bitcoin monetary value flows. Yes, it takes capital - human and resources - to create these arteries. In the process of this creation, the value of the resulting financial services will -- if intelligently implemented -- exceed the value of the human and resources capital that went into their creation. IOW, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It is this difference that is the wealth created by the bitcoin financial services. This wealth will be earned and enjoyed by the people that create these services.

But all this is for naught if there is not a much greater pool of bitcoin, that will flow through these arteries.

In any scenario where bitcoin 'succeeds' in any meaningful measure, there will be a much greater number of people who passively use bitcoin -- to store value and/or to use as a medium of exchange -- than the number of people who create the aforementioned arteries. These passive users of bitcoin, should they HODL more than spend in the early days (years), will be the beneficiaries of a great transfer of wealth from fiat holders.

If the bitcoin wealth owned by the passive users does not completely dominate the created wealth of the bitcoin financial services buildout, then the entire system is woefully inefficient. IOW, it has failed spectacularly in its claimed mission to be a money.

I rather think it fail succeed spectacularly. I will harbor no guilt about the fact that I was early to detect the seeming inevitability of this great transfer of wealth.

Your fiat doom scenarios, while instructive, seem to me to be tangential (or maybe I have not yet seen the relevance). These problems are all self-inflicted by the fiat system, which repeatedly confuses an increase in the currency used to measure wealth (ignoring the subsequent devaluation) for an increase in actual wealth.

I disagree. You seem to be conflating currency movements with wealth movements. Currency is just a flexible measure of wealth. Yes, the bitcoin holders will enjoy a comparative purchasing power advantage over the fiat holders. But the amount of actual wealth (e.g. tangible goods, services, resources, and other capital) is not affected by such relative currency movements.

Due to this, your example is an example of wealth transfer, not of wealth creation.

it still depends on the people who own the currency. Because he's the that will evaluate himself to the society, in a good way or bad way.

You seem to assume that value must be if not equal, but at least close to costs. Which is not the case. If a multimillion jet cannot fly it's value may fall 100-fold, to the price of scrap metal. But we can recover original value by replacing a 10-cents fuse.

Our financial system and our whole economy is such non-flying jet. It's very inefficient and wasteful.
And Bitcoin is the 10-cents fuse that can fix the multimillion jet.

It can (partly, at least) fix our economy's inefficiency and thus increase it's total value. The total value of the whole world economy. And the value of bitcoin payment system should be measured by this increase, rather than by costs of creating it.

How can the value grow if amount of "tangible goods, services, resources, and other capital" is not increased?  By more efficient allocation of the same resources. By decreasing waste of this resources. And by faster growth of these resources. If your capital can produce 6% instead of 3%, it's the same as having two capitals for the price of one.

This is the new wealth created by the bitcoin and the major part of this wealth will not be in the hands of early adopters, because worth of all resources is much bigger than amount of all money. Therefore the benefits of bitcoins will be enjoyed by the whole population, rather than by small circle of hodlers. That's exactly why people will switch to bitcoin: because it gives them some value. Every single person that'll switch to bitcoin, will do it because of an extra value that that bitcoin will give to her.

tl;dr; Bitcoin is 10-cents fuse that fixes multimillion jet. It is (mostly) new wealth given to all, rather than old wealth taken by few.

I don't think all of them are better but there are a few differences between bitcoiners and bankers

Bankers can .create infinite money with their banking scam and this gives them power to control even governments. Bitcoiners can't do that. Once you're out of bitcoin you have to earn yourself some new ones.

Early bitcoiners are mostly very techie and are not afraid of taking risks.

Bitcoiners mostly want more freedom and equal rights/chances for everyone, unlike bankers who don't even service large parts of the world, and demand high fees for poor people. And worst of all, bankers have their own privileges.

So I'd say the new rich will be better in general, but not everyone will be a nice person.

What do you mean by 'BETTER', mentally or in the other ways?

Hookers aren't immoral at all -.-