Bitcoin Forum

Apples and oranges, my friend.

Bitcoin fanboys

capture the low hanging fruit and leave everyone else fighting over increasingly complex computational scraps

Welcome to capitalism 101: If you don't take an opportunity, don't bitch when it takes off, and you're left behind.

Out of curiousity, what combined currency/payment processing network/ledger system has your devotion?

You're missing an important point: no person or group issues the currency in Bitcoin. That kind of power is removed from mere human whim and given over to an agreed upon protocol. If you don't like the protocol, you can go start your own.

The bankster cabal would never think to tell us, "Hey, go start your own currency if you don't like ours."

It's like watching people hanging around a train station bitching about missing their train because they were too busy bitching about how crappy the airport is.

Umm, yes a rather special group does issue the currency in Bitcoin: the miners with enough state fiat capital to invest in the increasingly expensive equipment required to mine Bitcoins.

The underlying Bitcoin implementation is fine, but I find the mining aspect hugely problematic. Bitcoins should been distributed freely to people that want them so as to provide everyone an opportunity to be part of a financial reboot. Sadly Bitcoin went down the road of having engineered inequity and is s morally bankrupt as the system it seeks to supplant.

Umm, yes a rather special group does issue the currency in Bitcoin: the miners with enough state fiat capital to invest in the increasingly expensive equipment required to mine Bitcoins.

The underlying Bitcoin implementation is fine, but I find the mining aspect hugely problematic. Bitcoins should been distributed freely to people that want them so as to provide everyone an opportunity to be part of a financial reboot. Sadly Bitcoin went down the road of having engineered inequity and is s morally bankrupt as the system it seeks to supplant

Umm, yes a rather special group does issue the currency in Bitcoin: the miners with enough state fiat capital to invest in the increasingly expensive equipment required to mine Bitcoins.

The underlying Bitcoin implementation is fine, but I find the mining aspect hugely problematic. Bitcoins should been distributed freely to people that want them so as to provide everyone an opportunity to be part of a financial reboot. Sadly Bitcoin went down the road of having engineered inequity and is as morally bankrupt as the system it seeks to supplant.

You do know that you can just buy the damn coins, right?

I think that's the part that some people find unfair. ;)

So, one of the main arguments I encounter when discussing Bitcoin with its promulgators is that it can potentially free the financial system from the cabal of plutocrats that currently run the show, and who have lavished enormous  wealth on themselves and their cronies. This argument seems to entirely dismiss the actions of the shady cabal who mined huge numbers of Bitcoins when doing so was trivial (and prior to any public availability), and to a lesser extent the early adopters.

When central bankers throw money like confetti at themselves and their friends whilst most others must struggle to earn small amounts of it this is deemed a moral evil. Yet when the progenitors of Bitcoin and their acolytes do much the same; capture the low hanging fruit and leave everyone else fighting over increasingly complex computational scraps this is hailed as a brave new world of financial freedom.

Should Bitcoin ever achieve the kind of ubiquity its most ardent fans hope for, these people will wield more financial power than any of the Banksters they decry. They will also control such a large amount of the monetary base that they too could end up becoming plutocrats

Far from being a revolution, the future as envisaged by Bitcoin fanboys will be little more than a changing of the cast of villains.

That's exactly so, and given a thousand years to do nothing but contemplate why you'd still never figure it out.

So, one of the main arguments I encounter when discussing Bitcoin with its promulgators is that it can potentially free the financial system from the cabal of plutocrats that currently run the show, and who have lavished enormous  wealth on themselves and their cronies. This argument seems to entirely dismiss the actions of the shady cabal who mined huge numbers of Bitcoins when doing so was trivial (and prior to any public availability), and to a lesser extent the early adopters.

When central bankers throw money like confetti at themselves and their friends whilst most others must struggle to earn small amounts of it this is deemed a moral evil. Yet when the progenitors of Bitcoin and their acolytes do much the same; capture the low hanging fruit and leave everyone else fighting over increasingly complex computational scraps this is hailed as a brave new world of financial freedom.

Should Bitcoin ever achieve the kind of ubiquity its most ardent fans hope for, these people will wield more financial power than any of the Banksters they decry. They will also control such a large amount of the monetary base that they too could end up becoming plutocrats

Far from being a revolution, the future as envisaged by Bitcoin fanboys will be little more than a changing of the cast of villains.

The "shady cabal"?  Really?  And "their acolytes"?  Yeah - we're the new generation of the Illuminati.  [That reminds me... I got some lizard blood on my ceremonial robes at the last secret meetup... gotta get to the secret drycleaners.]

Do you even know anything about the history of bitcoin?  At all?

Why don't you read the Hal Finney thread.  He mined (No link:  forgive me - but I'm thinking you can do your own research)  block #14 I think?  It was all open on the web - for those with vision and desire - after the genesis block was mined.  Just because you do not appear to have vision, and your desire appears to extend only to dissing those who posses it, doesn't mean that what you say is true.

If you think the early adopters are getting wealthy sitting on their asses, you're a complete idiot.  Bitcoin was only an opportunity - it made just the right people work their asses off:  those people with vision and desire.  That's part of the brilliance of it.

I am grateful every day for what little I have been able to contribute, what little coin I have accumulated since 2011 when I started, and how remarkably my life has changed for having been able to participate in this.

The difference between Bitcoin and existing systems is that everyone using Bitcoin must play by the same rules. That's as fair as you are going to get in this world.

Those who first take advantage of the available tools will always have an edge. Such is life. I suggest you embrace it.

The "shady cabal"?  Really?  And "their acolytes"?  Yeah - we're the new generation of the Illuminati.  [That reminds me... I got some lizard blood on my ceremonial robes at the last secret meetup... gotta get to the secret drycleaners.]

Do you even know anything about the history of bitcoin?  At all?

Why don't you read the Hal Finney thread.  He mined (No link:  forgive me - but I'm thinking you can do your own research)  block #14 I think?  It was all open on the web - for those with vision and desire - after the genesis block was mined.  Just because you do not appear to have vision, and your desire appears to extend only to dissing those who posses it, doesn't mean that what you say is true.

If you think the early adopters are getting wealthy sitting on their asses, you're a complete idiot.  Bitcoin was only an opportunity - it made just the right people work their asses off:  those people with vision and desire.  That's part of the brilliance of it.

I am grateful every day for what little I have been able to contribute, what little coin I have accumulated since 2011 when I started, and how remarkably my life has changed for having been able to participate in this.

Umm, yes a rather special group does issue the currency in Bitcoin: the miners with enough state fiat capital to invest in the increasingly expensive equipment required to mine Bitcoins.

The underlying Bitcoin implementation is fine, but I find the mining aspect hugely problematic. Bitcoins should been distributed freely to people that want them so as to provide everyone an opportunity to be part of a financial reboot. Sadly Bitcoin went down the road of having engineered inequity and is as morally bankrupt as the system it seeks to supplant.

I jut wish Bitcoin fanboys

Bitcoin is like gold. You can mine gold too. Do you also think the same about gold, that some people thousands of years ago mined it all and now you can only get a few little nuggets out of heavy buckets of dirt from bed rock?

You clearly don't know as much as you think.

http://www.loper-os.org/?p=1009

I jut wish Bitcoin fanboys would stop pretending that whatever high-minded ideals they espouse with regard to Bitcoin, the reality is most people involved with it (especially the founders) are simply hoping to become 'rich' beyond the wildest dreams of avarice, and just like their Bankster counterparts they will spout no end of  marketspeak argot to justify their new found power.


People like myself want to see a world free of plutorats, whereas it seems to me a great many Bitcoin fantasists simply want to become plutocrats themselves.

Envy is an ugly thing.

And what of all those people with similar vision and desire too young to know about this burgeoning revolution; if the Bitcoin masturbators get their way these children will grow up in a world from which they are financially disenfranchised unless Mummy or Daddy happened to be a Bitcoin early adopter; so very little difference from the inequity of the world of state fiat.

And that is the response of a child.

Gold is a commodity not a medium of exchange (at least not to any significant degree). Gold is not a contrived creation born of high-minded ideals.

I don't see any speculating going on here.

Yeah, just an envyous wannabe communist.

That Ron & Shamir paper has been, in the main, discredited - they got so much wrong, and missed so much, that it's basically useless.  There's plenty of threads on it - read them.

You reference a website with a post entitled "Shitcoin: a Modest Proposal" - and which has a bitcoin donation address?  Seriously?

I may not know as much as I think I do - probably don't - but I know a hell of a lot more about bitcoin than you do.

I know why it exists, and you have no clue.

It was decried, never discredited.

Yeah.  Brilliant point.

I spend part of every day feeling bad for all those kids in middle-school today, who were too young to know about investing in IBM back when they made typewriters the ubiquitous office tool.

Gold has been the go-to (You might even say "standard") medium of exchange for most of human history. It's only recently that it was decoupled from currency, and look where that's lead us.

Revans I agree partially

Yes. This benefits early adopters . But the makers would not have expected such price swings so if the real libertarians fout against tyranny, those  real libertarians must be feeling sad ...IMHO

However there is a beautiful way to increase equality and reduce crony capitalism..... Develop the next crypto / cyber / virtual currency ...evangelize and make that next one grow....there is place of more than one crypto / virtual currency just as there have been multiple fiats at an time in history

More currencies will make a much larger market and make adoption much more easier and the price much more stable

If currency is a medium of exchange and NOT just a medium of hoarding, why not a second or a third or a fourth .....n th medium ?

There is more than one model car , or one type of vehicle on roads

Any thoughts

And that you think a currency is comparable to share equity reveals the depths of your stupidity.

Off topic, but you might dig this, myrkul:

A history of the precious metals, from the earliest times to the present (1902) (http://archive.org/details/historyofpreciou00delmuoft)

Del Mar spent 20 years working on this book. It originally came out 1880's. Well worth the hang time.

It was discredited. For one, they scraped a website instead of using a copy of the blockchain from a client. blockchain.info isn't authoritative and is known to contain errors from time to time.

https://gist.github.com/jgarzik/3901921

Where is their peer reviewed paper published in a respectable journal refuting these claims?

That you speak with authority on matters in which you lack substance reveals yours.

At this point I'd take my chances with a new bunch plutocrats over the old ones - even though I know the majority of Bitcoin EAs will hail from the richest parts of the planet, not to mention being young and male - just like me.

However there is a danger of this revolution being like many revolutions before it and not really changing much in the end. This is why I'm generally in favour of progressive change, rather than disruption - it normally leads to better outcomes in the long term.

I've had plenty of wacky thoughts about some of the things I would like to see in an alternative crypto-currency. For example thinking about how might we counter the deflationary aspect (which does serve a purpose for EAs) by either incentivising redistribution in some way beyond selling out for FIAT? I'd like to see a coin that doesn't ultimately favour those with large amount of FIAT to buy up coins and I don't believe the mining mechanisms does that adequately.

Out of all the alternative crypto currencies so far I like PPCoin the most because it is trying to be innovative in a number of ways. I believe we will need a number of crypto-currencies, with a number of different design characteristics to satisfy our needs.

IBM stock...

Moving the goalposts is a dishonest debating tactic. Don't do it if you wish to be taken seriously.

Off topic, but you might dig this, myrkul:

A history of the precious metals, from the earliest times to the present (1902) (http://archive.org/details/historyofpreciou00delmuoft)

Umm, yes a rather special group does issue the currency in Bitcoin: the miners with enough state fiat capital to invest in the increasingly expensive equipment required to mine Bitcoins.

The underlying Bitcoin implementation is fine, but I find the mining aspect hugely problematic. Bitcoins should been distributed freely to people that want them so as to provide everyone an opportunity to be part of a financial reboot. Sadly Bitcoin went down the road of having engineered inequity and is as morally bankrupt as the system it seeks to supplant.

If the refutation had merit why not put it through proper peer review as the paper it attacks was? Why should the debunker be held to a lower standard than the person he is debunking?

I was speaking of Bitcoin, a topic in which you seem deficient but still feel entitled to expound upon.

The peer review didn't catch all the errors in the paper, did it?

And you're still moving goalposts around. If I was the skeptical sort, I'd wonder if an honest discussion was your intent.

I imagine anyone who disagrees with you is deemed deficient in their understanding

What a rapier like intellect I am dealing with ere.

Better the devil you know.

Indeed. I know far more about the technorati who designed computers, the web and digital cryptography than the shady world of politicians and bankers who run the current financial system.

Revans, your original points were food for thought. Later in this thread you wax defensive and lose the objective highground you held.

Maybe stop for now and return to this discussion on Monday.

Question. Do you yourself own any Bitcoins? Tens, hundreds or thousands?

Respects

the wider purpose seems to have been lost.

"A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution."

http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

And as a show of good faith and an example of my generosity, I'm going to gift it to revan.

Here's the original purpose:


Everything else is conflation.

That's a very dry technical paper. The founders of Bitcoin have espoused ideals which Bitcoin has diverged from very significantly.

That's a very dry technical paper. The founders of Bitcoin have espoused ideals which Bitcoin has diverged from very significantly.

There is no basis for thinking bitcoins will take wealth away from the rich, that is absurd and there's no need to start a thread about it. If anything, bitcoin will help the very rich avoid taxes, it won't help the average guy with a monthly wage and matching lifestyle who the government can easily check on.

OP: What you really meant to say in the title is that bitcoin replaces one type of plutocrat with another; 'dynastic' is an inappropriate word to use here. I appreciate that you are practising new words, but if you aren't crystal clear on the definition it is best to use a more common expression or word which you are better familiar with- in this case you could have said something like 'established power.'

The founders of Bitcoin have espoused ideals which Bitcoin has diverged from very significantly.

It was writtten by Bitcoin's creator.

Should Bitcoin ever achieve the kind of ubiquity its most ardent fans hope for, these people will wield more financial power than any of the Banksters they decry. They will also control such a large amount of the monetary base that they too could end up becoming plutocrats

Far from being a revolution, the future as envisaged by Bitcoin fanboys will be little more than a changing of the cast of villains.

Bitcoin is like gold. You can mine gold too. Do you also think the same about gold, that some people thousands of years ago mined it all and now you can only get a few little nuggets out of heavy buckets of dirt from bed rock?

You've misunderstood

The dynastic power is the existing setup, with crime families like the Bush's, Rockfeller's and  Rothschild's. Each has wielded great power for generations, thus they can be correctly described as dynasties.

Have you seem some of the code comments made by the same indivudual? All about corrupt bankers and so on.

Hey revans, nice post. I generally argue that your conclusion will prevent its own cause. But the point is really the same.

I started a similar thread a couple of years back. I think I got a little more support than you did. It's a shame to see that sort of critical thinking has faded.

If you are interested...
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=48521.0

The problem with proof-of-work is that in order to make the ledger impeachable, people need to throw real-world value into a hole.

Most folks won't do that unless there was something tangibly "in it for them".

Bitcoin answers this with the block reward - it uses the distribution mechanism to incentivize the busywork that makes the bones of Bitcoin actually function.

The unfortunate result is that a lot of people early on in the project got a lot of coins, and if Bitcoin gets wide adoption those coins will make them about as rich as a Buffet or a Helu, and with an equal capability of screwing up the market if they had cause. (User A in the Shamir paper has 2.8 million BTC -> 28 billion dollars at $10k/coin).

So then... what? If this is a troubling result of the network rules, what rules would have worked better? How do you distribute newly created BTC in a "fair" way, when an anonymous system means that Sybil shenanigans are trivial? How do you incentivize mining, except via block rewards?

I'm sincerely interested in hearing your ideas.

It is interesting to note that as that distributive inequality has turned into a lucrative windfall that attitudes have hardened to what is a fundamental problem.

Maybe we're just getting tired of all the repetitive whining threads that crop up every time someone new feels jealous of the people who got in before them.

This gave me a big grin!

Well put revans!
Trust me myrkul, most early adopters called it jealous whining the first time around!

Off topic, but you might dig this, myrkul:

A history of the precious metals, from the earliest times to the present (1902) (http://archive.org/details/historyofpreciou00delmuoft)

Del Mar spent 20 years working on this book. It originally came out 1880's. Well worth the hang time.

I have, I see. But it's still unclear to me how bitcoin could target influential families.

Maybe we're just getting tired of all the repetitive whining threads that crop up every time someone new feels jealous of the people who got in before them.

Again, you guys really need to grow beyond this ridiculous idea that everyone who has a different view is riven with jealousy. If you missed my post I own a significant number of Bitcoins, and am gradually gifting them to good causes. I want no part in a grubby get rich quick scheme;

A great collateral benefit from this thread

Thanks for referring to this book

So long as this state of affairs continues, so long as Individuals in
place of Government retain control of the Monetary Measure, there
can be no real Religion, there can be no real Liberty, there can be no
real National Life. The bases of Religion are Love and Fraternity.
There can be no Fraternity whilst an Unjust Measure is permitted to
introduce discontent and strife into all the transactions of social life.
The basis of Liberty is Justice. There can be no Justice whilst an
Unjust Measure continues to nullify the lessons of wisdom and ex-
perience. The basis of National Life is Political Equality. There
can be no Equality so long as an Unjust Measure continues to rob
the many for the benefit of the few. The control of Weights and
Measures, including Money and the materials of which its symbols are
made, is a prerogative and a necessary prerogative of National Life.
It has been so held by all the Courts of Judicature, by all the ex-
ponents of Law, from Plato to Paulus, from Paulus to Grimaudet,
from Grimaudet to the Mixt Money case, and from the latter to the
decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Here's a hint: if you're here, you're an early adopter.

And if the fact that taking a risk first gets you a bigger reward than taking that risk after it's been proven safe is a "fundamental problem," then I'm afraid it's a fundamental problem with reality, not with Bitcoin.

This isn't a get rich quick scheme. It's a new currency. The digital equivalent of gold. And you're whining because the people who took the big risks back when it was a big risk have seen gains from that. And hey, if you're interested in distributing the coins evenly, there's an empty wallet in my signature. I promise any coins deposited will go to further the bitcoin economy. Specifically, I'll buy things with them. ;D

What risk was there with mining Bitcoins when difficulty was 1?

What risk was there with mining Bitcoins when difficulty was 1?

The problem with proof-of-work is that in order to make the ledger impeachable, people need to throw real-world value into a hole.

Most notably, that the time and electricity would be wasted if Bitcoin failed.

Better the devil you know.

Right, so in the beginnings we're talking absolutely negligible

Most notably, that the time and electricity would be wasted if Bitcoin failed.

This is precisely why I'm a fan of PPC coin. First, big hardware isn't given as big of a preference in mining. Second, the mining rate levels off at a 1% increase per year, so nobody can ever own a large fixed fraction of all PPC coin for all eternity.

I'm quoting this post because I'm worried you missed it the first time.

The problem with proof-of-work is that in order to make the ledger impeachable, people need to throw real-world value into a hole.

The unfortunate result is that a lot of people early on in the project got a lot of coins...

So then... what? If this is a troubling result of the network rules, what rules would have worked better? How do you distribute newly created BTC in a "fair" way, when an anonymous system means that Sybil shenanigans are trivial? How do you incentivize mining, except via block rewards?

I'm sincerely interested in hearing your ideas.

Right, so in the beginnings we're talking absolutely negligible.People throw CPU cycles at all kinds of activities more computationally intense than early coin miners and they do not consider themselves to be taking a 'risk'.

What risk was there with mining Bitcoins when difficulty was 1?

Which publicly funded job do you hold?

This is precisely why I'm a fan of PPC coin. First, big hardware isn't given as big of a preference in mining. Second, the mining rate levels off at a 1% increase per year, so nobody can ever own a large fixed fraction of all PPC coin for all eternity.

You wrote your post as if you were trying to make a rhetorical point.


It turns out this is no longer true. Keeping an impeachable ledger is pretty trivial. Lots of industries do it with much less computing power. Preserving the illusion that all that computing power is important, is the primary use of that computer power now.


The problem is not that they got "a lot of coins". The problem is that they got a large percentage out of a fixed set of coins. Had they gotten a large number of coins out of an unbounded set of coins there would be no problem at all.


Most of the "steady value" models involve generating and destroying coins on an as needed basis. None have been implemented yet (as far as I know) because there isn't a ground swell of interest in creating a currency in which the early adopters don't get rich.

However, for insights you might consider learning about Local Exchange Trading Systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_exchange_trading_system

Suppose Alice grows Apples, Bob grows Beans, and Charlie makes Cheese. But none of them have any money.
Now if Bob wants an Apple, but Alice doesn't want Beans, then in a LETS system they agree on a price $1 and Alice gives Bob an Apple. The transaction is accounted for using double entry book keeping. Alice + $1, Bob - $1. With LETS it is OK to have a negative balance (within limits)
Now Alice wants $1 worth of Cheese so Charlie gives it to her. Balances now are:
Alice = 0
Charley = +1
Bob = -1
Finally Charlie wants $1 from Bob so he gives them to him. That puts all balances back at zero again.
No currency exists at the moment, because no currency is needed.
When currency is needed again, it is simply created. A flexible currency supply is indeed a magical thing!

Compare that to Bitcoin.
Say I have a Ferrari and you want to buy my Ferrari but neither of us have Bitcoins.
It should be a transaction that only involves us, it shouldn't make anyone else richer. But with bitcoin, of course, it does.
How do we know how many Bitcoins is a Ferraris worth? Early adopters get to decide. Something about that seems fishy. :-)

Never said it was a big risk. Just that they took it, back when it was a risk, and as a result, they have seen gains.

I don't see a problem with that... but then, I'm a capitalist, not a communist.

You wrote your post as if you were trying to make a rhetorical point.

It turns out this is no longer true. Keeping an impeachable ledger is pretty trivial. Lots of industries do it with much less computing power. Preserving the illusion that all that computing power is important, is the primary use of that computer power now.

Most of the "steady value" models involve generating and destroying coins on an as needed basis. None have been implemented yet (as far as I know) because there isn't a ground swell of interest in creating a currency in which the early adopters don't get rich.

However, for insights you might consider learning about Local Exchange Trading Systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_exchange_trading_system

Suppose Alice grows Apples, Bob grows Beans, and Charlie makes Cheese. But none of them have any money.
Now if Bob wants an Apple, but Alice doesn't want Beans, then in a LETS system they agree on a price $1 and Alice gives Bob an Apple. The transaction is accounted for using double entry book keeping. Alice + $1, Bob - $1. With LETS it is OK to have a negative balance (within limits)
Now Alice wants $1 worth of Cheese so Charlie gives it to her. Balances now are:
Alice = 0
Charley = +1
Bob = -1
Finally Charlie wants $1 from Bob so he gives them to him. That puts all balances back at zero again.
No currency exists at the moment, because no currency is needed.
When currency is needed again, it is simply created. A flexible currency supply is indeed a magical thing!

It is possible, however, that top wealth holders could effectively blackmail the larger economy, threatening to crash the whole thing unless their conditions are met. This would be an example of a Nash Equilibrium. The wealthy get what they want, or nobody gets anything. Only, this is more difficult to achieve since, in Bitcoinia (as "The Economist" might put it) even while top wealth holders command a lion's share of BTC they do not, in fact, control Bitcoin. Should they make good on their threat there would be a temporary hardship, but all that will have really happened is that they managed to redistribute their wealth.

Such a threat need not be explicit. A party wishing to impose a Nash Equilibrium could employ a negative dialectic, whereby they create a perceived threat simply by withholding information. So you are afraid, for instance, that they may crash the exchange rate if it gets too high, and you don't know where that limit is because it was never made explicit. This is rather how the Fed works. But where the Fed can actually control the rate at which USD is issued, it is unlikely that this could ever be the case with Bitcoin. More likely, we would see situations as with the Hunt Brothers, or JP Morgan, and silver.

Umm, yes a rather special group does issue the currency in Bitcoin: the miners with enough state fiat capital to invest in the increasingly expensive equipment required to mine Bitcoins.

The underlying Bitcoin implementation is fine, but I find the mining aspect hugely problematic. Bitcoins should been distributed freely to people that want them so as to provide everyone an opportunity to be part of a financial reboot. Sadly Bitcoin went down the road of having engineered inequity and is as morally bankrupt as the system it seeks to supplant.

The problem is that for the sake of defending your argument you are attributing risk to a non-risk taking activity. I bet nobody mining these coins for fun at the time considered they were taking a risk, and yet you now argue retrospectively that somehow they were.

The answer is to start an alternate cryptocurrency in which the quantity of coins generated follow a sigmoid function (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function) instead of a logarithmic function (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithm).  That way, more coins are generated as it catches on and more people start to mine.  This also means that prices will be a little more consistent over time - no 10,000 coin pizzas - before it finally starts to deflate and become a store of value.

Pity about the name. I just can't see something called 'PP Coin' taking off.

It is a little something that doesn't have anything to do with Bitcoin in particular, called the Pareto Efficiency. There are other equilibria to be sure, some of which can be more coercive/destructive, and may also come into play. But I think Pareto Efficiency will win out in the long run.

The answer is to start an alternate cryptocurrency in which the quantity of coins generated follows a sigmoid function (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function) instead of a logarithmic function (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithm).  That way, more coins are generated as it catches on and more people start to mine.  This also means that prices will be a little more consistent over time - no 10,000 coin pizzas - before it finally starts to deflate and become a store of value.

Just under a thousand at the moment, I have had more but have been steadily giving them away to what I deem good causes. I will ultimately give away my entire holding as my interest in Bitcoin was never to make money for doing nothing of value, and it is clear Bitcoin is now infested with speculators and the wider purpose seems to have been lost.

Just because they weren't concerned about the risk, or even didn't consider it a risk, Doesn't mean it wasn't a risk. And you're assuming they all kept them. Much more likely, they risked that taco, and gained a few pizzas (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.msg1304093;boardseen#new) or similar items of value.

Why don't you read the Hal Finney thread. 

Why did early adopters need to have easy access to huge numbers of coins? Wasn't as if they could do anything with them back then. It is ridiculous that so early on in Bitcoin's life the mining difficulty is already so high, all because so much was taken at the start

Difficulty is high because hashpower is high. It has nothing to do with the total # of coins mined.

Right, so why not do the inverse? The more users the easier to generate?

Mathematics isn't your strong suit, is it?

5 minutes and a bar napkin should tell you why not.

Mathematics isn't your strong suit, is it?

5 minutes and a bar napkin should tell you why not.

This thread rocks

I liked most of your post red
However this LETS  system yiu talk about is counter party or central counter party based
Without that book keeper it will fail

Do elucidate as it seems you've jumped to an erroneous conclusion about what I proposed.

Is your objection that the monetary base would grow without bound?

The Shamir paper makes it clear that early adopters went to significant lengths to hide the true extent of their hoarding of Bitcoins. frankly the more you look into the history of Bitcoin, its origins, and the actions of the early players, the more it seems like a big trojan horse.

I mention LETS not as a possible replacement to Bitcoin but as a concrete example that stable value (or unbounded coin) implementations are indeed within reasonable possibility.

It would need to, or we'd rapidly hit that bound, and then new users would come in and post threads like this one, whining about the early adopters having all the coins.

You do know that you can just buy the damn coins, right?

Sure, the miners currently have to shell out some fairly substantial capital to rake in big gains, but you can get in the game as a small player for a few hundred bucks - whether you buy coins, or buy hardware. Hell, If I wanted to burn out my video card, I could be mining right now in a pool.

And they are "freely distributed to any who want them," ... just not for free.

I think that path is yet possible with Bitcoin. But as a flat ledger it has its limitations. Basically, we need to be able to accommodate a spectrum of inflation rates, there is too much stress in a flat global system. This would assuage critics of the difficulty of having a fixed monetary base. What will happen is that the Bitcoin exchange rate will get unbelievably hairy... We have not seen anything yet. Without a robust lending market for derivative trades (sorry, don't see it happening with Bitcoin) what we need is a basket of exchange vehicles, possibly levered off of Bitcion, but not necessarily. But that remain uncorrelated.

The entrenchment spoken of has to do basically with having superior information on a set of highly correlated markets with limited access. And having access basically to all markets while the majority of people only have access to a few markets. In this way the entrenched can lever up and lever down in their "safe" markets, and cherry pick from everything else. While the rest of humanity is left to wonder just what's going on.

In this sense the extremely wealthy have no great advantage in a market that can move so quickly, seemingly at random. They can try to play big volume games but this becomes increasingly risky. Right now BTC is fairly uncorrelated with the USD, but this could change eventually. In order to make sure the risk profile remains fairly even among participants Bitcoin will need pairs that it remains uncorrelated with. This is where I think parallel ledgers can come into play, all with their characteristic volatility, some better suited for speculation, some better suited for pocket change. Like tiered money, except for cryptos. Hopefully, in a manner that can preserve market access to broad segments of the population.

Right, so why not do the inverse? The more users the easier to generate? The way things have been done the distribution is so ridiculously skewed to a tiny base of early users it is a systemic risk.

(UD is a proposed real world solution that goes way beyond bit coin!)

It turns out the the computing power to coin relationship is a red herring. More people doing something completely unnecessary doesn't create more value.

Currency value must be bound to real world economic value. A loaf of bread today needs to trade for pretty close to a loaf of bread tomorrow. Otherwise, as you pointed out at the beginning you get into a hoard and dump mindset. Not exactly the point of a "currency"

If a million more people want to trade loaves of bread tomorrow you're going to need more coins to enable the transactions. If they eat all the bread, you may need less coins to rectify the glut. The real interesting questions are where to do they come from, and where do they go?


There have been some really interesting an maddening threads in the past. A french guy proposed what he called the Universal Dividend. Everyone should get coins every year just for being alive. He argued it evened out the early adopter problem. I argued against him!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=796.0

(UD is a proposed real world solution that goes way beyond bit coin!)

In other words, even an S-Curve model like Kárhozat proposed would still have the tail of the S, which you argue will be indistinguishable from Bitcoin's logarithmic curve once you get past the bend.

Decent argument, unless the bend is placed such that the currency must be assumed to be either widely known (so that you can credibly state that people "had their chance") or dead.

(Like I said earlier, the placement of the bend is the trick here.)

It also doesn't have a cap, right? That's problematic for its own reasons.

I think that path is yet possible with Bitcoin. But as a flat ledger it has its limitations. Basically, we need to be able to accommodate a spectrum of inflation rates, there is too much stress in a flat global system...

Personally, I'm really excited about colored coins, since they'd allow a single blockchain (read: unified infrastructure) to handle all of the different digital assets in question.

Send some my way please! I have almost none as I was not fortunate enough to be able to pay for expensive mining equipment and don't have enough wealth to buy my way in. You will be distributing them in a more fair manner this way. Share the wealth my friend. Very much appreciated! :)

1AXEPvEz1zQYcqoeeeimu2hMH1FNACZ8pZ

Revans, I'm still waiting for my coins here!

Even if you distribute the wealth evenly to everyone on the earth, after a while, some of them will go broke and some of them will become super rich

Revans, I'm still waiting for my coins here!

In what sense do you qualify as a good cause?

I was not fortunate enough to be able to pay for expensive mining equipment and don't have enough wealth to buy my way in.

Qoheleth, Is this statement related to chodpaba's?
And could you like me to a reference on Colored Coins? I'm only recently back here.

Chodpaba was discussing a galaxy of different crypto-assets - I was expressing my enthusiasm about one implementation (separate blockchains being another possibility).

Basically, colored coins are a way to "create" new classes of transferrable object on the Bitcoin network, by taking some number of Satoshis and "coloring" them to stand for those objects. Here (https://bitcoil.co.il/BitcoinX.pdf) is a partially written proposal with some technical details.

Basically, colored coins are a way to "create" new classes of transferrable object on the Bitcoin network, by taking some number of Satoshis and "coloring" them to stand for those objects. Here (https://bitcoil.co.il/BitcoinX.pdf) is a partially written proposal with some technical details.

This:

Exactly the problem you created this thread to fix.

Even if you distribute the wealth evenly to everyone on the earth, after a while, some of them will go broke and some of them will become super rich

No, having more people throw more computational power at pointless calculations is the root problem, not something to which I wish to contribute.

No, having more people throw more computational power at pointless calculations is the root problem, not something to which I wish to contribute.

Those calculations are how the network works, chief, and you can't get rid of them.

It turns out that's not really true. The calculations are pretty pointless now. Except as a really expensive random number generator.

No calculations, no network. No block generation. No transactions. No Bitcoin.

We can do it with fewer, easier calculations, but not none.

No, he's right. So...

Introducing Commie-coin, the egalitarian alternative to Bitcoin. Commie-coin, available to anyone, no hard-core mining equipment (nor even a computer) needed. Commie-coin is simple, each commie coin is denoted by the letters CC followed by a 16 digit hexadecimal number. Just pick one. Here, just to prove how easy it is, I'll mine one right here in this thread

CC0000000000000001

And as a show of good faith and an example of my generosity, I'm going to gift it to revan.

Security? Not needed. If your coins get stolen, you can just create more. Double spending? Not an issue, there are not rules against duplicate commie-coins. For the same reason, deflation is not an issue, commie-coin can simply be inflated by anyone anytime they like. You don't even have to be a fat-cat banger to do so. How's that for egalitarian?

Revan, don't spend it all at once now. I'm sure it's going to be a big success.

No, he's right. So...

Introducing Commie-coin, the egalitarian alternative to Bitcoin. Commie-coin, available to anyone, no hard-core mining equipment (nor even a computer) needed. Commie-coin is simple, each commie coin is denoted by the letters CC followed by a 16 digit hexadecimal number. Just pick one. Here, just to prove how easy it is, I'll mine one right here in this thread

CC0000000000000001

And as a show of good faith and an example of my generosity, I'm going to gift it to revan.

Security? Not needed. If your coins get stolen, you can just create more. Double spending? Not an issue, there are not rules against duplicate commie-coins. For the same reason, deflation is not an issue, commie-coin can simply be inflated by anyone anytime they like. You don't even have to be a fat-cat banger to do so. How's that for egalitarian?

Revan, don't spend it all at once now. I'm sure it's going to be a big success.

It turns out that's not really true. The calculations are pretty pointless now. Except as a really expensive random number generator.

[EDIT]

I wrote on this last night.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=174378.msg1826040#msg1826040

I wrote on that earlier today.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=174378.msg1829444#msg1829444

So, one of the main arguments I encounter when discussing Bitcoin with its promulgators is that it can potentially free the financial system from the cabal of plutocrats that currently run the show, and who have lavished enormous  wealth on themselves and their cronies. This argument seems to entirely dismiss the actions of the shady cabal who mined huge numbers of Bitcoins when doing so was trivial (and prior to any public availability), and to a lesser extent the early adopters.

When central bankers throw money like confetti at themselves and their friends whilst most others must struggle to earn small amounts of it this is deemed a moral evil. Yet when the progenitors of Bitcoin and their acolytes do much the same; capture the low hanging fruit and leave everyone else fighting over increasingly complex computational scraps this is hailed as a brave new world of financial freedom.

Should Bitcoin ever achieve the kind of ubiquity its most ardent fans hope for, these people will wield more financial power than any of the Banksters they decry. They will also control such a large amount of the monetary base that they too could end up becoming plutocrats

Far from being a revolution, the future as envisaged by Bitcoin fanboys will be little more than a changing of the cast of villains.

So, one of the main arguments I encounter when discussing Bitcoin with its promulgators is that it can potentially free the financial system from the cabal of plutocrats that currently run the show, and who have lavished enormous  wealth on themselves and their cronies. This argument seems to entirely dismiss the actions of the shady cabal who mined huge numbers of Bitcoins when doing so was trivial (and prior to any public availability), and to a lesser extent the early adopters.

When central bankers throw money like confetti at themselves and their friends whilst most others must struggle to earn small amounts of it this is deemed a moral evil. Yet when the progenitors of Bitcoin and their acolytes do much the same; capture the low hanging fruit and leave everyone else fighting over increasingly complex computational scraps this is hailed as a brave new world of financial freedom.

Should Bitcoin ever achieve the kind of ubiquity its most ardent fans hope for, these people will wield more financial power than any of the Banksters they decry. They will also control such a large amount of the monetary base that they too could end up becoming plutocrats

Far from being a revolution, the future as envisaged by Bitcoin fanboys will be little more than a changing of the cast of villains.

"Pointless calculations," eh? In that case, cash out your Bitcoins, and donate your fiat to good causes, because giving Bitcoins to any "good causes" that accept bitcoin will only support additional "pointless calculations" to disperse and use those Bitcoins.

Those calculations are how the network works, chief, and you can't get rid of them.

And nothing you said in that thread changes anything. Please read:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_work

Are you interested in contributing to the solution to that?

I was referring to the mining aspect

So other people having better foresight and investing savvy than you is inequality? Well, yeah. They are better at taking good risks than you, I guess.

I think solutions are out there now, but what they need is user adoption. I imagine with increasing media coverage of Bitcoin will come increasing scrutiny of its origins and the coin distribution.

I think you're misunderstanding Red's contention here.

If I understand correctly, it's not that proof of work is unnecessary if you want to reach consensus on transaction order without trusted bookkeepers.

Rather, it's that having trusted bookkeepers isn't so bad.

If you were an early adopter in Bitcoin you were risking your life to develop and test the idea during a time where every government in the world and every bank wanted to stop you.

Yeah.  Brilliant point.

I spend part of every day feeling bad for all those kids in middle-school today, who were too young to know about investing in IBM back when they made typewriters the ubiquitous office tool.

Think of the early adopters like founding fathers. If you were an early adopter in Bitcoin you were risking your life to develop and test the idea during a time where every government in the world and every bank wanted to stop you.

If you were brave enough to take the risk at that time you should be rewarded. Why wouldn't you want to reward bravery? At the same time miners have to be rewarded as well for protecting Bitcoin. Family dysnasty doesn't really serve any function in society. They protect a broken system. I could see if the US economy were working or if the Euro were working but these are broken systems and only solutions from outside the system can work because they have too much to lose to experiment or take any risk.

The best solution they could come up with was to either raise taxes or cut benefits or bailouts to austerity. But none of that shit helps people in my age range 20s-30s or younger. Bitcoin as unstable as it is, at least it's an alternative to the sure failure which awaits us in the fiat currency.

So, basically, Red wants to make MtGox into the new Rothschilds, and revans says that early adopters are already them.

The Rothschilds are relatively small fish these days.

When you have to roll out saccharine hubris like that to defend the fundamental unfairness of the Bitcoin model you are losing the argument.

I think you're misunderstanding Red's contention here.

If I understand correctly, it's not that proof of work is unnecessary if you want to reach consensus on transaction order without trusted bookkeepers.

Rather, it's that having trusted bookkeepers isn't so bad.

MtGox is undoubtedly the central bank of Bitcoin already, and they engage in the kind of price fixing activity central banks always do

If you aren't willing to risk your life as much as Satoshi was willing to risk his for the idea then why should you expect that you'd get the same benefits? Being an early adopter in something like Bitcoin means risking your life. Satoshi could have been declared a terrorist or criminal and locked up before Bitcoin development was complete or the local mafia could have tracked him down and put an end to him. He was taking risks whether you understand that or not.

Why do you think Satoshi couldn't reveal his identity?

So, basically, Red wants to make MtGox into the new Rothschilds, and revans says that early adopters are already them.

I always just figured that he valued his privacy.

Then again, I also don't think "the government" or "the banks" are particularly interested in stamping out something like this, especially not enough to go for black-bag jobs and assassination back when it may not have even taken off. Maybe I'm naïve!

LMAO! I didn't do it! I've been gone for a couple of years.

I'm just the kid saying that guy over their in the Emperor's Clothes... He's the Emperor.
Why are you people naked?

How gullible are you?

Satoshi is a composite identity, and that identity was disappeared once it has served its purpose; giving Bitcoin an air of mystery and intrigue and distancing certain people from the early mining bonanza.

I always just figured that he valued his privacy.

Then again, I also don't think "the government" or "the banks" are particularly interested in stamping out something like this, especially not enough to go for black-bag jobs and assassination back when it may not have even taken off. Maybe I'm naïve!

Satoshi is a composite identity

OK, you've got a point, MTGox is a central point in a supposedly decentralized network. I think that problem has been recognized, however, and is in the process of being remedied.

No, having more people throw more computational power at pointless calculations is the root problem, not something to which I wish to contribute.

I'm sure you have proof for such a claim. If so, you'll scoop every investigative reporter in the world.

Good we're on the same page!

But do you realize that the exchanges as a group CANNOT ever be forked from one another?

People complaining about inequality just want free coins and are jealous.

People who have coins can invest in you if you have some bright idea or plan to make Bitcoin better but if you just feel entitled to free coins, no.

And I'm saying that as someone who only has a few coins and who is not rich. It should be that money is a tool to get things done or to save lives.

I'm not sure in what context you're using "forked." Don't we want all the exchanges (into which group I include the people selling bitcoins for other currencies on #bitcoin-otc, SR, and other darknet sites) all using the same blockchain?

I'm not sure in what context you're using "forked." Don't we want all the exchanges (into which group I include the people selling bitcoins for other currencies on #bitcoin-otc, SR, and other darknet sites) all using the same blockchain?

So the masses should come cap-in-hand to the Bitcoin Oligarchs and beg for digital crumbs?

Well the way I understood your original post was that miners were essentially a cabal, and that you found the method of distributing coins unfair because a few early miners got to easily generate a stockpile, which would make them ridiculously rich in the future.

Now the way I see it, is that you, as an early adopter have been able to buy in fairly cheaply, which isn't unlike a miner who started mining three years ago. Myself or potential future participants weren't so lucky. We either didn't have the capital to invest early or perhaps didn't even have access to the internet. I view yourself as having an unfair advantage due to your circumstances and if you have 1000 coins you'll likely be quite wealthy in the future because of that.

What qualifies me as a good cause is that I was less fortunate than yourself or the early miners and by sending me a few coins you'd be lessening the inequality in distribution that you were concerned about.

We are using the same context. And yes, beyond "wanting" everyone to be on the same block chain, it is a socially and economically mandatory. Their can never be a viable second fork.

For example notice again the wizards speaking here.
http://bitcoin.org/may15.html

I'm sure there was discussion among "actual peers" but there was no popular vote on the topic. Your node can't veto the decision. Nor can you decide to continue down the original fork by yourself.

I'm not saying this situation is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm just saying that's the way the bitcoin ecosystem works. You can trust the  "actual peers" or you can avoid bitcoin altogether. But you don't get to be a full peer just for showing up anymore.

Or support Litecoin, PPcoin or in your case Freicoin. I have no problem with any of them.

But someone had to be the founding fathers of cryptocurrency. If you have a problem with people being successful and getting rich stop looking for them to give you something and figure out how to get it the same way they did. Go invent a better coin.

Seriously you and several others have the attitude that Bitcoin is about giving free money. Yes it's far better than USD but you still gotta earn your money and either risk your life against extreme odds or work really hard or both.

It's never really a situation where you can just open your hand and expect digital gold to fall into it. Who are you to be entitled to that? Don't get me wrong, everyone should be entitled to enough Bitcoin to live and survive, but the life of having a lot of wealth is a responsibility and a curse. You're jealous because you don't understand what it's about.

If you're all in Bitcoin, willing to give up friendships, family, everything for Bitcoin then maybe I'd say you'd be someone who could be responsible enough. Most people who win the lottery aren't happy and aren't responsible, and don't have much philosophy about what they do or discipline, but some people do have the level of dedication, philosophical background and discipline. The purpose of making a Bitcoin early adopters elite is to protect Bitcoin from attack. The elite of Bitcoin exist as guardians (think Plato), who protect Bitcoin and the miners are protecting the network.

If you want coins get into mining, or buy them. If you can't do that then move onto Litecoin or PPcoin where you can be an early adopter for that. Stop complaining and whining out of jealousy and envy. I imagine if I were an early adopter I would hate seeing that attitude.

So, unless you have 51% of the computing power, you can't decide which fork is the valid one.

That's a feature, not a bug.

No, I'm saying that even with 51+% of the computing power, you CAN'T decide which fork is the valid one if the wizards don't agree.

Take for example the current situation.

"If you are using Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind version 0.7.2 or earlier, you must take action before 15 May, 2013. If you do nothing, you are likely to be left behind and will be out of sync with the rest of the Bitcoin network."

Notice it doesn't say that if 51% of the computing power decides not to upgrade... never mind.
It says, we've decided. Come along or not.

Just an observation from the various writing styles I have seen in words attributed to him.

So you have no proof. I'm just checking to see how caught up in your own facts you are.

Notice it doesn't say that if 51% of the computing power decides not to upgrade... never mind.
It says, we've decided. Come along or not.

Large mining pools running version 0.8.0 were asked to switch back to version 0.7, to create a single block chain compatible with all bitcoin software.

So in other words the client with the largest install base ultimately makes the rules. The  fact that source code is available is utterly irrelevant to the vast majority of users as they would not have the expertise to derive anything from it. So rather than having monetary policy dictated by the Fed, Bitcoin users may ultimately have it dictated by those responsible for the dominant client application.

Seriously, revans. Don't be a hypocrite. You have a lot of coins and btcbug and I don't have very many. I think it would be in the best interests of all for you to carve up your stake a bit and spread it around so that you don't get tempted to become one of the new elite that you've been talking about. It is only fair.

I also ask others in this thread to quote me and my signature with its respective address so that we can get a time stamp and watch this address. I am curious to see how many donations are sent to that address by those who cry foul with regards to inequality and people not sharing what they have. I have yet to see any donation to that address by anyone. They want to talk the talk, but not walk the walk.

You're looking at it backwards. I'm beginning to think this is habitual with you. Bitcoin users decide (by using it) the dominant client application. If the one they're using implements rules they don't like, hey presto, they change clients, and it's not dominant any more.

Love your new signature!  :D

I haven't received my share yet, have you?

Love your new signature!  :D

I haven't received my share yet, have you?

As I said, you don't qualify as a good cause, merely a lost one.

It's amazing how the commie types start backpedalling and find all sorts of justification not to even out the wealth disparity when it comes time for them to pony up their part.

So in other words the client with the largest install base ultimately makes the rules. The  fact that source code is available is utterly irrelevant to the vast majority of users as they would not have the expertise to derive anything from it. So rather than having monetary policy dictated by the Fed, Bitcoin users may ultimately have it dictated by those responsible for the dominant client application.

But you're looking at thing as they stand. One assumes the goal is for bitcoin to become sufficiently ubiquitous such that less technically savvy users enter the fray. This type of users will use the client that is most popular, the one that they see first in Google, or the one used by their friends. In fact  there in a nutshell is how to subvert Bitcoin. Hire a whizz bang team of UI designers to make a really slick application for iPhone/Android and Web, throw a marketing budget at it, and watch your client become a de facto standard.

What was that I was saying...? Oh right!

I really can't believe you would say that about someone in his position. It's clear he is just down on his luck and you could help him out. You have the means.

Oh, and Red, you need to read this:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Attacker_has_a_lot_of_computing_power

You're missing something. Who, exactly, controls the most computing power?

The attack proposed here is to create a popular client with a subtle but intentional bug, and then expose the bug to force a network split between the users/miners who use your client and the users/miners who don't. 51% of the computing power is not required - otherwise the BerkeleyDB blockchain fork bug would never have occurred. By the time human pool operators and developers and so forth have figured out a solution, you can (theoretically) double-spend massively.

So the point of my ramblings is...

1) Given that the exchanges can never operate on different chains. And
2) They can't allow invalidation of confirmed transactions to ever occur. So
3) If the exchanges decide that a particular chain is the only chain they'll all trade on. THEN
4) The mining pools MUST follow their direction. and
5) So MUST everyone else.

So how can "Accumulated Hashing" protect the chain, if the exchanges can throw it out willy nilly and everyone else must accept their decision?

QED.

So the point of my ramblings is...

1) Given that the exchanges can never operate on different chains. And
2) They can't allow invalidation of confirmed transactions to ever occur. So
3) If the exchanges decide that a particular chain is the only chain they'll all trade on. THEN
4) The mining pools MUST follow their direction. and
5) So MUST everyone else.

So how can "Accumulated Hashing" protect the chain, if the exchanges can throw it out willy nilly and everyone else must accept their decision?

QED.

So the point of my ramblings is...

1) Given that the exchanges can never operate on different chains. And
2) They can't allow invalidation of confirmed transactions to ever occur. So
3) If the exchanges decide that a particular chain is the only chain they'll all trade on. THEN
4) The mining pools MUST follow their direction. and
5) So MUST everyone else.

So how can "Accumulated Hashing" protect the chain, if the exchanges can throw it out willy nilly and everyone else must accept their decision?

QED.

What exactly is the problem then?

What exactly is the problem then?

So the point of my ramblings is...

1) Given that the exchanges can never operate on different chains. And
2) They can't allow invalidation of confirmed transactions to ever occur. So
3) If the exchanges decide that a particular chain is the only chain they'll all trade on. THEN
4) The mining pools MUST follow their direction. and
5) So MUST everyone else.

So how can "Accumulated Hashing" protect the chain, if the exchanges can throw it out willy nilly and everyone else must accept their decision?

What exactly is the problem then?

So we are to believe you have hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in Bitcoin but don't see the issue here?

If there was an improvement in the technology that eliminated the need for exchanges, would it be enough to eliminate the dictator from the algorithm?

Now you get it!

See, that's the problem I think I have a solution to! :-)
Better yet, it reenforces anonymity!

What exactly is the problem then?

Now you get it!

See, that's the problem I think I have a solution to! :-)
Better yet, it reenforces anonymity!

MTGox determining monetary policy, essentially.

There's one problem with that: The miners don't HAVE to use the big exchanges. They don't HAVE to exchange their coins at all, in fact.

MTGox determining monetary policy, essentially.

There's one problem with that: The miners don't HAVE to use the big exchanges. They don't HAVE to exchange their coins at all, in fact.

The very same self serving arguments used by the central banker 'elite'. How typical for a group of idealists to end up becoming the very thing they despise.

LMAO! I didn't do it! I've been gone for a couple of years.

I'm just the kid saying that guy over their in the Emperor's Clothes... He's the Emperor.
Why are you people naked?

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than ten dollars a day. Begging is one thing, but acting like someone in the first world really deserves that money is absolutely disgusting, both of you make me sick. If I were revans I would invest my fortune in infrastructure for the developing world, not pathetic forum dwellers who feel sorry for themselves because they didn't achieve overnight wealth.

TLDR: you are a greedy waste of oxygen batcoin.

That is not the case at all. I'm saying you're simply jealous. How are you different from a black person who wants reparations for slavery because white persons had a head start? Why can't you just accept that in any system some people will have a head start because no perfect system exists. Elites exist in nature in all systems because that is how order works.

That being said I do not support the central banking elite NOT because there is inequality, but because there isn't any leadership or reason for that inequality. What I'm saying is that you can be a billionaire, be responsible, and distribute the money in a responsible way by providing jobs, investing, starting businesses, inventing new technology. Bitcoin was invented by it's early adopters and rightfully they should receive the majority of the benefit. Rather than being jealous of some who were just lucky, or worrying about that, instead you should join Freicoin where people are designing it from scratch to promote your ideals.

I'm not against there being elites so long as the elites represent something greater than themselves, they Bitcoin community, or whatever community. If we are on a basketball team and you have the star player who scores a lot of points, gets a lot of money and attention, you're the sort of player who would be jealous and complain that you aren't being paid enough. You don't seem to understand that it's not about the individual player but about the objectives of the team. Some players get paid more than others because they have been playing for longer, or just because they are taller or faster or smarter or better looking, but why should you be jealous?

Yes there are some instances where the wrong people have too much money, but why should I believe that the Bitcoin early adopters are the wrong people just because you say so? Some of them will be the right people, and those right people can fund the next technology to free the people. Can you not think outside and beyond yourself? You can't afford enough coins? You can't mine them in time? You're unlucky and so you want to bring the entire Bitcoin down or go on a begging spree?

You have Bitcoins right? So you're more lucky than anyone who doesn't. You have a stake. You're just jealous that the next man has a bit more than you and instead of focusing on yourself and on what you can do to get what you think you deserve, you're trying to beg some other guy for some coins? Is that seriously the argument? Like I said you should trade in your Bitcoin for Freicoins and PPcoins or Litecoins. This way you can stop complaining about the current winners and focus on being a winner.

To whoever was lucky enough to have thousands of Bitcoin, good for you. I hope you're more responsible than the previous elites. Keep supporting the technology, the culture and the community and bring us jobs (not free coins!).  Pay us to help design the next innovations or the next big coin to replace Bitcoin or pay us to make Bitcoin better. Use your Bitcoins to actually protect Bitcoin and the Bitcoin community from DDOS attacks and political attacks which will come.

It's absolutely bullshit. I got into a similar argument just a day ago with someone on here who believed the current Masons rule the world. Basically the illuminati is whomever happens to be rich and successful to these people.

So what? If you're poor and you work hard and become rich now you sold out? Now you're officially part of the Rothschild clan and a charter member of the Illuminati? So if you just join a lodge today then all this money and power will fall right into your lap without you having to have good character?

It's all crap. People who don't want to research about how the world works, or who don't want to put in any effort to learn certain things. Bitcoin is open source, if it makes people rich then that is a good thing. How is it wrong if peoples lives improve along with Bitcoin?

But of course they do to cover the increasingly large cost of mining, and the ever diminishing rewards as the computational power of the network grows.

Are you reading the thread? None of those arguments are arguments that Red has put forward - I haven't seen any posts by them arguing that the current distribution of coins is the problem.

The argument I have seen from him is that the exchanges, by virtue of their necessity in the current economy, already possess a veto power over which chain is the "true" transaction record, which transcends the "longest chain" logic that justifies calling Bitcoin decentralized to begin with. They're arguing that if the exchanges wanted, they could declare some abandoned fork to be "the REAL Bitcoin" and since most users right now (more critically, most miners) need to be able to exchange their coins for money reliably, they will have no choice but to agree. They're arguing that in the current economy, the longest chain and the miners and the decentralized design only matter because the exchanges haven't chosen to flex that power.

That's a problem, and has nothing to do with ideology.

I initially stated that a huge problem is the fact that far too much of the Bitcoin monetary base was mined for trivial effort by a small group of people.

So enslaving other human beings is merely a 'head start'. Enough said I think; I do not converse with racist fascists

You assume that a person who has more power and money than you has an agenda to enslave you? What if they want to use the majority of their money and power to free themselves and you? You really think that all the Bitcoin Billionaires will suddenly be free just because they have money? The world is more complex than you think it is. Also do you really believe that once they get the money and ability to actually do something about the problems in the world that 100% of them will do a 180 and turn on their libertarian roots?

When African Americans were enslaved some of them escaped to freedom. When they did that they went back to free their friends and family members too. They formed the underground railroad which I'm sure you know about to accomplish this objective. So no, I don't think having people who have millions or billions is a bad thing necessarily. It's inequality yes, but it costs money to protect people in the private sector, unless you want to have a centralized government do it and pay taxes?

Are you reading the thread? None of those arguments are arguments that Red has put forward - I haven't seen any posts by them arguing that the current distribution of coins is the problem.

The argument I have seen from him is that the exchanges, by virtue of their necessity in the current economy, already possess a veto power over which chain is the "true" transaction record, which transcends the "longest chain" logic that justifies calling Bitcoin decentralized to begin with. They're arguing that if the exchanges wanted, they could declare some abandoned fork to be "the REAL Bitcoin" and since most users right now (more critically, most miners) need to be able to exchange their coins for money reliably, they will have no choice but to agree. They're arguing that in the current economy, the longest chain and the miners and the decentralized design only matter because the exchanges haven't chosen to flex that power.

That's a problem, and has nothing to do with ideology.

Edit: Added a quote back in to make the context of my post clear.

Right. But in that post he was quoting Red, not you.

I'm taking notes about what might make initial distribution more or less "fair", but I'd rather not be a party to that hatchet fight myself.

The problem with the current system (not Bitcoin) is that we have different rules for different players according to family. Bitcoin actually helps solve this problem but introduces the early adopter issue, but I think having early adopters is better than family currency.

I think the above comment was in response to your questionable "how are you different from a black person who wants reparations for slavery because white persons had a head start" analogy, not some wider insinuation about capital being enslavement.

How does Bitcoin solve this, though? If your early-adoptorship gives you more money than you will reasonably spend on yourself in your lifetime, then your children inherit it - they gain the initial advantage according to family.

Seems to me that the initial redistribution of a new economic system doesn't change anything about dynasties in the long run. That's a human problem, not a protocol problem.

I initially stated that a huge problem is the fact that far too much of the Bitcoin monetary base was mined for trivial effort by a small group of people.

Because, that's what the rules say. It's right there in the protocol.

Because, that's what the rules say. It's right there in the protocol.

Yup. If you don't like those rules, there are plenty of other games in town.

But therein lies the rub. I don't see any of the Bitcoin evangelists explaining that the 'rules' allowed a small group of early users to make a massive coin grab.

Okay let me explain. If you're part of a community that makes people rich, when that community comes under attack by people from other communities then the rich people from the community that you're part of can invest in the infrastructure or initiatives to protect that community. We all rely on the Internet so we'd all protect that, and we'd all protect Bitcoin since we all rely on that. If you're an early adopter and Bitcoin made you rich then you'd be wise to protect whatever fluke in the system or cheat code you found which allowed you to hack your way to getting rich. The only responsibility you would have is to keep the door open or perhaps open new doors so the successor to Bitcoin can be even better.

Google for instance has given great support to Open Source projects. What makes you think the Bitcoin Billionaires wont fund stuff or invest in stuff which is in the interest of Bitcoin or a free Internet? A free Internet benefits Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

I do agree with one thing you said, some of it is a human problem. Nepotism is a human problem and family currency and family elitism is a human problem. Not everyone involved with Bitcoin has that problem though.

Huh? These things were worthless for a long time after the start. Would you consider reimbursing Lazlo for his pizza purchase today? No? Then what the fuck are you on about?

But therein lies the rub. I don't see any of the Bitcoin evangelists explaining that the 'rules' allowed a small group of early users to make a massive coin grab.

And yet they were still mined diligently by a small group. The reason for this is that doing so cost basically nothing and the potential upside was practically limitless. New entrants can expect the reverse, an increasingly steep downside in terms of hardware cost and a shrinking upside in terms of coins earned.

It's not like the oil barons of yesteryear were burying their money in a hole in the ground or anything. They were reinvesting. They were doing what they could to maintain the infrastructure that was keeping them wealthy - which included both the stuff that society needed, and the stuff that kept society down.

And sure, let's say for a moment that the guys who come out of this thing as billionaires are actually good people - better than the Rockefellers, better than Larry Ellison. Let's say Shamir User A was just shuffling their money around out of paranoia that the Men in Black would kick down their door and take it all.

That's an optimistic assumption, and it buys us, what? Sixty years? Eighty, if they're young and strong and get the expensive medicine early? Whoever they leave their money to, whether family or friends or foundations, we can't attest to their moral character.

If you say that some people will always have an advantage, then you have to accept the consequence of that creed: no matter how the advantage was initially created, there's no statistical reason to believe that the people who have the advantage a generation later will be good. If you want a Pareto-efficient wealth curve, there's a good argument for designing the system such that it tries to initially distribute the wealth no less lopsidedly than that - if you "trust nobody", you can't trust the new money to create that curve for you.

It's too late to do anything about it for Bitcoin - we've gotta live with the distribution we got. And maybe it won't be a problem. But for future cryptocurrencies, it's something we need to consider. And we need to watch out and be ready to refine the idea if it looks like the new boss is going to be the same as the old boss.

It's too late to do anything about it for Bitcoin - we've gotta live with the distribution we got. And maybe it won't be a problem. But for future cryptocurrencies, it's something we need to consider. And we need to watch out and be ready to refine the idea if it looks like the new boss is going to be the same as the old boss.

You know, it might just be my twins, but when I read that, I hear babies crying.

Memcoin in specific proposed something like adding democratic processes into the coin itself. I think that would be the best way to improve the protocol. The next coin should probably include democracy and voting within the coin itself so that holders can somehow vote as a group.

Memcoin in specific proposed something like adding democratic processes into the coin itself.

Problem with such a scheme is how to weigh the votes. By held BTC? By hashpower? None of the solutions are exactly ideal.

It's an interesting proposal, though. Reminds me of "BIP" 2112's proposal to generalize the current "Version"/"P2SH coinbase" mechanisms by embedding the block validation code in the blockchain itself, and letting miners indicate which such algorithms they're willing to endorse.

Perhaps you should consult an audiologist

No, my ears are just fine. It's your posting. You could just copy and paste "q.q" over and over again, and it would read pretty much the same.

How does Bitcoin solve this, though? If your early-adoptorship gives you more money than you will reasonably spend on yourself in your lifetime, then your children inherit it - they gain the initial advantage according to family.

Seems to me that the initial redistribution of a new economic system doesn't change anything about dynasties in the long run. That's a human problem, not a protocol problem.

Moving the goalposts is a dishonest debating tactic. Don't do it if you wish to be taken seriously.

It's not ideal but it could be worked out. Like I said my idea which I've been thinking about is a type of smart currency with autonomous functionality. This would mean it wouldn't necessarily be completely hard coded but in some instances there would be democratic functions, in other cases the coin would decide that there isn't enough coins or that there are too many, but in order to have something like that every "miner" would have to still be part of the AI grid. Either way as of 2013 it's not possible and after 2030 when it might be possible it would still probably be overly centralized because super computers will probably still be centralized.

Here is the #1 issue politically of our time. Closed source artificial intelligence has to be banned.

This forum is equipped with an ignore feature, might I suggest you use it.

The point of Bitcoin isn't to undermine capitalism or stop the rich from being rich. If anything it has the opposite effect. What it IS supposed to do is prevent the rich (or more likely, powerful) from messing with the money that everyone else uses.

.

. What makes you think the Bitcoin Billionaires wont fund stuff or invest in stuff which is in the interest of Bitcoin or a free Internet? A free Internet benefits Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

Well said about amazing riches, lifetime and inheritance.

Just add the following to what you said
".......Seems to me that the initial redistribution of a new economic system doesn't change anything about dynasties in the long run. That's a human problem, not a protocol problem...." AND the initial distribution graph was kept absolutely steep at the start and soon after start so that the early on guys old be really really mega rich in the process. So the graph was built that way on purpose and not by any accident ....

If you add that  you will come closer to revans original point !!! Probably look almost similar

Remember, there are only enough bitcoins for .006 BTC per person in the world. If you have more than that, you will be in the upper class.

Yeah. Discovered BTC by coincidence back in late 2011, got 150 coins, and if it gains widespread adoption all of a sudden compared to most people on earth I'll be Jacob Flippin' Marley.

I'm not saying things have to change, or even that they can at this point. But isn't there something weird about that? And isn't it going to look weird to the folks who might otherwise adopt it going forward?

I plan on making the CommieCoin (tm).

Basically all CommieCoins will be equally divided to all addresses. Any spend results in an immediate redistribution. Any new address results in immediate redistribution.

It will not require computer power either. Just men in brown coats going anywhere CommieCoins are spent (even in your basement) to verify that everyone has the same amount of CommieCoins.

I think it will catch on well.
[/quote

Name's already taken, comrade.

I think you all are missing the point.

The point of Bitcoin isn't to undermine capitalism or stop the rich from being rich. If anything it has the opposite effect. What it IS supposed to do is prevent the rich (or more likely, powerful) from messing with the money that everyone else uses.

So I was completely convinced revans was right and bitcoin would never reach widespread adoption. Then I read this.

http://qz.com/74137/six-reasons-why-chinese-people-will-drive-the-next-bull-market-in-bitcoin/

The third point was my favorite:

3. Insane speculation schemes aren’t so crazy to many Chinese people.

Who knows, bitcoin may have a couple of years left before its final crash! :-)

So I was completely convinced revans was right and bitcoin would never reach widespread adoption.

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than ten dollars a day. Begging is one thing, but acting like someone in the first world really deserves that money is absolutely disgusting, both of you make me sick. If I were revans I would invest my fortune in infrastructure for the developing world, not pathetic forum dwellers who feel sorry for themselves because they didn't achieve overnight wealth.

TLDR: you are a greedy waste of oxygen batcoin.

The John Self post-mtgoxalypse poverty fund: 14GXJ3Q16PJNNF6v4iyxhvuhacuhvckMym All donations appreciated.

revans seems to be a master at this. Classic evader, and bears all the marks of the reasoning errors that leads to. Not worth debating, from what I've seen so far (haven't trawled this whole thread). But how much do you need to see to get the pattern?

The Shamir paper makes it clear that early adopters went to significant lengths to hide the true extent of their hoarding of Bitcoins. frankly the more you look into the history of Bitcoin, its origins, and the actions of the early players, the more it seems like a big trojan horse.

Very interesting thread.. lots of topics worth further discussion and learning.

Now.. this thing is one of the 2 big concerns I have about Bitcoins:


Why create something targeted at instant transactions (like a Paypal) or to be used as a currency (like the USD) but design it to have the economic behaviour of stock market? That makes no sense. What we see here is that the effort needed to get 10-15 coins today is pretty much the same level of effort and risk that 1 year ago would give you hundred of thousands.

The main problem here is not the fact that early adopters have more, this is fine. The main problem is the sheer scale of the disproportion. We talk about million times more for a comparable risk. People entering the Bitcoin world now risk as much than people entering 1 or 2 years ago.

The main problem here is not the fact that early adopters have more, this is fine. The main problem is the sheer scale of the disproportion. We talk about million times more for a comparable risk. People entering the Bitcoin world now risk as much than people entering 1 or 2 years ago.

In one or two years time those 10-15 Bitcoins could be worth the same as what those thousands are worth today. Then there will be more people complaining about the disproportion and unfairness because they didn't get the chance to get in on it earlier.

I'd rather have early adoption. At least if you take risks and have the knowledge you get rewarded. It's more fair than just having to be born at the right time, place, family.

In one or two years time those 10-15 Bitcoins could be worth the same as what those thousands are worth today. Then there will be more people complaining about the disproportion and unfairness because they didn't get the chance to get in on it earlier.

We agree on the principle, but not on the scale.

When 10 coins will be huge money (if ever) the ones that have 100000 coins will be the new plutocrats. How different it is from the current system we want to "fix"?

Worse still, the shady beginnings of Bitcoin mean we have no real idea anything about people who could end up richer than all the plutocrats in history put together. If these people ever got the world they wish for (Bitcoin economy worth many trillions and dominant online and ubiqitous in real world transactions) we'd could be in a situation even worse than we are now.

Worse still, the shady beginnings of Bitcoin mean we have no real idea anything about people who could end up richer than all the plutocrats in history put together. If these people ever got the world they wish for (Bitcoin economy worth many trillions and dominant online and ubiqitous in real world transactions) we'd could be in a situation even worse than we are now.

Not really. Just because they're wealthy doesn't mean they'll take over governments and such.

No, but the point is we don't know one way or the other.

Actually this is EXACTLY the biggest problem people are complaining about. It woud be nice if it was as you say, but is the opposite.

You had to be in the right place at the right time to have a huge advantage above everybody else, without the need of any risk or skills. Just knowing that bitcoin exist 2 years ago and playing with it for fun. How many people ever heard about it before the Cyprus crysis? Just a tiny minority of people. This doesn't make the remaining 99.9999% of the world guilty of lacking skills or afraid to take risks.

They just didn't know it existed at all. Including me. Which is the reason why I feel offensive to be labeled as less capable or less enterprising, when the only reason I didn't invest in Bitcoins earlier is because I never heard of it. I agree with you if people took a conscious decision of rejecting Bitcoin a couple years ago, and now they cry injustice. They have only themselves to blame. But people that were not in the "secret society" of the father founders... what exactly is their fault?

Given the option of sticking with what we've got, or a wealthy elite of cryptography geeks, I'll take my chances with the crypto geeks.

Who's to say Bitcoin isn't a Goldman Sachs project, or maybe GS infiltrated it and now own millions of Bitcoins.

Even the language used is that of speculation, with talk of people failing to 'get in'. Bitcoin isn't a currency it's a stock.

We agree on the principle, but not on the scale.

When 10 coins will be huge money (if ever) the ones that have 100000 coins will be the new plutocrats. How different it is from the current system we want to "fix"?

No, but the point is we don't know one way or the other.

I don't think there is an evil masterplan for world domination here. Bitcoin could disappear in a few months if is never going mainstream.
But is true that in the hypothetical case that coin value goes over $75000, somebody with 1M coins will exceed the richest man in the world (Carlos Slim, $73 billions). And there is no proof that nobody has more than a million coins.  ;D

They just didn't know it existed at all. Including me.

Why create something targeted at instant transactions (like a Paypal) or to be used as a currency (like the USD) but design it to have the economic behaviour of stock market? That makes no sense. What we see here is that the effort needed to get 10-15 coins today is pretty much the same level of effort and risk that 1 year ago would give you hundred of thousands.

The main problem here is not the fact that early adopters have more, this is fine. The main problem is the sheer scale of the disproportion. We talk about million times more for a comparable risk. People entering the Bitcoin world now risk as much than people entering 1 or 2 years ago.

BTC was quite well known in libertarian and anarcho-capitalist circles, even then.

It's not a bug, it's a feature :D This will be very pretty transfer of wealth to libertarians, anarchists, agorists... :D

Given the option of sticking with what we've got, or a wealthy elite of cryptography geeks, I'll take my chances with the crypto geeks.

It's not a bug, it's a feature :D This will be very pretty transfer of wealth to libertarians, anarchists, agorists... :D

+1

And its is also pretty funny to see people here crying that they didnt know about Bitcoins couple of years ago. If Bitcoin will succeed everyone buying Bitcoins now will still be early adopter.

Xiaoma hit on what I think is the fundamental reason bitcoin will never go mainstream. Some 6 Billion people in the world are much like him. They've never heard of bitcoin, or they've never heard of bitcoin until today. When they show up here they are all going to ask this question over and over again.

"Why should I waste my time and money making you guys really rich? I've got that problem already."


@Xiamo, I can answer your question directly if you'd like, but it would cause a flame war. Probably better to do it in a new thread.

Hint: Bitcoin is not a currency. It is the first commodity ever created by mathematical fiat!

Well.. I think Bitcoin will have a very hard time going mainstream because most people are NOT like me ;)

I only got so late into this because I only found out recently. If I wasn't away from crypto forums for so many years I would be an early adopter too. The only thing I can do now, at the current prices, is to get a dozen coins a month, not more than that. Still, even if I have a net loss so far, I still try to buy more coins because I believe the world needs it. I don't care much about the "getting rich" hype. It is the freedom from central entities control that I value most. Even if I was to lose all my investment on Bitcoin, another crypto-currency will be created that hopefully will have better luck than this one.

Most of the remaining 6 billions don't give a damn about it, to be blunt. They would happily give up all freedom if they were feeling safe and protected. It is the way governments work, and the way humans work.

It's also the way mafias work. That is a protection racket. That kind of political fiat currency is backed by the bullet. People are forced to accept USD or get beat up or killed?  That is what we prefer over Bitcoin? We want to go back to that thug mafia style system based around fear, threats and intimidation?

Bitcoin doesn't have the coercion and intimidation. Maybe some hackers will dox you or put a virus on your computer but that is nothing compared to getting bombed and shot at by snipers because you didn't want to spend the USD. The world needs a global alternative and I'm not even considering myself a globalist, but the world needs a global currency done right and Bitcoin is the first global currency to ever exist. It might not be done right, but it's done first, and the people who are early adopters are taking the risk because WE KNOW.

And how you plan to explain that to "common" people? Don't take it personally, but it seem to me you are only trying to preach to the believers...

Your average "average Joe" is waking up pretty quickly. You'd have to be pretty deeply buried in football and beer (the modern age's bread and circuses) to miss the writing on the wall.

Maybe I'm more pessimistic than you are, but I see most people are still in denial. The Euro collapse will be a brutal wake up call.
Then will be USA, where most people think "Euro is fckd but this will never happen here".

So what? If that happens then we'd all be better off because we'd all have more money too.

Money doesn't buy political influence though,

it  just means you'll be the one funding the elections and paying for infrastructure.

In my country it can buy a lot of things including buying politicians, buying political influence, buying this ...buying that ...

I was studying cryptocurrencies before there was a Bitcoin, and I knew about it when first hearing about it during the bailout crisis. I heard again during the Occupy Wallstreet. I would be one of those early adopters except I got side tracked not thinking it would recover so fast from $2.

Sure, it's like that in pretty much every country. But here's the thing:

If Bitcoin is as successful as everyone hopes it is, everyone will have a store of money that the government cannot touch. They can't freeze it, they can't seize it, they can't tax it, they cant trace it.

Imagine what that will mean to governments.

The honest part of the government that collects taxes will suffer

The dishonest part that splurges favors on friends and cronies will already be in the take .......just that it will be far more difficult to prove that they took bribes !!! This will be parallel economy of un comparable ....un imaginable proportions

And how you plan to explain that to "common" people? Don't take it personally, but it seem to me you are only trying to preach to the believers...

Sad that you didn't jump in

Still I think you were NOT part of the early Creators or the early elite

You were outside

That made a big difference

Yes, but where does that dishonest part of the government get the money to splurge?

From the honest part. Which will be collapsing under it's own - and especially the dishonest part's - weight.

The honest part of the government that collects taxes will suffer

The dishonest part that splurges favors on friends and cronies will already be in the take .......just that it will be far more difficult to prove that they took bribes !!! This will be parallel economy of un comparable ....un imaginable proportions

Should Bitcoin ever achieve the kind of ubiquity its most ardent fans hope for, these people will wield more financial power than any of the Banksters they decry.

They will also control such a large amount of the monetary base that they too could end up becoming plutocrats
Far from being a revolution, the future as envisaged by Bitcoin fanboys will be little more than a changing of the cast of villains.

Moreover the people who partake will partake voluntarily and will be able to erode the top down wealth by saving, an attribute that has been removed from the inflation fiat central bank model.

Early adoption isn't inequity. Our original 'investment' was more expensive if you calculate the risk and our opportunity cost at the time. People who just start buying in are still getting a great deal, however because there is no (relatively) so much less risk, it's so expensive for them.

Exactly. At the time, the reward was a bunch of digital "money" that could turn out to be just as popular as Beenz or Flooz. If you don't know what those are, that's my point. The risk was that if the Fed took them seriously, their homes and offices could have been raided, their computers seized, and their dogs shot. Remember, this was right around the time the Liberty Dollar was being cracked down on, and the federal government is not known for being discriminate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._United_States_Secret_Service) in it's raiding practices.

This is true, and the most practical reason Bitcoin may be superseded by a crypto currency that has an adoption curve similar to this.

What mechanisms exactly would appeal to enough people, so that they would trade the guaranteed-less-than-100%-ever-more inflation of bitcoin, for something which cannot markedly appreciate in value over time, due to new creation tied to increase in userbase?

No trolling, but I can't currently see why anyone with a capitalist mindset would go after that with anything more than peanuts..  :-\

Those with a capitalist mindset tend to be those with the most money and power to make things succeed.

What mechanisms exactly would appeal to enough people, so that they would trade the guaranteed-less-than-100%-ever-more inflation of bitcoin, for something which cannot markedly appreciate in value over time, due to new creation tied to increase in userbase?

That's what I've been pondering for longer than I care to mention. But I think I have an answer now.

Clearly there is no way to convince the crypto anarchist, libertarian, gold lover, "saver" of the fixed coin bitcoin model that a variable coin/fixed value coin is BETTER than bitcoin.

However, clearly, there is a need for a COMPLEMENTARY fixed value currency in addition bitcoin. What for? The other half of speculation. When bitcoin is going up, speculators want to own bitcoins. When bitcoin is crashing they want to own anything but bitcoins. However, all the stable alternatives are currently fiat "accounts" within currency exchanges. These are subject to all the non-anonymity, seizure, hacking, fraud risks that regular (cyprus style) bank accounts are subject too.

How might you make a value stable non-fiat currency? This is one potential way.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47628.0
All the cool bits you love about bitcoin. None of the price instability.

The idea of 2 complementary currencies with a focused design is very interesting. One could be optimised as a pure transactional with a stable exchange, and the other as a deflationary store of value. And still have the benefits of a decentralised, near-anonymous and non seizable.
Let speculators speculate with bitcoins, and merchants deal with the other one. And let people choose a mix of both according to mood.

The idea of 2 complementary currencies with a focused design is very interesting. One could be optimised as a pure transactional with a stable exchange, and the other as a deflationary store of value. And still have the benefits of a decentralised, near-anonymous and non seizable.
Let speculators speculate with bitcoins, and merchants deal with the other one. And let people choose a mix of both according to mood.

Exactly! Like having both a checking account and a savings accounts.

From what I see, I suspect is more like a checking account and a stock playground at NYSE. A savings account is not that volatile.

Ssssssh! Don't tell anyone here that... :-)

whoops sorry... of course we have a super stable currency that is nearly impossible to manipulate.

Anyway looks like I don't have much more to say about the topic of this thread. Who got hundreds of coins have that, who got a million will be lucky anyway. Not my problem unless it stops bitcoin from going mainstream. Do we still want that?

Another complement to the hard currency (blockchain bitcoin) economy, would be to reinstall real bills (http://www.professorfekete.com/articles%5CAEFDetractorsOfAdamSmithsRealBillsDoctrine.pdf). <- It's a technical but fascinating read about the almost-forgotten aspect of the gold standard, without which the gold standard (of the post-WWI world) had no means to operate, and needed to be replaced with fiat standard in the 1930s.