Human greed and bitcoins

[libertyzeal]

I've been seeing this theme a lot, where people think that bitcoins are somehow not a fair system, since the early adopters have a lot more bitcoins accrued than newcomers.

To me this is nothing but stupid greed..  it's like being pissed off that you didn't get apple stock when they first IPO'd, so now it's 1998, the iMac is about to come out, and you don't want to invest because by doing so you'll just further enrich the lucky (or enlightened) few that got in at a better price, when there is plenty of upside potential on the horizon.

I'm a newcomer, I've got less bitcoins currently than I have fingers, and it doesn't bother me in the *slightest* that the early-adopters have been rewarded for their forethought and risk-tolerance. They deserve to profit, because without them bitcoin wouldn't be what it is today.  Free markets reward good ideas.  I may be slightly late to the party, but the night is still young, and I'm happy I'm to be here now.  Bitcoin has a long exciting future ahead of it, and I'm looking forward to being a part of it.

Happy trading/mining..

[noedaRDH]

I've been seeing this theme a lot, where people think that bitcoins are somehow not a fair system, since the early adopters have a lot more bitcoins accrued than newcomers.

To me this is nothing but stupid greed..  it's like being pissed off that you didn't get apple stock when they first IPO'd, so now it's 1998, the iMac is about to come out, and you don't want to invest because by doing so you'll just further enrich the lucky (or enlightened) few that got in at a better price, when there is plenty of upside potential on the horizon.

I'm a newcomer, I've got less bitcoins currently than I have fingers, and it doesn't bother me in the *slightest* that the early-adopters have been rewarded for their forethought and risk-tolerance. They deserve to profit, because without them bitcoin wouldn't be what it is today.  Free markets reward good ideas.  I may be slightly late to the party, but the night is still young, and I'm happy I'm to be here now.  Bitcoin has a long exciting future ahead of it, and I'm looking forward to being a part of it.

Happy trading/mining..

Yep. Early adopters is almost always required for projects like these to take off.

To be honest, in the beginning I got into Bitcoins because I thought I might profit from it. I sold an AMD card to someone locally who's very much into Bitcoin before I even heard about this stuff.

But over the past few weeks the question of whether Bitcoins is profitable for me or not is no longer important.

What is important is that Bitcoins has made me question the very foundation of our crumbling society, it's more than just $.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see Bitcoin take off and get a share, because we all like money. And I'm not delusional about the fact that most people joined in and stuck around to become speculators. But even if Bitcoin somehow dies off, the idea behind it can never be taken away.

[jalidi]

Or jealousy? Hey, just throw in any of the Seven Deadly Sins, here.

Believe it or not, you're actually an early adopter, yourself... this stuff is still super-new, so new that they're still making up rules about how to handle it as they go along. Will it take off and make those very early adopters millionaires? Possibly. It could just as easily go to 0 USD value and your bitcoins won't be worth the electrons they are made of.

This isn't supposed to be a get-rich-quick scheme, unfortunately once anything goes mainstream you always get those people looking for the angle which reaps them the most profit. It is a bridge that the digital currency had to cross at some point, and what it ends up being once it gets to the other side remains to be seen.

[jerfelix]

You are still an early adopter.

Mt Gox' leaked password file was only about 61,000 users.  I know of several people who signed up after the file was grabbed (so they didn't appear on the file).  So let's assume it's less than 70,000 traders. 

There have only been about 400,000 downloads of the Bitcoin software (from sourceforge stats).  Assume that many Bitcoin owners downloaded the software multiple times (as new versions came out).

So MAYBE there are 100,000 owners of Bitcoins.  Probably more like 70,000.

If Bitcoins take off, there could end up to be 100 Million owners (or more).  So you are still very much an early adopter.

[rafval]

actually I do see this as a weakness of the current currency systems which btc doesnt seem to have overcome, maybe it cant be overcome, its not envy, its just that if someone has a large proportion of a currency they have the power to manipulate it, crash exchanges etc

[Litt]

Although there is a bit of difference in the amount of coins that each user may own at this point in time, it is absolutely important for everyone to remember that Bitcoin is still at it's infancy. We are all early adapters at this point. There are just a few mega early adapters is all.

Don't kick yourself in the ass by not being involved sooner rather than later. At the end of the day, it's about YOU protecting YOUR wealth in a vehicle of YOUR choosing. Worrying about who has how much of what is as irrelevant as weather it will be btc, gold, usd, land, properties, pm, stock, or whatever else YOU decided to store wealth in. Reason is simple. It's because at any point, current price dictates how much wealth can be stored at 1 btc. What is important is that it will hold it's value and continues to do so as long as you are invested in it rather than lose it like fiat currencies of today.

[NO_SLAVE]

actually I do see this as a weakness of the current currency systems which btc doesnt seem to have overcome, maybe it cant be overcome, its not envy, its just that if someone has a large proportion of a currency they have the power to manipulate it, crash exchanges etc

the magic hand of the market will solve these issues. once the price gets high enough and stable enough, they will cash out and distribute their stash to more people, thus stabilizing the market even further.

[tonto]

People getting into bitcoins now are still going to be OK.  It's like arriving at the party at 11pm when all the good partiers hit at 10.   There's still some good weed, and some of the women are still looking for dates.  When the crowd hits at midnight, they're going to be jealous, and you're going to have a good time.

[dodgrr]

perhaps people are only happy wanting more

[wareen]

Don't forget that many of the early adopters probably cashed out a lot of their coins when they hit for example USD parity because it seemed soo high back then after a year of near worthlessness.
So the ones holding large amounts today are probably really to a large degree those with foresight.

Other early adopters like Gavin gave away 50.000 BTC through the faucet or just bought pizza for 10.000 BTC. It is an experiment and it is still possible for it to fail. Everyone putting his money/time/enthusiasm into it can very well lose it all in the end. This was even more true a year ago.

If some of them are wealthy now, I do not begrudge them the least - I am even grateful that they helped to get the system going and did their part to make Bitcoins as strong and useful as they are today.

Don't moan over lost chances - there are still plenty of opportunities with this new technology - everyone with some creativity and enthusiasm can still make good profit. If Bitcoins really take off then we all are early-adopters anyway.

[ElectricMonk]

http://popartmachine.com/artwork/LOC%2B1090280/0/%255BTwo-men-recining-on-a-large-nugget-of-pure-native-copper-in-the-bed...-painting-artwork-print.jpg

Love this image of two 'greedy' pioneering bastards who found this huge copper nugget just lying on the ground in Alaska. Early adopting son of bitches!

You have to dig a little deeper these days...
http://minefo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/bingham-cooper-mine.jpg

[triforcelink]

While we're at it, lets hate older and wiser people too, how dare they have more knowledge than us?! Just because they were born first and had more experiences than us does not mean they should be able to live better lives with that knowledge!!! damn those old cheating people!!