bitcoin Vs. lottery

[ericwang]

Think about bitcoin as a lottery. Millions of people are competing for a bitcoin just like millions of people are buying a lottery ticket. The only different is that bitcoin is rewarded to the best computing power but a lottery reward is randomly picked. However, both of them are at the cost of other losers. So next time when we talk about the cost of a bitcoin, it should be much more than the winners' electricity cost and the initial investments, it should be including all losers' costs too. Think about how much a bitcoin would be priced.

[beetcoin]

bitcoin is nothing like the lottery. its value is derived from its value and usefulness to people. the lottery is just about getting lucky. it's more gambling than anything.

[ericwang]

bitcoin is nothing like the lottery. its value is derived from its value and usefulness to people. the lottery is just about getting lucky. it's more gambling than anything.

How a bitcoin is generated is very much similar to a lottery. I am not talking about the value, the utility of bitcoin here.

[BitcoinBarrel]

Solo mining could be referred to winning the lottery due to the high difficulty, but you can still mine Bitcoins in pools.

[ericwang]

Solo mining could be referred to winning the lottery due to the high difficulty, but you can still mine Bitcoins in pools.

winning a lottery does not always mean win a huge one. The mechanism of mass competing is essential both of them, bitcoin and lottery, so as the reward should be similar. The reason I compare them here is that I believe in case of bitcoin, the reward, bitcoin, should be at the others' costs too, that could be very big.