Early speculator's reward antidote

[casascius]

Confiscate? Do you understand the definitions of the words you are using?

Um, yeah, it means what you thought was yours, just became mine.  Of course you know Ben Bernanke will never just break into your kitchen and make himself a sandwich on your dime.  The confiscation would be clear.  But instead he prints money, and you sit and wonder why prices just went up.  He confiscates half your sandwich next year by making it cost twice as much and then buying the other half on the free market and hopes you don't notice the difference.

I am the guy who made the YouTube videos who proudly declared that I bought $20k of BTC at 0.80 and now as a result, I am "entitled" to take $200k from other people as a result.  Where did the $180k come from?  Thin air?  No, it came from the backs of others.  While I think it's sweet that I can go buy a god damn Ferrari in exchange for absolutely no work, don't you see anything wrong with that?  The root of an economy is goods and services, not money, but as a result of this disparity, I have been enabled to take something from an economy without putting anything back.  That is the root of the problem others will seek to solve.

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[rezin777]

I'll bet that in spite of your non-conversion, you'll end up preferring people to pay you with coins like yours rather than difficulty-1 coins, and you'll prefer to pay others with low-difficulty coins (since you'll be able to choose), on the off chance that market forces later tell you you have no choice but to convert.  

How much are you willing to bet on my preferences?

[rezin777]

Confiscate? Do you understand the definitions of the words you are using?

Um, yeah, it means what you thought was yours, just became mine.

Prove it, take something from me.

[casascius]

I'll bet that in spite of your non-conversion, you'll end up preferring people to pay you with coins like yours rather than difficulty-1 coins, and you'll prefer to pay others with low-difficulty coins (since you'll be able to choose), on the off chance that market forces later tell you you have no choice but to convert.  

How much are you willing to bet on my preferences?

Nothing, and that'll be the beauty of it.  In such a new system, the only person who will stand to gain or lose from your preferences is YOU, not the few of us who were here before you and bought up all the available coins before you realized you wanted some.

[casascius]

Prove it, take something from me.

Have you ever bought BTC on MtGox since Feb?  If so, perhaps I already have!  (And yep, you're right... on your part it was voluntary)

[rezin777]

Nothing, and that'll be the beauty of it.  In such a new system, the only person who will stand to gain or lose from your preferences is YOU, not the few of us who were here before you and bought up all the available coins before you realized you wanted some.

Fantastic, can you please give me the option? This is what I've wanted from the start!

[rezin777]

Prove it, take something from me.

Have you ever bought BTC on MtGox since Feb?  If so, perhaps I already have!  (And yep, you're right... on your part it was voluntary)

I said take. And sorry, no, I don't use MtGox.

[Terpie]

Confiscate? Do you understand the definitions of the words you are using?

Um, yeah, it means what you thought was yours, just became mine.  Of course you know Ben Bernanke will never just break into your kitchen and make himself a sandwich on your dime.  The confiscation would be clear.  But instead he prints money, and you sit and wonder why prices just went up.  He confiscates half your sandwich next year by making it cost twice as much and then buying the other half on the free market and hopes you don't notice the difference.

I am the guy who made the YouTube videos who proudly declared that I bought $20k of BTC at 0.80 and now as a result, I am "entitled" to take $200k from other people as a result.  Where did the $180k come from?  Thin air?  No, it came from the backs of others.  

So if I value 20,000 BTC more than the $200,000 in my bank account, the holder of the BTC is confiscating my wealth when we make this voluntary trade? You can't be serious.

[Littleshop]

Confiscate? Do you understand the definitions of the words you are using?

Um, yeah, it means what you thought was yours, just became mine.  Of course you know Ben Bernanke will never just break into your kitchen and make himself a sandwich on your dime.  The confiscation would be clear.  But instead he prints money, and you sit and wonder why prices just went up.  He confiscates half your sandwich next year by making it cost twice as much and then buying the other half on the free market and hopes you don't notice the difference.

I am the guy who made the YouTube videos who proudly declared that I bought $20k of BTC at 0.80 and now as a result, I am "entitled" to take $200k from other people as a result.  Where did the $180k come from?  Thin air?  No, it came from the backs of others.  While I think it's sweet that I can go buy a god damn Ferrari in exchange for absolutely no work, don't you see anything wrong with that?  The root of an economy is goods and services, not money, but as a result of this disparity, I have been enabled to take something from an economy without putting anything back.  That is the root of the problem others will seek to solve.

He can not 'take' it from anyone as you say.  They have to freely accept his bitcoin or not.  It is their choice.  What you are trying to do is take away the guy who has the $200k's money.  

[N12]

I am the guy who made the YouTube videos who proudly declared that I bought $20k of BTC at 0.80 and now as a result, I am "entitled" to take $200k from other people as a result.  Where did the $180k come from?  Thin air?  No, it came from the backs of others.  While I think it's sweet that I can go buy a god damn Ferrari in exchange for absolutely no work, don't you see anything wrong with that?  The root of an economy is goods and services, not money, but as a result of this disparity, I have been enabled to take something from an economy without putting anything back.  That is the root of the problem others will seek to solve.

The only real solution would be a) fixed percentage inflation rate p.a. or b) central bank deciding inflation rate based on the economy. Your Bitcoin 2.0 would face the same "problem" soon enough.

If I would’ve put in 100k in gold when it was 1000$/oz and sold at 1500$, where would the 50k have come from? Absolutely no work required either.

[amincd]

Of course you know Ben Bernanke will never just break into your kitchen and make himself a sandwich on your dime.  The confiscation would be clear.  But instead he prints money, and you sit and wonder why prices just went up.  He confiscates half your sandwich next year by making it cost twice as much and then buying the other half on the free market and hopes you don't notice the difference.

I am the guy who made the YouTube videos who proudly declared that I bought $20k of BTC at 0.80 and now as a result, I am "entitled" to take $200k from other people as a result.  Where did the $180k come from?  Thin air?  No, it came from the backs of others.

You are entitled to take $200,000 because other people are willing to pay you that much for what you have. It's an exchange, and both sides benefit from it. If they didn't, then the exchange wouldn't happen. It's not at all like Bernanke who is able to maintain the dollar's value while inflating through the force of taxation and legal tender laws.

[stic.man]

this is turning into an ideology argument, there's a subforum for this

[casascius]

So if I value 20,000 BTC more than the $200,000 in my bank account, the holder of the BTC is confiscating my wealth when we make this voluntary trade? You can't be serious.

The moment you buy your BTC is not when the confiscation happens.  If I have 1,000,000 BTC, and I toss it on the market, your 20,000 BTC suddenly is able to buy far less (in goods and services) than you expected.  I get a good proportion of the goods and services you anticipated receiving in exchange for negligible work, and you get much closer to nothing.

Oh, but you'll say nobody with 1M BTC would be crazy and dump it on the market like that... they'd do it slowly, right?  What difference does it make?  It is still taking goods and services from an economy without putting anything back in.  Taking something slowly in a manner that is less obvious to everyone is still taking!

By the way, I might have somewhere near 20,000 BTC I'm willing to sell near around mtgoxask.  Got somewhere near $200k?  Maybe let's trade.

[casascius]

You are entitled to take $200,000 because other people are willing to pay you that much for what you have. It's an exchange, and both sides benefit from it. If they didn't, then the exchange wouldn't happen. It's not at all like Bernanke who is able to maintain the dollar's value while inflating through the force of taxation and legal tender laws.

By that logic, all pyramid schemes are legal and ethical because each person parts with their money voluntarily.

[casascius]

If I would’ve put in 100k in gold when it was 1000$/oz and sold at 1500$, where would the 50k have come from? Absolutely no work required either.

The $50k would ultimately come from other investors in gold, in the form of a very small devaluation in everyone else's gold.  TANSTAAFL, money does not come from nowhere.  Although gold may be trading at $1500 an ounce, the market simply will not pay $1500 for every ounce of gold in existence if offered for sale.  Each successful attempt to sell off gold results in a small decrease in the market value of everyone else's gold.

The difference between gold and Bitcoin is that many of us know that early miners hold over 2M BTC that haven't been spent out of their generation blocks, and that were acquired very trivially.  It represents the right to confiscate a vast proportion of the entire Bitcoin economy on a whim... if BTC becomes a $100 billion economy, it's a license to take $billions in goods and services from the rest of us in exchange for absolutely nothing.  Just who is that fair to?

[N12]

Please explain why your "antidote" would turn out any different in two years. The mining scheme internally stays the same in your proposal.

What you want is inflatacoin or freicoin imo.

The $50k would ultimately come from other investors in gold, in the form of a very small devaluation in everyone else's gold.  TANSTAAFL, money does not come from nowhere.

I don’t understand the fundamental difference between Bitcoin and Gold in this regard. The only difference is a large and mature market.

[unk]

By that logic, all pyramid schemes are legal and ethical because each person parts with their money voluntarily.

thanks, casascius. there's far too little sensitivity to this sort of concern in the forum generally.

people who opine on the importance of voluntariness with only a surface-level understanding of both contract law and economics may benefit from reading more broadly. a good contract-law casebook, coupled with some reading on the notion of externalities (including what are called 'pecuniary externalities') may be enlightening. we don't get to live in ideal systems just because we dream of them; pragmatic arguments about policy need to be evaluated in the real world.

and rezin, i have to add: talking is a form of doing. i'm not sure what 'do it already' adds to the conversation. we are providing ideas and considering their merit. to say that isn't 'action' of some sort is counterproductive. i've already said i'd be happy to contribute code but will be a little too busy to do it personally until about a month from now. (in any event, the needed coding isn't very difficulty, and i expect it to be done before the end of the summer anyway.)

[amincd]

By that logic, all pyramid schemes are legal and ethical because each person parts with their money voluntarily.

Pyramid schemes are unethical because there will necessarily be more loser than winners. An asset that provides economic value to the vast majority of people who buy it, like a useful digital currency, or Google shares, or Facebook shares, doesn't fit this description. It isn't unethical just because those who found it early and risked investing in it subsequently profit more than others.

[casascius]

Please explain why your "antidote" would turn out any different in two years. The mining scheme internally stays the same in your proposal.

It essentially voids the purchasing power of all the easily mined coins so that those coming into Bitcoin now do not have to plan on having their purchasing power vastly cut when those old coins come out of their generation blocks and onto the market.

What you want is inflatacoin or freicoin imo.

How so?  This proposal does not call for a change to the mining rewards, so inflation would be exactly the same.  And what's "freicoin"?  German for "freecoin"?  Nothing would be given for free, so I don't get it.  What I want is a system where ten early adopters with a combined BTC balance of 3M BTC or more, who are 100% silent in the face of "who's the richest here", don't have an undeserved claim to a third or a half of my purchasing power.  Is that too much to ask?

I don’t understand the fundamental difference between Bitcoin and Gold in this regard. The only difference is a large and mature market.

That, and 10 people aren't sitting on 1/3 to 1/2 of the world's gold supply having acquired it trivially, waiting to "retire" with it.

[casascius]

By that logic, all pyramid schemes are legal and ethical because each person parts with their money voluntarily.

Pyramid schemes are unethical because there will necessarily be more loser than winners. An asset that provides economic value to the vast of people who buy it, like a useful digital currency, or Google shares, or Facebook shares, doesn't fit this description. It isn't unethical just because those who found it early and risked investing in it subsequently profit more than others.

GREAT!  So I should feel good that I can now buy a Ferrari for nothing thanks to Bitcoin, right?

Let me say what you just said, but instead, substitute Federal Reserve notes:

An asset that provides economic value to the vast of people who buy it, like Federal Reserve notes doesn't fit this description.

If the asset can lose value on somebody else's whim, is it as squeaky clean as you say it is?  The USD is scorned because Bernanke can turn on the printing press and steal a little bit from every holder of dollars out there.  If that weren't so, running the press would be good not bad!  I scorn BTC because the holders of those 2M+ virgin coins can move them at any time.  The outcome (hyperinflation) will be identical.  If the Federal Reserve suddenly pumps $30B into the economy and says, "We didn't just print these, honest!  We printed them years ago and have just been saving them for a rainy day and just didn't tell you all we were sitting on them"... will it make a single iota of difference in the hyperinflation outcome? NO