Early speculator's reward antidote

[FreeMoney]

This is interesting. What happens if I have 50 fresh high difficulty coins and Satoshi sends me some of his early ones to that address. Will I still get full credit if I send you 50?

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[Haennes]

I confirm with many previous posters: its a no-problem.

There is no inherent value of BTC or any "realistic" exchange rate to some other currency, its all about the market. And to my impression it is a tight market. I wonder what happens if someone wants to change his BTCs against a Ferrari. If someone places 20000 BTC in the market, the price will drop immediately. How far? Probably the dream of a Ferrari is a kind of bubble.

Just my 0.05 BTC

[casascius]

This is interesting. What happens if I have 50 fresh high difficulty coins and Satoshi sends me some of his early ones to that address. Will I still get full credit if I send you 50?

If you're simply sending BTC to someone willing to accept all BTC as being alike, then sure.

Even if you have received coins multiple times at the same address, you essentially have different transactions in your wallet.  The only thing in common is their controlling address.  If you can choose which coins you're spending or converting versus depending on the system to do it for you, the coins aren't being "combined".  Combining coins is something that only happens when party A sends X to party B, and X is greater than the largest coin transaction in A's wallet and so the transaction must have more than one input.

[Cusipzzz]

I'm continually amused by the bitterness concern shown by people new to bitcoin that it is somehow unfair that others found out before them, and gosh darn it have more bitcoins than they do!

Surely this should be remedied as in similar situations. Clearly all the shares of facebook are ready to be distributed by some sort of lottery to anyone interested? Perhaps real estate will have a similar redistribution, this will be my chance to own disneyland! How dare someone else have such a claim.

I guess we should be happy that they're content to whine post those concerns here on forum looking for a solution rather than actually putting all that effort into the real solution: create your own blockchain with whatever random distribution rules you want. Clearly it will be popular and become larger than the original bitcoin, as so much thought has been put into it. If you are not happy with Bitcoin, create your own LotteryCoin ! But I guess that is harder than begging on the forums to change the original Bitcoin to suit their wants, which will not happen. 

[hyperD]

I'm continually amused by the bitterness concern shown by people new to bitcoin that it is somehow unfair that others found out before them, and gosh darn it have more bitcoins than they do!

Surely this should be remedied as in similar situations. Clearly all the shares of facebook are ready to be distributed by some sort of lottery to anyone interested? Perhaps real estate will have a similar redistribution, this will be my chance to own disneyland! How dare someone else have such a claim.

I guess we should be happy that they're content to whine post those concerns here on forum looking for a solution rather than actually putting all that effort into the real solution: create your own blockchain with whatever random distribution rules you want. Clearly it will be popular and become larger than the original bitcoin, as so much thought has been put into it. If you are not happy with Bitcoin, create your own LotteryCoin ! But I guess that is harder than begging on the forums to change the original Bitcoin to suit their wants, which will not happen. 

How hard would it be to market a new blockchain? Would it be as hard as competing with ICAAN and starting up a new separate internet using a different protocol?

[unk]

How hard would it be to market a new blockchain? Would it be as hard as competing with ICAAN and starting up a new separate internet using a different protocol?

no, it would be more like setting up a blog that competes with an existing blog that has a readership of about 10,000.

it's a little harder than that because some bitcoin services, like exchanges, are hard to set up. thus, in practical terms, you'd eventually need buy-in from mt gox or the ability to start a new exchange. that said, the lack of transparency for, and competition with, mt gox is a significant problem for the current block chain anyway.

if a company like dwolla wanted to set up an alternative block chain, they could do it very easily and have a good chance of gaining more adoption than the current block chain has done. the current block chain needn't stand up particularly well to anyone with even a modest marketing budget. (i just hope that person or company wants to use the bitcoin technology rather than something else.)

[hyperD]

How hard would it be to market a new blockchain? Would it be as hard as competing with ICAAN and starting up a new separate internet using a different protocol?

no, it would be more like setting up a blog that competes with an existing blog that has a readership of about 10,000.

it's a little harder than that because some bitcoin services, like exchanges, are hard to set up. thus, in practical terms, you'd eventually need buy-in from mt gox or the ability to start a new exchange. that said, the lack of transparency for, and competition with, mt gox is a significant problem for the current block chain anyway.

if a company like dwolla wanted to set up an alternative block chain, they could do it very easily and have a good chance of gaining more adoption than the current block chain has done. the current block chain needn't stand up particularly well to anyone with even a modest marketing budget. (i just hope that person or company wants to use the bitcoin technology rather than something else.)

So if Google (who once toyed with the idea of building their own internet) wanted to set up gcoin or PayPal for obvious reasons wanted to give birth to paycoin, (gee trademarking these wouldn't be a bad idea.) they could possibly outstrip bitcoin adoption rates. I once heard an ICANN rep say nobody would bother competing with them because of its adoption by world commerce. Bitcoin needs a fast adoption rate (like really fast) to survive as the standard. Even then corporations can start generating their own currency for gift vouchers, reward point etc.

[tiberiandusk]

Sounds like sour grapes. Should we confiscate the money people who invested early in Apple have made in the time since then? People that were mining back when bitcoin started could have ended up with a bunch of worthless coins or a bunch of highly valuable coins depending on if bitcoin took off. Their early support of the project has been rewarded but even if someone has 100,000 coins there is no way they could sell them all without the price plummeting. Plus this whole thing could collapse in 5 years. Who knows? I can't see the future and neither can you. Bitcoins are a high risk right now so the reward should be equally as high. Also why would you want to sell them all when you can just buy stuff using bitcoins directly? Coins from mining are a reward for supporting the network. The point of the network is an easy way of sending value to someone else without a central point of failure or control. Stop thinking oh I could have made $1,000,000 already. You have a certain amount of bitcoins which means you have a certain amount of value. If you want more bitcoins buy some or do something worth people paying you in bitcoins and quit trying to figure out how to start the game over again. You were late. Deal with it.

[hyperD]

Sounds like sour grapes. Should we confiscate the money people who invested early in Apple have made in the time since then? People that were mining back when bitcoin started could have ended up with a bunch of worthless coins or a bunch of highly valuable coins depending on if bitcoin took off. Their early support of the project has been rewarded but even if someone has 100,000 coins there is no way they could sell them all without the price plummeting. Plus this whole thing could collapse in 5 years. Who knows? I can't see the future and neither can you. Bitcoins are a high risk right now so the reward should be equally as high. Also why would you want to sell them all when you can just buy stuff using bitcoins directly? Coins from mining are a reward for supporting the network. The point of the network is an easy way of sending value to someone else without a central point of failure or control. Stop thinking oh I could have made $1,000,000 already. You have a certain amount of bitcoins which means you have a certain amount of value. If you want more bitcoins buy some or do something worth people paying you in bitcoins and quit trying to figure out how to start the game over again. You were late. Deal with it.

I have no sour grapes about anything. I am just wondering how far bitcoin needs to be entrenched in world adoption before similar competing systems start changing the game. As for early adopters with a horde of bitcoins now and then sharp (scary) slumps in value will filter down from the top. What i'm talking about is bitcoin needs to be overwhelmingly adopted as a medium of exchange, not only as a store of value if it is to work. Otherwise some CEO with a distaste for open source could easily adopt the concept.

[kjj]

I am just wondering how far bitcoin needs to be entrenched in world adoption before similar competing systems start changing the game.

It needs about 127,809 blocks worth of entrenchment.

Ah, crap.  Too late, but so close.

[Prze_koles]

Yea, and in 2 years all present users will be "early adopters" and noobs will make another Bitcoin plus plus? LoL 
And what about early adopters IRL? Do you plan to redistribute all lands around the world, because people in the past discovered them and got them for free? 

[BitterTea]

How is my example beneficial?  In profiting from BTC, I have given nothing to society.  I have only taken.

You have not profited until you sell your coins. At that point, you are providing coins to individuals who wish to purchase them at that price.

Is this really a difficult concept?

[ene]

Food for thought.  Snack on this.

Your mockups look bad and you should feel bad.

[unk]

Yea, and in 2 years all present users will be "early adopters" and noobs will make another Bitcoin plus plus? LoL 

people keep saying this as if it's a criticism of the notion of alternative block chains. the right response is 'yes, exactly, and that's fine. it shows a lack of barrier to entry into new block chains and is thus a reason that people should not speculate on the value of coins in any particular block chain'.

after a while, most companies face competitors. so will bitcoin. so did gold and dollars, from bitcoin itself. that's reason alone to stop propagating the idea that people will have 'retirement funds' based on coins in the current block chain.

[John Tobey]

This is how I would solve the problem of the early speculators profiting disproportionately at the expense of newer comers.

Clever proposal!  I love the idea of improving the client as a vehicle to promote BCP.  Of course, barring some kind of non-free license, the current maintainers could just cherry pick and merge their favorite features into the original client.  Would you propose to try to prevent that?

How would you reconcile

fixed limit like 21 million

with

the amount of BCP you get in a conversion is directly correlated to the mining difficulty of the BTC you're trying to convert

given BTC's rising difficulty?  Lower the conversion rate for future mined BTC, perhaps to zero?  Looks like some devil-in-the-details, but I look forward to your thoughts.

p.s., Your mockup is beautiful, and you should feel proud.  Eye of the beholder thing.   

[rezin777]

All this amounts to is increasing the block reward with hashing power. And you get to determine when the block reward stops inflating.

Low difficulty coins are worth less (50 BTC mined at the start are 1 BTP now)
High difficulty coins are worth more (50 BTC mined now are 50 BTP)

Low difficulty reward 1 BTP
High difficulty reward 50 BTP

Low difficulty = Less hashing power
High difficulty = More hashing power

So you are attempting to retroactively change the rules that bootstrapped the current BTC economy.

It's a bit sneakier than starting a new block chain and and increasing the block reward with the difficulty (which is massive inflation).

It will be interesting to see how it works out. I wonder how many miners you will get when they realize you can simply introduce Bitcoin Plus Plus in two years and turn their efforts to dust.  After all, it will be unfair to the people joining in two years that we are able to mine so easily now.

I wonder if any BTC will get destroyed in the process. Such a risk to take when it will increase the value of all other BTC in existence.

Here I'll give you guys a hand. This guy will work on your project with you. http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=9487.0

[rebuilder]

Someone please do this. I don't think I'll be willing to buy these new coins, but I'd like to see competition. There are several uncertainties in Bitcoin's future, one of them being how other distributed Internet currencies might affect the Bitcoin economy. Implement this idea and we'll get some data on that.

Anyway, I don't see the point of talking about fairness. The only thing that matters is what you can get people to buy. Perceptions of fairness may play a part in that, but mostly people care about expected profits for themselves, not what profits others might have made.

For me, the "fairest" currency would be one I minted myself and no-one else had any of, but obviously that's not going to have much value.

[luv2drnkbr]

Yeah, because that's what entrepreneurs need, the knowledge that early adopters will get screwed for taking a chance.

[bpd]

Your fundamental assumption that you did nothing of value by buying $20k worth of BTC at 80 cents is flawed.

- You raised the price of bitcoin by your transaction (even if not perceptibly). Those coins which were for sale at 80 cents, were no longer for sale at 80 cents because you desired to hold them.  This action increased the value of everyone else's BTC holdings.

- Additionally, by becoming a believer in bitcoin and deciding to hold/accept bitcoin as something valuable, you increased the value of the network proportionally to the size of the existing network. The value of a currency is in its marketability -- how many people are willing to accept it in exchange for goods and services. By joining the "network" you increased its value for everyone. By Metcalfe's law, each new person who believes in Bitcoin is MORE valuable than each previous person who joined.

You took serious risk by putting $20k in an extremely unproven currency. You won (for now). It would be more appropriate to celebrate, and perhaps recover your $20k initial investment by selling 10% of your holdings rather than moan that you can buy a Ferrari for no work. It would be quite unseemly for some engineer who didn't really do much of value, but got rich anyway at Microsoft, Google, etc. to complain that they were rewarded with millions from the market for not doing anything valuable.

[casascius]

Sounds like sour grapes. Should we confiscate the money people who invested early in Apple have made in the time since then? People that were mining back when bitcoin started could have ended up with a bunch of worthless coins or a bunch of highly valuable coins depending on if bitcoin took off.
...
You were late. Deal with it.

I was not late.  I managed to buy 25,000 BTC at about 80 cents.  I have made a fucking fortune on Bitcoin, don't feel I even deserve to have, and am most certainly not complaining that "I was late".  Go look at the candlestick for the huge jump in price on Feb 4 (IIRC), that's all me.  If anything, I should be more credible in my shoes, as I am voluntarily making statements that have a potential to injure the marketability of the remainder of that chunk I am still holding.

People who invested in Apple are different because that money is being used to help produce jobs, goods, and services.  Those who buy BTC are not "investing" in the creation of the Bitcoin software, they are merely investing in the Bitcoin blockchain which has no useful intrinsic value of its own, it is merely an aggregation of data that is just tallying where all the money is moving.

Bitcoin is a damn great idea, don't get me wrong.  But I submit that the blockchain merits legitimate criticism that others are hearing and (as I've been preaching for months) might motivate a sufficiently large crowd to start and use a new blockchain.  All I have done here is propose a way that that second blockchain be an offshoot of the first, rather than a replacement, so nobody is "forced" into using it except perhaps by market pressure if enough of the market decides I'm right.