Early speculator's reward antidote

[rebuilder]

I was not late.  I managed to buy 25,000 BTC at about 80 cents.  I have made a fucking fortune on Bitcoin

If you haven't sold a lot of coins, you haven't made a fortune. It's not profit until you use the coins for something. The exchange rates might crash tomorrow.

Anyway, as I said, all this talk about who deserves what is tedious. I'm wondering if this system you propose is even possible. As you've noticed, you have to have a mechanism for destroying BTC converted into BCP. Your solution is to send the BTC into an invalid address. Can this be done? The default client won't do it, so you'd have to use a modified one. Would "vanilla" miners accept such transactions into the block chain? If not, you can't prevent double-spending. If yes, then the vanilla Bitcoin client could be modified to not accept such transfers, if enough people wanted to make life difficult for your new currency.

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[casascius]

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.

There would be a small increase in the total reward, because there would be the potential for 21M BTC as well as 21M BCP, which could arguably be called "42M coins" even though they're not the same.

Because conversion of BTC to BCP is unpredictable,  I would set BCP so it would halve based on total circulation rather than block count.  Conversion would also result in the permanent destruction of some BTC so the 42M would never be truly achievable unless absolutely nobody ever did a conversion.

The rules for BTC would remain unchanged.  The new rules would only apply to the BCP, which is a completely incompatible coin, other than that the client would recognize certain BTC-destroying transactions as legitimate creations of new BCP.

[Cusipzzz]

Please spend your fortune and implement this as BCPCoin - then we'll see how many people want to use your system. Or just donate your coins and be done with it. But the incessant whining is just too much.

[markm]

Miners seem determined anyway to improve the chance of early adopters of any new blockchain being able to make coins with trivial ease. They accomplish this simply by not mining new blockchains and by verbiage aimed at discouraging other miners from mining new block chains.

Kind of strange really, shouldn't they be saying oh gosh yes go mine other chains, the less competition in the mining of this chain the more profitable it will be for me to take up the slack and even increase the difficulty of the current chain (as if it is me increasing the difficulty the increase is actually good for me though not so good for my competitors...)

One of the *problems* in starting new blockchains is precisely the problem of getting enough miners onto it that they don't seem like some tiny cabal of early adopters benefiting unfairly from an initially low difficulty.

-MarkM-

[BitterTea]

Please spend your fortune and implement this as BCPCoin - then we'll see how many people want to use your system. Or just donate your coins and be done with it. But the incessant whining is just too much.

Yeah, I'm sure you (casascius) will have no problem providing proof that you've converted all 25,000 of your coins into BCP, right? I mean, you're not providing any benefit by investing in that system before anyone else, right?

[BitterTea]

Miners seem determined anyway to improve the chance of early adopters of any new blockchain being able to make coins with trivial ease. They accomplish this simply by not mining new blockchains and by verbiage aimed at discouraging other miners from mining new block chains.

[Citation needed]

[ene]

If I convert some BTC into BTP, how do I know somebody won't come along again and declare my "early" BTP coins to be worth less than "later more difficult to mine" coins and suggest I convert the BTP into BTQ?

Every coin in the system should have the same value, otherwise it's impossible to compare prices to one another. We'd go back to bartering.

[casascius]

If you haven't sold a lot of coins, you haven't made a fortune. It's not profit until you use the coins for something. The exchange rates might crash tomorrow.

I'm selling coins all the time, though sticking mainly to rally periods.  If it starts to slump, I simply don't offer any for sale, which I figure protects the market as well as me.  I have an open offer on the OTC book for 500 BTC.

Anyway, as I said, all this talk about who deserves what is tedious. I'm wondering if this system you propose is even possible. As you've noticed, you have to have a mechanism for destroying BTC converted into BCP. Your solution is to send the BTC into an invalid address. Can this be done? The default client won't do it, so you'd have to use a modified one. Would "vanilla" miners accept such transactions into the block chain? If not, you can't prevent double-spending. If yes, then the vanilla Bitcoin client could be modified to not accept such transfers, if enough people wanted to make life difficult for your new currency.

Yes, it can be done.  By "invalid address", what I mean is an address whose private key is unknown and unknowable.  Since an address is made by taking a 160-bit hash of the public key, if I simply dictate that some of those 160 bits must instead be a constant value and the rest of those 160 bits were to identify the recipient BCP address, you would never be able to find a keypair whose hash collided with that value.  The address would look "valid" to the BTC client, but no one could spend those BTC with the client anymore.  The BCP client accepts that as assurance that the BTC have been destroyed and accepts that transaction as an input to the BCP address that is a partial match of the remaining bits that were dedicated to identifying the address.

[markm]

If coins are not fungible that is probably not a good thing, so this different values for different coins of the same blockchain doesn't sound like a good idea.

-MarkM-

[casascius]

Please spend your fortune and implement this as BCPCoin - then we'll see how many people want to use your system. Or just donate your coins and be done with it. But the incessant whining is just too much.

Yeah, I'm sure you (casascius) will have no problem providing proof that you've converted all 25,000 of your coins into BCP, right? I mean, you're not providing any benefit by investing in that system before anyone else, right?

Who knows - I don't know the "difficulty factor" of my 25,000 BTC.  Presumably they're all less than whatever the difficulty was in February, so they wouldn't be worth much converted to BCP, which is exactly the point of the rules, to let newcomers keep more of the buying power of their money instead of letting fuckheads like me take it as profit.

Yes, under my new rules I'd be foregoing the majority of my "fucking fortune" to the extent I haven't cashed out.  But it's not a fortune I deserved in the first place.... Why should I receive the annual economic output of 5 families on my own street in exchange for nothing just because I had the foresight to see that the opportunity was ripe for the picking?  I am saying IT'S NOT FAIR, while sitting on the advantaged ("more-than-fair") side of the equation, and that matters because the whole attraction to Bitcoin is the notion that it's supposedly more fair than the USD, which I feel is a lie at best under the current block chain.

[BitterTea]

I am saying IT'S NOT FAIR, while sitting on the advantaged ("more-than-fair") side of the equation, and that matters because the whole attraction to Bitcoin is the notion that it's supposedly more fair than the USD, which I feel is a lie at best under the current block chain.

So then give your coins away. What the fuck?

Once again, you have not profited until you sell the coins. When you sell them, you are providing them to someone else at a price they are happy to pay. That is the service you are providing.

Understand?

Additionally, the BTC -> BCP conversion will not only affect those who mined coins early, but those who have already paid market value for those coins. So those poor people who got into Bitcoin later than others and bought the early coins will have their savings destroyed as well. Is that fair to you?

[rezin777]

The rules for BTC would remain unchanged.  The new rules would only apply to the BCP, which is a completely incompatible coin, other than that the client would recognize certain BTC-destroying transactions as legitimate creations of new BCP.

Of course, I realize this.

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

Attempting means you are going to promote switching to a new chain that for all practical purposes had massive inflation during the bootstrapping process. But you are skipping the bootstrapping process, piggybacking off Bitcoin's bootstrapping success with it's rule set, and hoping people will switch.

It's a bit different then just starting a new chain with massive inflation during the bootstrapping.

[rebuilder]

...the whole attraction to Bitcoin is the notion that it's supposedly more fair than the USD, which I feel is a lie at best under the current block chain.

Who said that? The main attraction for Bitcoin is that it's not controlled by a central authority, is easily transferred and can be highly anonymous.

[markm]

How much hashing power can you contribute to a new block chain?

Lets not worry about trying to "fix" this particular purported "problem" of the original blockchain, even if it were a ponzi scheme so what consenting adults should be allowed to play those anyway if no fraud is involved, just like the clearly labelled ponzi/pyramid someone is already running that accepts bitcoins.

People can accept or not accept bitcoins for some new blockchain's coins and can accept or not accept bitcoins for other things that could in principle then be traded for some new blockchain's coins. So what, some people playing some gold-game somewhere might buy some of the new coins, are you to "fix" that too by somehow changing the value based on where they got the coins?

Are you going to accept blood diamonds for new coins? Why worry about preventing old bitcoins coming into the new system if you cannot even prevent blood money entering?

Lets just make some new blockchains with the various features various complainers purport to support so we can tell future similar complainers "put your money where your mouth is, here is a blockchain with the features you claim to want, how much money you gonna put in?"

Chances are most are just hot air and won't put any money where their mouth is.

Lets use some of the fortune you don't think you deserve to make some alternatives?

-MarkM- (People will just sell their old coins elswhere instead of using your "conversion" algorithm probably...)

[stic.man]

Having foresight is a perfectly reasonable attribute that is marketable.  You should feel good for yourself about being able to recognize a good opportunity. If you cashed out right now I would not begrudge you your 6-figure payout (over time due to market size) 

[casascius]

If coins are not fungible that is probably not a good thing, so this different values for different coins of the same blockchain doesn't sound like a good idea.

-MarkM-

Which is why I suspect that if a new, better, BTC+BCP client suddenly appeared on the market, that instantly reminded you of the BTC-to-BCP "convertibility value" of every coin in your wallet without actually doing a conversion, even the staunchest BTC purists would not be able to deny that BTC suddenly lost a shade of their fungibility, which would make BCP more attractive.

In fact, my very mention that I perceive that some BTC are better than others has already slightly diminished the fungibility of BTC in and of itself (including my coins, all of which are easy-to-medium difficulty ones)

[charliesheen]

Who knows - I don't know the "difficulty factor" of my 25,000 BTC.  Presumably they're all less than whatever the difficulty was in February, so they wouldn't be worth much converted to BCP, which is exactly the point of the rules, to let newcomers keep more of the buying power of their money instead of letting fuckheads like me take it as profit.

I will willingly take all of your bitcoins and in exchange you will be absolved for the early speculation of the bitcoin economy.

[casascius]

Having foresight is a perfectly reasonable attribute that is marketable.  You should feel good for yourself about being able to recognize a good opportunity. If you cashed out right now I would not begrudge you your 6-figure payout (over time due to market size)  

If my foresight is of value, then listen to this: Newcomers don't like it when others profit at their expense without giving value in return.  They are going to leap from putting new funds into the BTC block chain at the first solid safe opportunity.

Don't get stuck on the notion that "nobody is getting taken, they are buying valuable BTC voluntarily".  The value of BTC is only what someone else will give for it, which is always less when I and others are slowly tossing BTC at the market to the highest bidder.

[BitterTea]

If I value federal reserve notes printed in my state over all others, are federal reserve notes magically no longer as fungible?

[stic.man]

You know considering the difficulty lay people have with the technology already this is not going to help things if you are interested in seeing bitcoin succeed as a currency.  The WTF factor will keep going up exponentially at which point you'd not only be fucking over the early adopters but the retarded.