Early speculator's reward antidote

[BitterTea]

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.  They are going to leap from putting new funds into the BTC block chain at the first solid safe opportunity.

Your foresight only has value if you are right. So why don't you provide proof that you destroyed all the rest of your BTC and deposited them into BCP?

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[casascius]

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

How about a more relevant argument: if I value copper pennies over zinc ones, are zinc ones less fungible?

[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.  They are going to leap from putting new funds into the BTC block chain at the first solid safe opportunity.

Your foresight only has value if you are right. So why don't you provide proof that you destroyed all the rest of your BTC and deposited them into BCP?

I never will... I would be a fool to, because the difficulty (i.e. how easily I acquired my coins) would make them a poor conversion.  Nobody will want to convert BTC unless they were recently mined and would yield a comparable sum of BCP.  I however would throw all my mining at BCP as well as all recently mined coins.  BCP of course doesn't "exist" yet until a client is released for it.

[Cusipzzz]

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)

Haha. No. Your delusions about some coins being better than others are your own. Nobody is going to modify the core client for this BCP scheme. Simply build your own pure BCP chain, with whatever distribution flavor you like, and if it has merit people will join you. Or just give your coins away and absolve your guilt.

[kwukduck]

Ah, so OP gained reasonable potential wealth by adopting an early experimental system, believing in it, investing in it, and so far it has 'paid off'...

Nothing wrong there, if you feel so bad about it, please tip me.

I really don't see why a certain group has so much problems with early adopters gaining wealth, they could have been there too if only they did more research or dared to invest or whatever.
It's an argument out of pure jealousy i'd say. (in your case im just completely missing the point...)

The features will come over time, remember bitcoin is still young and in development.

[rebuilder]

Your foresight only has value if you are right. So why don't you provide proof that you destroyed all the rest of your BTC and deposited them into BCP?

I never will... I would be a fool to, because the difficulty (i.e. how easily I acquired my coins) would make them a poor conversion.  Nobody will want to convert BTC unless they were recently mined and would yield a comparable sum of BCP.  I however would throw all my mining at BCP as well as all recently mined coins.  BCP of course doesn't "exist" yet until a client is released for it.

So how much would a newly minted Bitcoin be worth to you, in older Bitcoin?

[stic.man]

use some of your coins to purchase items from the stores that actually accept them, that way you are distributing wealth and reinforcing their use as a currency, everyone wins!

[casascius]

use some of your coins to purchase items from the stores that actually accept them, that way you are distributing wealth and reinforcing their use as a currency, everyone wins!

I totally am.  I sell, I buy things, I all of the above.

I've also helped people mine from the get-go, which I believe also strengthens the currency (by puttting it in more people's hands)

[markm]

My landlord used to run around from bank to bank trading in all his CAD just to keep getting different bills he had not seen before, because some ranges of serial numbers, maybe with different pictures by different artists or whatever, sell for different above-face-value amounts on e-bay.

So Canadian notes are already not fungible I suppose, its just that only a few collectors and enthusiasts and maybe Archie comics' Jughead Jones bother to go to the trouble of cashing on in the deviation in value. (Jughead did it with small change.)

Don't bother with a new client, any good features can go in the normal client anyway and this using the old blockchain concept is silly pointless complexity to no good purpose.

Just start a new blockchain with massive hashing power thrown at it right from the start so no-one can complain that it started off ridiculously easy. Heck you could even make it so difficult that it takes on average much longer than ten minutes to make a block, aiming to move toward ten minutes only after quite some time has gone by to allow anyone to get aboard who wants to get aboard.

It would be nice to make several chains each addressing different complaints, since complainers seem mostly to be chronically unwilling to do so themselves.

-MarkM-

[casascius]

So how much would a newly minted Bitcoin be worth to you, in older Bitcoin?

The comparative value would be pegged directly to the difficulty number in the block header where the original coinbase transaction is found (averaged where multiple coinbase transactions are combined).  A logarithm factor would ensure that new coins weren't worth 433,000 times as much as older ones (that's not fair either), but they'd still be worth quite a bit more.  And they should be - they were hundreds of times harder to create.

[BitterTea]

Just start a new blockchain with massive hashing power thrown at it right from the start so no-one can complain that it started off ridiculously easy.

Yes they can. The computing power necessary to secure the blockchain will always increase, thus at some arbitrary point in the future, the difficulty of currently generated coins will be "too low".

[BitterTea]

So how much would a newly minted Bitcoin be worth to you, in older Bitcoin?

The comparative value would be pegged directly to the difficulty number in the block header where the original coinbase transaction is found (averaged where multiple coinbase transactions are combined).  A logarithm factor would ensure that new coins weren't worth 433,000 times as much as older ones (that's not fair either), but they'd still be worth quite a bit more.  And they should be - they were hundreds of times harder to create.

So what about the people who just entered into the Bitcoin economy and could only afford say, 1 BTC. It just so happens that they bought that bitcoin from someone who mined it early on. The difficulty for their coin is very low, and it will be worth much less in the BCP system. Is that what you consider fair?

[casascius]

So what about the people who just entered into the Bitcoin economy and could only afford say, 1 BTC. It just so happens that they bought that bitcoin from someone who mined it early on. The difficulty for their coin is very low, and it will be worth much less in the BCP system. Is that what you consider fair?

They can continue to use it as a BTC with no preconditions, even with BTC+BCP client, as long as there are plenty of people who will accept it as a BTC which clearly many people vow there will be.

[ene]

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.

Since you aren't a newcomer, can you point to some of these people?

[casascius]

Just start a new blockchain with massive hashing power thrown at it right from the start so no-one can complain that it started off ridiculously easy.

Yes they can. The computing power necessary to secure the blockchain will always increase, thus at some arbitrary point in the future, the difficulty of currently generated coins will be "too low".

If the reward (50BTC) were not an arbitrary constant, but pegged logarithmically to the difficulty, that would even this disparity out some even more...a proposal I have suggested in the past and seemed relatively palatable (at least compared to the strong sentiment against "don't mess with our block chain")

[kjj]

Just start a new blockchain with massive hashing power thrown at it right from the start so no-one can complain that it started off ridiculously easy.

Yes they can. The computing power necessary to secure the blockchain will always increase, thus at some arbitrary point in the future, the difficulty of currently generated coins will be "too low".

If the reward (50BTC) were not an arbitrary constant, but pegged logarithmically to the difficulty, that would even this disparity out some even more...a proposal I have suggested in the past and seemed relatively palatable (at least compared to the strong sentiment against "don't mess with our block chain")

The reward (per miner) is pegged linearly to the difficulty right now.  Why would logarithmically be better?

[casascius]

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.

Since you aren't a newcomer, can you point to some of these people?

Do a forum search for "ponzi", or a Google search for "bitcoin scam"

Pretty much everyone criticizing Bitcoin as a ponzi scheme or some sort of scam is, in a roundabout way, referencing this very problem.

Most people criticizing Bitcoin's block chain will have either voluntarily steered clear of buying any, or at least they certainly aren't going to publicly announce they are holding some.  I am a notable exception, in that I am criticizing Bitcoins while holding them, clearly detrimental to my future Bitcoin-related profits.

I don't really care, with all deference to the taboo of announcing one's wealth, I am fairly successful without $200k in Bitcoin profits, if tossing $20k at BTC's didn't make that obvious, the "kitchen" my miners are seen running in on YouTube is kitchen #2, and I wouldn't be bothered to profit less if it helped Bitcoin's fundamentals be more strong, because I truly believe in the concept of cryptocurrency and its power to change the world for better.  The big difference between the profit I made with Bitcoin versus everything else, is with Bitcoin I received LOTS of money in exchange for N-O-T-H-I-N-G, where as in every other case, somebody gets something of real intrinsic value in exchange for everything I am paid, a net contribution to the economy.

The fact that I'm facing a firestorm of people disagreeing with me is just further evidence that I will make take more profit as a result of my involvement with Bitcoin than I ever expected, and not surprisingly, are fueling this wonderful rally that's making holding this BTC admittedly exciting... God bless anyone way down the road who ever loses money with Bitcoin if it ever "pops".

[BitterTea]

I am fairly successful without $200k in Bitcoin profits

The only profit you've made is the difference in price between the bitcoins you've bought and those you've sold.

Since you appear to not have sold all of your coins, saying you've made $200k profit is false.

Once you sell your coins, you are providing a valuable service to the people who want to buy them.

It is the exact same as the people who sold you bitcoins at $0.80, making a profit up from $0.06 (or whatever). Why don't you considering that they profited unfairly from that voluntary exchange of moneys?

[casascius]

I am fairly successful without $200k in Bitcoin profits

The only profit you've made is the difference in price between the bitcoins you've bought and those you've sold.

Since you appear to not have sold all of your coins, saying you've made $200k profit is false.

Once you sell your coins, you are providing a valuable service to the people who want to buy them.

It is the exact same as the people who sold you bitcoins at $0.80, making a profit up from $0.06 (or whatever). Why don't you considering that they profited unfairly from that voluntary exchange of moneys?

I hear you... it's just that this logic also sells pyramid schemes.  What's the difference between me selling BTC versus a 32-dollar bottle of wongo juice whose intrinsic value is maybe 50 cents?  (I live in Utah which has got to be the "wongo juice scam" capital of the world).

Sure, health and vitality are valuable.  What do you say to the guy who just filled his basement full of wongo juice the week before the world population decides it's acquired all the wongo juice it needs?  That at least he will be full of rejuvenation and health through the expiration date printed on the bottle?  As we saw in the recent slip from $9 to $6, when newcomers stop throwing money on the table, the value of BTC starts to lose steam relatively fast.

[kjj]

I hear you... it's just that this logic also sells pyramid schemes.  What's the difference between me selling BTC versus a 32-dollar bottle of wongo juice whose intrinsic value is maybe 50 cents?  (I live in Utah which has got to be the "wongo juice scam" capital of the world).

What is this intrinsic value you speak of?