Wouldn't it be more fair if the bitcoins were shared equally?

[lassdas]

Sure, but the OP isn't complaining that he can't receive bitcoin in exchange for services.  He's complaining that nobody will give him something for free that has already established a significant value.

No, he's complaining that it didn't start out more or less evenly distributed, and that a bunch of cryptocurrency nerds mined most of it in the beginning.

Those nerds that started this cryptocurrency got rewarded.
Those that keep the system running, by creating blocks and processing transactions that way, get rewarded.
What's unfair about that?

Why should anyone get anything for doing nothing?
And why would it be fair to give those that don't do anything the same share as those that do all the work?

I can't think of any way to initially distribute bitcoins in a more fair way than the one Satoshi came up with.

[xxjs]

Please could you send me my equalcoin now?  I feel I have earned it.

If I own a few estates around the world, a million acres of land, a few oil companies, am I still entitled to my share of equalcoins?

[Beepbop]

Please could you send me my equalcoin now?  I feel I have earned it.

There are currently about 7.1 billion equalcoins in existence. You already have an equalcoin. There's just no way to spend it yet, since the equalcoin system
- doesn't yet have a way to publicly track transactions (except maybe through forum thread)
- doesn't yet guard against one person having several accounts

I hereby gift 0.000000001 equalcoin to ronenfe for starting the currency. (Transaction pending. Waiting for confirmation system to be programmed and deployed.)

Those nerds that started this cryptocurrency got rewarded.
Those that keep the system running, by creating blocks and processing transactions that way, get rewarded.
What's unfair about that?

The level of reward is too high - if you assume that Bitcoin will be THE currency of the future. Sure they would deserve to be paid for their work and awarded for their investment, but the people getting in on the ground floor holding nearly all the coins would be just another case of a ponzi scheme.

This is just based on the assumption that Bitcoin will be what we use in the future. If you instead consider it a niche payment system that nobody should be using as a store of value, then it's no longer a ponzi.

Why should anyone get anything for doing nothing?

That's essentially what ronenfe asked.

[1Pakis]

http://www.ecology.com/birth-death-rates/
We have about 360000 births per day globally
We also have about 151000 Deaths per day globally
How do you handle those?
 

[lassdas]

..since the equalcoin system
- doesn't yet have a way to publicly track transactions (except maybe through forum thread)
..

And that's exactly the point, we need a way to publicly track transactions and that's what so called mining does.
Someone has to do the work of tracking transactions, if you don't reward it, noone will do it.

Those nerds that started this cryptocurrency got rewarded.
Those that keep the system running, by creating blocks and processing transactions that way, get rewarded.
What's unfair about that?

The level of reward is too high - if you assume that Bitcoin will be THE currency of the future. Sure they would deserve to be paid for their work and awarded for their investment, but the people getting in on the ground floor holding nearly all the coins would be just another case of a ponzi scheme.

When I (or any other super-early adopter (super, because we're still in Bitcoins very early days)) started mining, bitcoins were worth close to nothing, so I did work for close to nothing, just the same as people that start today, they will get close to nothing, deal with it.

You're under the false assumption, that early-miners earned a lot by mining.
They didn't!
IF they earned a lot, it's because they kept their coins, so they actually earned a lot by speculating, not by mining.

And I don't see how it's similar in any way to a ponzi scheme.
In a ponzi scheme those that come in early win, those that come in late lose, which is not the case here, those that came in early might have lost everything and those that come in now, or even later, don't lose anything.

This is just based on the assumption that Bitcoin will be what we use in the future. If you instead consider it a niche payment system that nobody should be using as a store of value, then it's no longer a ponzi.

It doesn't matter what people use Bitcoin for in the future, I'm not assuming anything here, I take it as it comes.
You want to use it as a currency? Fine with me.
You want to use it as a store of value? I'm ok with that too.
Why would or should I care? It's yours, treat it like you wish.

Why should anyone get anything for doing nothing?

That's essentially what ronenfe asked.

No, he didn't.
He wants anyone to get an equal share, no matter if they did any work, or not.
He's assuming that those that did the early work did nothing, which is clearly untrue.
He's also assuming that they somehow got rich doing that work, which is also untrue.

Lots of false assumptions flowing around here.

[Luno]

A lot of people put thousands of work hours into promoting Bitcoin and were reticuled by family, fired from their jobs and alienated by friends for constantly talking about Bitcoins and posting Youtube videos.

We owe them everything, the rest of us are just freeloaders.

[greyhawk]

How cute, a communist on a board of ultra-randians. That's like a vegan on a board dedicated to exchanging BBQ recipes.

[John (John K.)]

How are you going to distribute the gold and other currencies equally too? We need CommCoin now....

[Aahzman]

In Soviet Union, Bitcoin mines you!

[Anon136]

A lot of people put thousands of work hours into promoting Bitcoin and were reticuled by family, fired from their jobs and alienated by friends for constantly talking about Bitcoins and posting Youtube videos.

We owe them everything, the rest of us are just freeloaders.

this times 1000. Those early adopters deserve every satoshi of their wealth. They laid the foundation for us all.

[ronenfe]

The people in the third world can login to the website from anywhere and get the coin, they don't have to own a computer.Newborn People over certain age will get a new coin, people that die will leave the coin, the total number of coins would not be limited and it will rise over time.
You all talking about people worked hard to earn those coins, I don't see how wasting electric energy for useless calculations that do not benefit the society called work.
We could also decide that each hundred jumps in the air will get a coin.
At least it could be something useful like starting global projects and each one will have to donate somehow there in order to get the coins.

I don't think you know what communism is. I'm not saying people can't be richer than others or have their own businesses to earn more money.
I'm saying the decided method on how the total sum of coins is distributed is not fair, and the only fair method is to distribute it equally.

[herzmeister]

how could you distribute the bitcoins equally, given that the Bitcoin system is quasi-anonymous? It's merely software and a protocol. There's no organization, bureaucracy or authority behind it that could verify real-world identities.

[lassdas]

You all talking about people worked hard to earn those coins, I don't see how wasting electric energy for useless calculations that do not benefit the society called work.
We could also decide that each hundred jumps in the air will get a coin.

A hundred jumps in the air can't process a single transaction.

It seems you have no idea about how Bitcoin works.
Do some research, please.

[b!z]

The first people to use Bitcoin took a risk, and you didn't. That's why they have more coins than you do.

[Beepbop]

And that's exactly the point, we need a way to publicly track transactions and that's what so called mining does.
Someone has to do the work of tracking transactions, if you don't reward it, noone will do it.

I did not dispute that those who process transactions deserve to be paid for their work and investment, but to say that they deserve nearly ALL the coins for being early adopters is like saying that banks are entitled to own all the money in the world because they invested in the infrastructure to handle and process money. They deserve something in return for services rendered, and the risk of investment, but when there's no fiat reason to use their Manhattan Chase Dollars, the market will reject that dragon's hoard and use a different currency, like the US Dollar.

The payment processors aren't doing useful work until actual economic activity takes place.

In a ponzi scheme those that come in early win, those that come in late lose, which is not the case here, those that came in early might have lost everything and those that come in now, or even later, don't lose anything.

Actually, it's the ones who are left holding a stake when the ponzi collapses that lose. There are only winners until that point. Then it crashes down. If you sell your ponzi stake at a loss, you're not as big a loser as the ones holding the bag at the final crash.

He wants anyone to get an equal share, no matter if they did any work, or not.

He just wants a starting point, and that those who get more than one coin to actually have worked for them. In other words, somebody gave you coins for a service you created.
Distributed, not re-destributed.

He's assuming that those that did the early work did nothing, which is clearly untrue.

They did not do any useful work until BTC were used for real transactions.

He's also assuming that they somehow got rich doing that work, which is also untrue.

They either hold thin air valued at around 27 USD, or have sold their thin air for something more than 0 USD, so that's an infinite % profit on useless busywork.

A lot of people put thousands of work hours into promoting Bitcoin and were reticuled by family, fired from their jobs and alienated by friends for constantly talking about Bitcoins and posting Youtube videos.

So the inherent value of a bitcoin is tears and wasted electricity, you say?

That's like a vegan on a board dedicated to exchanging BBQ recipes.

More like a farmer on a board of breatharians.

[xDan]

Sharing all bitcoins initially is a very hard (impossible) thing to do. Think about it.

The current method, maybe not perfect, but it *works*. Better something imperfect that works, than some idealistic notion that can never actually be implemented in the real world.

Also consider the nature of bitcoin being peer to peer. You cannot simply "give" everybody a bitcoin. Who's to decide who gets a bitcoin and who doesn't? How is that decision made? The Pope decides? Then it's no longer peer to peer and is controlled or influenced by some person or authority.

I don't think you understand how technically difficult "sharing coins equally" would be. That's the key here: not that everyone would be against the idea, but that it's technically hard/impossible to implement what you suggest in a method that is actually "fair". ("fair" also being subject to opinion)

As it is, it works much like investing in a startup company. It's like we're investing in Apple or Google or something in the early days.

Also you have to understand that the possibility of the early adopters earning a return is a great part of why Bitcoin is now successful. It's successful *because* it allowed early speculators to earn money; they drove its adoption and popularised it. If that had not been so, maybe they wouldn't have bothered so much and bitcoin would have failed or just been a niche curiosity.

The most important thing to know though is that this method is technically simple, very transparent (read: even if it's not considered "fair" by you, at least it's *HONEST* and everyone knows precisely how it occurs, and can easily make the decision whether to use it or not), and also roughly parallel to investing and speculating in something which is widely accepted as a fairly honest method of wealth gaining or creation.

[lassdas]

They did not do any useful work until BTC were used for real transactions.

Any transaction in the Bitcoin-network is a real transaction.
Without that work, not a single transaction would be possible, so BTC could have never been used, ever.

That's the thing you guys don't get,
the process called mining is not about generating, or distributing coins, it's about making transactions possible and secure.

He's also assuming that they somehow got rich doing that work, which is also untrue.

They either hold thin air valued at around 27 USD, or have sold their thin air for something more than 0 USD, so that's an infinite % profit on useless busywork.

As stated a couple of times now, it's not useless work, it's work that keeps the system running.
It's work needed to be done by someone.
No work == No transactions == No payment system == No nothing.

Again, do some research to learn how Bitcoin works.

[ronenfe]

Sharing all bitcoins initially is a very hard (impossible) thing to do. Think about it.

The current method, maybe not perfect, but it *works*. Better something imperfect that works, than some idealistic notion that can never actually be implemented in the real world.

Also consider the nature of bitcoin being peer to peer. You cannot simply "give" everybody a bitcoin. Who's to decide who gets a bitcoin and who doesn't? How is that decision made? The Pope decides? Then it's no longer peer to peer and is controlled or influenced by some person or authority.

I don't think you understand how technically difficult "sharing coins equally" would be. That's the key here: not that everyone would be against the idea, but that it's technically hard/impossible to implement what you suggest in a method that is actually "fair". ("fair" also being subject to opinion)

As it is, it works much like investing in a startup company. It's like we're investing in Apple or Google or something in the early days.

Also you have to understand that the possibility of the early adopters earning a return is a great part of why Bitcoin is now successful. It's successful *because* it allowed early speculators to earn money; they drove its adoption and popularised it. If that had not been so, maybe they wouldn't have bothered so much and bitcoin would have failed or just been a niche curiosity.

The most important thing to know though is that this method is technically simple, very transparent (read: even if it's not considered "fair" by you, at least it's *HONEST* and everyone knows precisely how it occurs, and can easily make the decision whether to use it or not), and also roughly parallel to investing and speculating in something which is widely accepted as a fairly honest method of wealth gaining or creation.

I'm not saying i know well how bitcoins work or convert it to my suggested system. I'm saying a different system should be used where there is an authority maybe, something like paypal,  with the proper monitoring to prevent cheating, this has to be thought and invented. each one can open an account and get the coin.
State currencies also not perfect but work. So we are replacing one flawed system with another flawed one?
The bitcoins system looks to me far more complicated to think about and invent than implementing my suggested system.
I think it a new method can be popular anyway even without the early speculators motivation because people should know how bad the current real money system is and will want a fair alternative, and it can be more popular than bitcoins because more people will join if they think they are not discriminated between them and the early joiners.

[KWH]

Sharing all bitcoins initially is a very hard (impossible) thing to do. Think about it.

The current method, maybe not perfect, but it *works*. Better something imperfect that works, than some idealistic notion that can never actually be implemented in the real world.

Also consider the nature of bitcoin being peer to peer. You cannot simply "give" everybody a bitcoin. Who's to decide who gets a bitcoin and who doesn't? How is that decision made? The Pope decides? Then it's no longer peer to peer and is controlled or influenced by some person or authority.

I don't think you understand how technically difficult "sharing coins equally" would be. That's the key here: not that everyone would be against the idea, but that it's technically hard/impossible to implement what you suggest in a method that is actually "fair". ("fair" also being subject to opinion)

As it is, it works much like investing in a startup company. It's like we're investing in Apple or Google or something in the early days.

Also you have to understand that the possibility of the early adopters earning a return is a great part of why Bitcoin is now successful. It's successful *because* it allowed early speculators to earn money; they drove its adoption and popularised it. If that had not been so, maybe they wouldn't have bothered so much and bitcoin would have failed or just been a niche curiosity.

The most important thing to know though is that this method is technically simple, very transparent (read: even if it's not considered "fair" by you, at least it's *HONEST* and everyone knows precisely how it occurs, and can easily make the decision whether to use it or not), and also roughly parallel to investing and speculating in something which is widely accepted as a fairly honest method of wealth gaining or creation.

I'm not saying i know well how bitcoins work or convert it to my suggested system. I'm saying a different system should be used where there is an authority maybe, something like paypal,  with the proper monitoring to prevent cheating, this has to be thought and invented. each one can open an account and get the coin.
State currencies also not perfect but work. So we are replacing one flawed system with another flawed one?
The bitcoins system looks to me far more complicated to think about and invent than implementing my suggested system.
I think it a new method can be popular anyway even without the early speculators motivation because people should know how bad the current real money system is and will want a fair alternative, and it can be more popular than bitcoins because more people will join if they think they are not discriminated between them and the early joiners.

Rule it, regulate it, control it. What's next, tax the hell out of it? You seriously are lacking in the knowledge department.
Discrimination? LMAO

[Anon136]

Sharing all bitcoins initially is a very hard (impossible) thing to do. Think about it.

The current method, maybe not perfect, but it *works*. Better something imperfect that works, than some idealistic notion that can never actually be implemented in the real world.

Also consider the nature of bitcoin being peer to peer. You cannot simply "give" everybody a bitcoin. Who's to decide who gets a bitcoin and who doesn't? How is that decision made? The Pope decides? Then it's no longer peer to peer and is controlled or influenced by some person or authority.

I don't think you understand how technically difficult "sharing coins equally" would be. That's the key here: not that everyone would be against the idea, but that it's technically hard/impossible to implement what you suggest in a method that is actually "fair". ("fair" also being subject to opinion)

As it is, it works much like investing in a startup company. It's like we're investing in Apple or Google or something in the early days.

Also you have to understand that the possibility of the early adopters earning a return is a great part of why Bitcoin is now successful. It's successful *because* it allowed early speculators to earn money; they drove its adoption and popularised it. If that had not been so, maybe they wouldn't have bothered so much and bitcoin would have failed or just been a niche curiosity.

The most important thing to know though is that this method is technically simple, very transparent (read: even if it's not considered "fair" by you, at least it's *HONEST* and everyone knows precisely how it occurs, and can easily make the decision whether to use it or not), and also roughly parallel to investing and speculating in something which is widely accepted as a fairly honest method of wealth gaining or creation.

I'm not saying i know well how bitcoins work or convert it to my suggested system. I'm saying a different system should be used where there is an authority maybe, something like paypal,  with the proper monitoring to prevent cheating, this has to be thought and invented. each one can open an account and get the coin.
State currencies also not perfect but work. So we are replacing one flawed system with another flawed one?
The bitcoins system looks to me far more complicated to think about and invent than implementing my suggested system.
I think it a new method can be popular anyway even without the early speculators motivation because people should know how bad the current real money system is and will want a fair alternative, and it can be more popular than bitcoins because more people will join if they think they are not discriminated between them and the early joiners.

rofl i cant believe i didnt realize you were a troll till now