Re: My letter to my U.S. Senators regarding Bitcoin

[bji]

I got a database error and lost all of my hard-typed content!  AAH!  Here goes again ...

Here is a letter that I sent to both of my U.S. Senators regarding Bitcoin.  I urge anyone who feels the same to send the same or a similar letter to their own Senator or anyone else in government who might be able to take action:

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Hello - as you know, Bitcoin, the virtual currency, is now a hot topic, and is being discussed in the senate.  There is some indication that the U.S. Government may lend its approval to the circulation of Bitcoin as a virtual currency.  I would like to propose an alternative:

The major problem that I see with Bitcoin is that a large percentage of the available coins have already been 'mined' by early adopters.  The creator of the Bitcoin protocol him/herself almost certainly hoarded a large percentage of available Bitcoins in the first year of its existence.

I believe that if the United States Government is to endorse a virtual currency, it should begin its own Bitcoin-like currency, using the same protocol, but with a new block chain that it creates in which:

* 1/4 of the initial coins are allocated for the U.S. Government
* 1/2 of the initial coins are allocated to be fairly and evenly distributed among all U.S. citizens
* The remaining 1/4 of the coins are left for 'mining' just like the current Bitcoin system (this is critical as it provides incentive for miners to use the virtual currency, which is what builds the infrastructure necessary to support the currency)
* The U.S. Government should enact law that only this new virtual currency will be accepted as legal virtual tender by the U.S. Government and no other virtual currency.  This will provide legitimacy of the currency.

I believe that this is a critical juncture for virtual currency, which is an inevitability in the world of modern technology, and that the U.S. Government will be doing its citizens a great disservice if it does not enforce this much fairer currency scheme now, before Bitcoin becomes the de-facto virtual currency standard.

I personally have nothing to gain from this proposal, as I would have no more of this virtual currency at the outset than anyone else; I make this proposal only from a deep desire to see our country provide all people with an equal footing in the world of virtual currency rather than leaving the lion's share to the "early adopter cabal" of Bitcoin.

I can discuss the more technical details that would enable the fair distribution of this virtual currency if you would like to contact me.

Thank you, and best wishes!
Bryan Ischo

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Since this is a technical forum I can discuss the more technical details here:

- The major technical hurdle would be tracking which of the initial bitcoins is assigned to which U.S. citizen.  Assuming that social security numbers can be used for this, I would propose that the initial block chain be seeded by the U.S. government with a social security number embedded in each block, thus assigning that coin to that citizen.  Citizens would have 10 years to 'claim' their bitcoin by presenting proof of personage to a government agency (the U.S. mint?  whoever is trusted with the starting block chain keys ...); upon presentation of this proof, the government would send the coin to an account of the person's preference.

- After 10 years, any coin not claimed becomes property of the U.S. government and thus, in the ideal world where the government represents every citizen equally, evenly distributed in value amongst all citizens by its common ownership by all citizens via the government

- This would be a U.S. only currency, although it could be used by other people around the world just like the U.S. dollar sometimes is.  I would expect every country to enact their own virtual currency in this way, with the resulting currency arbitrage etc, and maybe someday, in a distant future perfect world, all governments could cooperate so as to merge all virtual currencies into one ... but in the real world of now, a virtual currency per country is the only thing achievable.

- The government should announce this scheme months ahead of time (perhaps while the NSA is using their supercomputers to generate the initial block chain?) so that everyone has a chance to buy into mining companies to further help the even distribution of the remaining coins.  This is meant to alleviate some of the early adopter advantage that mining companies already set up for mining Bitcoin have.

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[bji]

Also, full disclosure: I own ~1.5 bitcoins now; I bought 3 bitcoins a couple of years ago just so that I could play around with writing my own bitcoin client (I am a software developer), got bored, gave it up, and shelved them.  I lost 1 bitcoin to my own software that I was writing (I used my software to try to send that bitcoin out as an initial test of my software and somehow 'lost' it ), but managed to retain the other 2.  I sold ~ 0.5 bitcoin recently on eBay just to recover my initial investment and guarantee a small profit.  I am holding the other 1.5 bitcoins because I don't really care that much about ~$1,000 now versus what might be a life-changing amount of money later should Bitcoin really take off.  But really, I would rather my Bitcoin value go to 0 because the government took my advice and created a virtual currency with a fairer initial distribution.  I'd happily pay $1,000 for that.

[bernard75]

Dreams are a wonderful thing.

[bji]

Dreams are a wonderful thing.

Meaning what?  My proposal should be very enticing to the government as it gives them an immediate windfall of 1/4 of the currency.  What do they get by endorsing Bitcoin instead?  Basically nothing.  Unless Satoshi was the NSA ...

Actually, even if Satoshi *was* the NSA, why not 're-set' the currency and give themselves even more while they still can?  Once they distribute 1/2 of the currency to everyone in the USA, they can't take it back anymore, like they can't just start printing red dollars now and declare all of the green ones obsolete, without risking revolution ... once the currency is sufficiently spread around, they can't take it back.  The could take Bitcoin back now, given that it's a) not officially endorsed as a currency anyway, and b) only used by a niche of people.  But give some of the currency to everyone ... then it can never be taken away again (except by the usual means - taxes )

[corebob]

Dreams are a wonderful thing.

Meaning what?  My proposal should be very enticing to the government as it gives them an immediate windfall of 1/4 of the currency.  What do they get by endorsing Bitcoin instead?  Basically nothing.  Unless Satoshi was the NSA ...

Actually, even if Satoshi *was* the NSA, why not 're-set' the currency and give themselves even more while they still can?  Once they distribute 1/2 of the currency to everyone in the USA, they can't take it back anymore, like they can't just start printing red dollars now and declare all of the green ones obsolete, without risking revolution ... once the currency is sufficiently spread around, they can't take it back.  The could take Bitcoin back now, given that it's a) not officially endorsed as a currency anyway, and b) only used by a niche of people.  But give some of the currency to everyone ... then it can never be taken away again (except by the usual means - taxes )

Its not how bitcoin works.

They could do this of course, but they should call it something else than bitcoin

[Carlor]

Brilliant idea you are proposing! Really!
And I bet people would get highly involved in a currency owned and run by the US government! Especially the Chinese are very eager to support the US! And everybody here in Europe changes his Euros into Dollars already, because they have so much trust in the US!

(You know that there is nothing "unfair" with early adopting, right? You get rewards in life for seeing good ideas and for taking risks. If Satoshi is a billionaire, he deserves every cent. And don't be mad, there is still enough for everybody, even for you..)

I know, I know don't feed the troll...

[Mellnik]

Can't wait for a government software infested with 10000 backdoors

[bji]

Brilliant idea you are proposing! Really!
And I bet people would get highly involved in a currency owned and run by the US government! Especially the Chinese are very eager to support the US! And everybody here in Europe changes his Euros into Dollars already, because they have so much trust in the US!

I already addressed that in my original post.  Did you read it?  This would be a U.S. backed currency, just like dollars are.  The Chinese would have their own such digital currency.  EU countries could do the same.  I realize that this doesn't satisfy the same 'it's the same currency for everyone' strategy that Bitcoin does but ... Bitcoin will still exist!  You could still use that for your global currency if you want!

(You know that there is nothing "unfair" with early adopting, right? You get rewards in life for seeing good ideas and for taking risks. If Satoshi is a billionaire, he deserves every cent. And don't be mad, there is still enough for everybody, even for you..)

And you do realize that all of those early Bitcoin adopters could cash out *right now* and make their profit, which I believe they should be quite happy to get.  Also many of those early adopters built up mining capacity, and will still be rewarded when that capacity can be used to mine coins officially accepted as legal virtual tender by the U.S. government.

I know, I know don't feed the troll...

There is absolutely nothing in any of my posts that deserves this comment.  I am not a troll, I have pretty clearly come here with a reasonable idea that I am asking for reasonable discussion about.

[superduh]

your proposal is strange. it will not work. why would anyone else in the world want to use this currency? i don't think you have thought this through as well as you think you have. think more along the lines of common sense, economics, game theory etc you will just really really confuse the poor senator who is already confused with your wild thoughts

edit: noone wants your US only currency besides YOU for some UNKNOWN reason

[bji]

Can't wait for a government software infested with 10000 backdoors

It's the same software man.  It's just a new initially seeded block chain.  YES, you have to trust to government to follow its own laws and give out the coins according to the schedule that it proposes when it creates the chain.  But you already have to trust them for just about everything already, don't you?  And even then, you don't actually have to USE your U.S. virtual coin if you don't want to.  Anyone who doesn't want to participate doesn't have to use the coins at all.  But you won't have any other way to conduct virtual coin transactions with the government since it would be the only virtual currency they would accept.  But that's OK, once all of the non-paranoid people have actually started using the currency for years, you'll eventually accept it too.

[superduh]

Can't wait for a government software infested with 10000 backdoors

It's the same software man.  It's just a new initially seeded block chain.  YES, you have to trust to government to follow its own laws and give out the coins according to the schedule that it proposes when it creates the chain.  But you already have to trust them for just about everything already, don't you?  And even then, you don't actually have to USE your U.S. virtual coin if you don't want to.  Anyone who doesn't want to participate doesn't have to use the coins at all.  But you won't have any other way to conduct virtual coin transactions with the government since it would be the only virtual currency they would accept.  But that's OK, once all of the non-paranoid people have actually started using the currency for years, you'll eventually accept it too.

who is paying you and how much for this nonsense?

[bji]

your proposal is strange. it will not work. why would anyone else in the world want to use this currency? i don't think you have thought this through as well as you think you have. think more along the lines of common sense, economics, game theory etc you will just really really confuse the poor senator who is already confused with your wild thoughts

edit: noone wants your US only currency besides YOU for some UNKNOWN reason

Absolutely everything that you said can be said about Bitcoin also.  So I don't know why you are even here if you don't accept the fundamental tenents of what makes a virtual currency like Bitcoin viable.

No one else in the world has to use this currency.  But by making it the only virtual legal tender acceptable by the U.S. Government, it will have an immediate legitimacy.  Once people start paying for government services with it, it will have value and an infrastructure.

I am not sure that everyone understands my proposal.  My proposal is that the exact same protocol (ok well maybe with some very minor tweaks to the block schedule) as Bitcoin be used for this.  The only difference is in the initially seeded block chain.  Instead of Satoshi getting it all, and then the early adopters of Bitcoin getting a huge chunk of the rest ... it starts out fairly distributed to all U.S. citizens.

Also as to an earlier poster's point, I am not calling this Bitcoin.  I don't think I have ever called it Bitcoin, although it uses the exact same protocol.  I call it the U.S. government legal virtual tender, of course they'd have to come up with a better name.

Anyway, I'm done replying to naysayers without any actual technical input to give.  I'll be back when someone has something interesting, relevent, and informed to say.  Thanks.

[AgeraS]

I believe that if the United States Government is to endorse a virtual currency, it should begin its own Bitcoin-like currency, using the same protocol, but with a new block chain that it creates in which:

* 1/4 of the initial coins are allocated for the U.S. Government
* 1/2 of the initial coins are allocated to be fairly and evenly distributed among all U.S. citizens
* The remaining 1/4 of the coins are left for 'mining' just like the current Bitcoin system (this is critical as it provides incentive for miners to use the virtual currency, which is what builds the infrastructure necessary to support the currency)
* The U.S. Government should enact law that only this new virtual currency will be accepted as legal virtual tender by the U.S. Government and no other virtual currency.  This will provide legitimacy of the currency.

* Because we all know that the US government doesn't squander money...
* Some would argue (including myself) that fairly and evenly are not the same thing, and furthermore what is "fair?"
* Because we all know that the US government does not effectively legislate monopoly privileges...

It sounds like you are mad that you came late to the party and that you wish you would have bought more a year or more ago, who doesn't?

Assuming a 21 mililon coin cap (which would never happen because the government has an incentive to inflate). With your scheme, assuming there are 350 million people in the US, each person would receive 0.03 coins, which is significantly less than the current amount you now hold. So unless your argument is that you should have less coins than your current holdings, I don't understand your argument. And, if you are arguing that you want less coins than your current holdings, please give everything except 0.03 bitcoins to me.

[bji]

I believe that if the United States Government is to endorse a virtual currency, it should begin its own Bitcoin-like currency, using the same protocol, but with a new block chain that it creates in which:

* 1/4 of the initial coins are allocated for the U.S. Government
* 1/2 of the initial coins are allocated to be fairly and evenly distributed among all U.S. citizens
* The remaining 1/4 of the coins are left for 'mining' just like the current Bitcoin system (this is critical as it provides incentive for miners to use the virtual currency, which is what builds the infrastructure necessary to support the currency)
* The U.S. Government should enact law that only this new virtual currency will be accepted as legal virtual tender by the U.S. Government and no other virtual currency.  This will provide legitimacy of the currency.

* Because we all know that the US government doesn't squander money...
* Some would argue (including myself) that fairly and evenly are not the same thing, and furthermore what is "fair?"
* Because we all know that the US government does not effectively legislate monopoly privileges...

It sounds like you are mad that you came late to the party and that you wish you would have bought more a year or more ago, who doesn't?

Assuming a 21 mililon coin cap (which would never happen because the government has an incentive to inflate). With your scheme, assuming there are 350 million people in the US, each person would receive 0.03 coins, which is significantly less than the current amount you now hold. So unless your argument is that you should have less coins than your current holdings, I don't understand your argument. And, if you are arguing that you want less coins than your current holdings, please give everything except 0.03 bitcoins to me.

Thank you for a reply that actually has some worthwhile content!

I agree that the U.S. government does not perfectly represent the interests of all citizens equally, but it's the best thing we've got now, and like it or not, it decides what is legal tender for transactions with itself, and to a large degree, between private individuals.  Therefore it must establish some policy with regards to virtual currency, which is why there are Senate hearings now.  The only remaining question is, what policy will it establish?

It can choose to accept Bitcoin as legal tender.  Then it will have essentially pre-assigned a large amount of the currency to those people who created bitcoin or heard about it early, which is a very, very small fraction of the U.S. population.  That just seems inherently unfair to me.   I think it's much better to act on behalf of all citizens - which is the point of the government, isn't it - and ensure the fairest possible scheme from the outset.  Hence my proposal.

The early adopters of Bitcoin are already rich, or at least well rewarded, according to the timeliness and veracity of their participation.  I don't feel too badly about cutting off their cash cow now, leaving them with the profits they have, and moving on to a better system that is fairer for everyone.

Also your comments equating these U.S. virtual currency coins with Bitcoins and saying that I should just give away my Bitcoins because they are the same as the coins I propose and thus I would end up with only 0.3 of these new coins instead of the 1.5 bitcoins I have unfortunately indicate that you are either deliberately or inadvertently being obtuse.

Finally, you don't know me.  I don't care that much about being rich, I value certain things alot more than money, the future of my country and fairness to all citizens being more important to me.  I am not writing to my Senator because I am angry that I didn't get to be a Bitcoin millionaire.  I am writing because I want the best for everyone, not just myself.

[Mautje]

You don't seem to understand the current monetairy system and why exactly it has been put in place and by whom.

The current US monetairy system is set up in such a way, as to enslave it's citizens in debt. They won't implement anything other than that.

[bji]

You don't seem to understand the current monetairy system and why exactly it has been put in place and by whom.

The current US monetairy system is set up in such a way, as to enslave it's citizens in debt. They won't implement anything other than that.

Well dude, with a tinfoil hat that thick, I am not sure any reason could get through.  But thanks for your contribution!

I do realize that this is a pretty bad forum for reasonable discussion, being roughly half full of get-rich-quick schemers just hoping that their post will influence the bitcoin market in a way to make them money, and the other half being tinfoil hat wearers ... but I am hoping for just a little signal in the noise.

[superduh]

ya, i don't think anyone is taking you seriously since you obviously haven't thought everything through from every aspect except that every US citizen should have the same amount.
right, what about newborns do they get this virtual currency too? or it's a one off thing that benefits people who are alive in 2015 at the expense of those born afterwards. or does everyone get a coin in perpetuity. if not in perpetuity your whole argument is moot.
you haven't thought your arguments through well.

the distribution of bitcoins people may not agree with but your proposal is in no way better

i feel bad if a senator really does get that letter. they are confused enough as it is!

[franky1]

the major problem that I see with Bitcoin is that a large percentage of the available coins have already been 'mined' by early adopters.  The creator of the Bitcoin protocol him/herself almost certainly hoarded a large percentage of available Bitcoins in the first year of its existence.

translation

the major problem with the U.S dollar is that you were born in the late 20th century and you did not personally get rich during the gold era, now you see alot of rich people hoarding billions of dollars and you are stuck in a minimum wage job...

this is the same argument you see a child have, that his older brother learned to walk and talk before he did. im sorry that you didnt get there first, but for atleast 100 years you still have a chance to make your life successful, dont blame your elders for getting there first

[subcoin]

You don't seem to understand the current monetairy system and why exactly it has been put in place and by whom.

+100

@bji, may I suggest you read Currency Wars book by James Rickards. It will open your eyes. Be warned, though, you will never think of government the same way again.

the major problem with the U.S dollar is that i was born in the late 20th century and i did not personally get rich during the gold era, now i see alot of rich people hoarding billions of dollars and i am stuck in a minimum wage job...

good one

[bji]

ya, i don't think anyone is taking you seriously since you obviously haven't thought everything through from every aspect except that every US citizen should have the same amount.
right, what about newborns do they get this virtual currency too? or it's a one off thing that benefits people who are alive in 2015 at the expense of those born afterwards. or does everyone get a coin in perpetuity. if not in perpetuity your whole argument is moot.
you haven't thought your arguments through well.

the distribution of bitcoins people may not agree with but your proposal is in no way better

i feel bad if a senator really does get that letter. they are confused enough as it is!

No, my thick headed friend, if I had thought that people born after a certain date should get a share of the virtual currency, I would have said that.  If you're born after the cutoff date, you are, just as for every other aspect of your young life, dependent upon your parents to provide the resources that you need.  You will inherit your 'share' of the virtual currency that was awarded back in 2013 from them.  If they leave you nothing, well, you should have picked better parents ...

If the U.S. government accepts bitcoin as legal tender, then they are in essence awarding a very large amount of money to the bitcoin early adopters.  On the other hand, it seems inevitable that the government will have to eventually accept some form of virtual currency.  I am simply proposing a way for the government to create a form of virtual currency for the use by U.S. citizens which does not START OUT biased towards early adopters.

I do realize that most people on this forum will be hostile to this idea because they'd rather be rich than fair; but I am hoping that there are other like minded people who will contribute meaningfully to the discussion.

And there is something you may never heard of before called "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good."  My proposal is not perfect so arguing against the places where it is not perfect and could not be made perfect is pointless; but my proposal is better than bitcoin, at least from the average person's perspective.  There are alot of people who have never heard of bitcoin and I really think it would be lame to start out a new virtual currency already putting them at a disadvantage when we have the capability to do things fairly instead.  Alot of things that happened in the past and could be considered analogues of bitcoin (gold etc) didn't really have a planning period or a technical basis that could have allowed it to start out fairly.  But virtual currency does.  There is no reason whatsoever that the U.S. Government couldn't start their own block chain and only accept transactions from that block chain as valid legal tender.  NONE AT ALL.