Looking for an explanation for 'Father Currency' Theory

[Ridi]

I'm dubbing it, the 'father currency' theory until a more appropriate, or scientifically valid name comes up.

Often while researching bitcoin I come across people talking about bitcoin being the revolution to a new, later coming, currency.  Gavin often says in his own interviews, we think something like this will be the currency of the future.  The puzzlement I have with this is, why?  With other digital currencies we have certain issues, all of them were centralized and were essentially money laundering operations.  With Bitcoin we have an open source digital currency that accepts any revolutionary development by majority vote.

I can understand expecting different currencies to develop for different utility.  A space station may need to develop it's own digital currency in the future, off the bitcoin model which fits it's micro-economy.  After the fall of the dollar and other fiat currencies, the U.S. might adopt a centralized digital currency attached to identity which would be legal to receive payroll and pay taxes with.  What I do not foresee or understand is the notion of a revolution, not adopted by the bitcoin community, that could significantly compete for an already world wide currency.

A technological advancement that could be more competitive would need to be licensed by an individual to avoid bitcoin adoption, which would mean a centralized authority.

A 'forkcoin' as I've seen discussed in the developers forum is not feasible, in order for it to compete it would need some level of widespread support.  Widespread support would most likely lead to adoption of at least the most popular or revolutionary principles of the developed 'forkcoin.'

Am I missing a concern about the fallibility of the technology? Is there an economic principle or historic example of experimental currency suddenly giving birth to an evolved currency?  Or are we just afraid to say bitcoin is the currency of the future, because I can understand fear of sounding like the moguls who speculated our world economy into dust. I just want an idea of what it really is.

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[1713491135]

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[blogospheroid]

I'm dubbing it, the 'father currency' theory until a more appropriate, or scientifically valid name comes up.

Am I missing a concern about the fallibility of the technology? Is there an economic principle or historic example of experimental currency suddenly giving birth to an evolved currency?  Or are we just afraid to say bitcoin is the currency of the future, because I can understand fear of sounding like the moguls who speculated our world economy into dust. I just want an idea of what it really is.

Nice question and observation. I think it is a very humble way of saying we don't know the future.

You can never evangelise something by being super-arrogant about it. You are introducing a new concept, so you'll have to be gentle.

Bitcoin has the potential to accept new and revolutionary updates, but the community might fork as well. We really can't say for sure.

Also, as Gwern's and Nick Szabo's observations have put it, the elements for bitcoin were there , for anybody to use, but it didn't happen until Satoshi put it together. So, the real question is  - we have no clue what the missing elements of an ideal digital medium of exchange and value transfer really are.

If someone says bitcoin is the money of the future, it would be only in the sense that "electric cars" are the future. The basic idea is there, but not the protocol/design that will be operating in 2100.

[Rassah]

So, the real question is  - we have no clue what the missing elements of an ideal digital medium of exchange and value transfer really are.

Is this one of them?



Sorry for trolling, but you guys are talking about future and elements, and I just couldn't resist 

[Ridi]

I do like that we are being cautious about this, and not saying that bitcoin is perfectly fine already.  One of the issues, right now, is that merchants aren't joining the bitcoin market.  Yes there are economic issues at hand, I've been reading about freicoin and demurrage and frankly that just hurts my head.  (Yes, I get some of the principles behind it, but demurrage just seems like printing more money.  What central authority decides how much to demurrage?)  So my frustration is we are chasing away merchants with this notion that Bitcoin could be replaced tomorrow with something more stable, when in fact a replacement system would have to go through all the problems of growing and adoption that Bitcoin has gotten a head start on.

My father is working on his Ph.D. in Psychology, so he and I often talk about this thing I call Utopian Bias, he calls it a type of Pax Romana, but I think that is much more specific.  Basically my perception of Utopian Bias is that people tend to want a new system to solve all of the problems of the old system and have no inherit of it's own.  Like with deflation having similar issues to inflation and people wave big red flags when 25000 BTC are stolen and MtGox is hacked, saying it's insecure and stick to your cash and banks.  Many people in the community realized the irony of this, cash could be stolen and banks were hacked frequently.  What I saw though was this, 'Bitcoin are valuable, the fact that people want to steal them only re-iterates the fact that BTC are valuable' and 'BTC's primary vulnerability is NOT the system, the system remains un-hacked.  Even though my friends say often, if it exists, it will be hacked.' and finally it made apparent some things about available BTC markets that I don't quite want to be posting online, yet.  (Still holding out for the lottery so I can start my own business, lmao.)

I digressed, so here is the bottom line.  As a new currency BTC has it's individual list of benefits, it also has it's list of weaknesses.  If you compare these two lists to other currencies I think we'll see that they overlap in a lot of places and oppose or compliment each other in the rest.

[Astrohacker]

Same thing is true for the internet. The internet only has 4 billion IPs, so it can't possibly work as a global communication network. But something like the internet is bound to gain some traction.

[FlipPro]

Same thing is true for the internet. The internet only has 4 billion IPs, so it can't possibly work as a global communication network. But something like the internet is bound to gain some traction.

IPV6 will fix that limit.

[Astrohacker]

Same thing is true for the internet. The internet only has 4 billion IPs, so it can't possibly work as a global communication network. But something like the internet is bound to gain some traction.

IPV6 will fix that limit.

Nice try, but the internet has fundamental flaws that can't be fixed:

* It's a scam, a scam, because the early adopters get all the best email addresses.
* It's distributed with no central server to control the production of information. This means everyone will be able to create information equally, and the government will have to compete with everyone else. But every good Keynesian information theorist knows the government needs to be able to manipulate the information people have, or people might not want to continue funding wars and welfare.
* You can't convert internet information to other kinds of information. What if I want to talk to someone on the phone? I can't use the internet for that. And if it's not possible today, it will never be possible.
* When something goes wrong, it will die. There's nothing stopping everyone from just deciding tomorrow that they don't want to use the internet anymore. Yeah, there are some "ISPs" that might want to encourage internet adoption, but their commitment is not credible, IMO.

So you can see that the internet can never work. Don't get me wrong, the internet is an interesting idea that we can learn from. The real communication network of the future will probably incorporate some ideas from the internet. But the internet isn't it.

[Raize]

So you can see that the internet can never work. Don't get me wrong, the internet is an interesting idea that we can learn from. The real communication network of the future will probably incorporate some ideas from the internet. But the internet isn't it.

IMHO, you just won the Internet.

[Ridi]

So you can see that the internet can never work. Don't get me wrong, the internet is an interesting idea that we can learn from. The real communication network of the future will probably incorporate some ideas from the internet. But the internet isn't it.

IMHO, you just won the Internet.

QFT-QFW

[Trader Steve]

Same thing is true for the internet. The internet only has 4 billion IPs, so it can't possibly work as a global communication network. But something like the internet is bound to gain some traction.

IPV6 will fix that limit.

Nice try, but the internet has fundamental flaws that can't be fixed:

* It's a scam, a scam, because the early adopters get all the best email addresses.
* It's distributed with no central server to control the production of information. This means everyone will be able to create information equally, and the government will have to compete with everyone else. But every good Keynesian information theorist knows the government needs to be able to manipulate the information people have, or people might not want to continue funding wars and welfare.
* You can't convert internet information to other kinds of information. What if I want to talk to someone on the phone? I can't use the internet for that. And if it's not possible today, it will never be possible.
* When something goes wrong, it will die. There's nothing stopping everyone from just deciding tomorrow that they don't want to use the internet anymore. Yeah, there are some "ISPs" that might want to encourage internet adoption, but their commitment is not credible, IMO.

So you can see that the internet can never work. Don't get me wrong, the internet is an interesting idea that we can learn from. The real communication network of the future will probably incorporate some ideas from the internet. But the internet isn't it.

LOL +1

[osmosis]

I'm dubbing it, the 'father currency' theory until a more appropriate, or scientifically valid name comes up.

Often while researching bitcoin I come across people talking about bitcoin being the revolution to a new, later coming, currency.  Gavin often says in his own interviews, we think something like this will be the currency of the future. 

I caught him speculating otherwise. Recorded by Amherst Media on February 8th 2011
"There is a small possibility that in 50 years it just might replace the dollar as the worlds reserve currency. It might happen." at 4:45  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koIq58UoNfE

Also see from 22 Aug, http://twitter.com/#!/gavinandresen/status/105820119946629122
"Latest fad in part of the #bitcoin world: invent your own bitcoin-like currency. Hasn't everybody already heard of the network effect?"  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect