So, did the people who whined about early adopters buy cheap BTC?

[Gabi]

I don't have a problem with early adopters being rewarded.  I DO have a problem with any single person holding more than 0.5% of the currency available.

This.

And comparing buying BTC at $0.001 each (or mining them with hundreds per week) or at $6 each is kinda idiotic.

When it was at 0.001$ bitcoin was an almost unknown thing. Spend thousands of $ on something unkonwn? Risky... When it was at 6$ some days ago it was clearly an undervalued price. Who bought them ended with a 100% profit in few days, and that's a LOT

So, did you RISK?  

Also i have heard ixcoin or namecoin are cheap, did you buy them?

[evoorhees]

0.5% is way too much. 0.005% is much more fair.

And there you have it. Those complaining about ownership distribution have a fundamental aversion to "some people having more than others." Fairness? Why is .005% fair, but .05% or .5% is unfair? This is arbitrary silliness.

SgtSpike's point about the world not wanting to be part of Bitcoin because some might have lots of it... I think that's a myth. Maybe if someone owned greater than 10% of the currency it would be an issue for stability? But really, this is such a short-term problem. Early adopters will sell coins over time and their ratio will fall. If they don't sell, then there's no problem for market price. If they sell all at once, then it's a fantastic buying opportunity for any who aren't tricked by short-term market prices. The fact that such a sale could disrupt the market is but a temporary blip, and in a free market there is insurance and hedging which keeps such fluctuation from harming those with big positions.

Again, it's a non-issue.It's "fair" for anyone to have as much BTC as they've bought, mined, or traded for.

[SgtSpike]

I'm not jealous.  I just know that when the world looks at Satoshi and a few others as owning a large percentage of the currency (and thus having a large amount of power with regards to money supply, inflation/deflation, pricing, political movements, etc), the world is going to have a problem with it.  It's one big roadblock to Bitcoins replacing any fiat currency.

The fed, which is a single institution, can print as much USD as they want. So they print them self a much larger percentage than Satoshi will ever have. Is it a roadblock to use USD? Apparently no. So Satoshi could end up as a tiny little mini-fed, sort of a small regulative to the bitcoin world, if he even cares

But the government is GIVEN the power by the people, and the people, for the most part, trust the government.  They trust that even though the government is printing money, they aren't going to be stupid about how they manipulate the market with it.  They trust that even though the government may not always make the best decisions, it is at least TRYING to make the best decisions for the people.

Having a random individual (or set of a few individuals) have the same power as the government with regards to money supply IS a problem.  You can't trust that Satoshi, or any of the others, have the best interests of the people at heart.  There's no checks and balances to any activities they can do.  The number of people they could pay off to do things in their interests if bitcoin ever did come to be widely used is incalculable.

I don't have a problem with early adopters being rewarded.  I DO have a problem with any single person holding more than 0.5% of the currency available.

This.

And comparing buying BTC at $0.001 each (or mining them with hundreds per week) or at $6 each is kinda idiotic.

When it was at 0.001$ bitcoin was an almost unknown thing. Spend thousands of $ on something unkonwn? Risky... When it was at 6$ some days ago it was clearly an undervalued price. Who bought them ended with a 100% profit in few days, and that's a LOT

So, did you RISK?  

Also i have heard ixcoin or namecoin are cheap, did you buy them?

Satoshi and the other early miners didn't risk much.  Running a single CPU (or a few) 24/7 would amount to a handful of dollars more on the electric bill.  Some of the later early adopters did take large risks by dumping thousands of dollars into buying coins too, I'll agree with you there.

Regardless, I don't mind them making a profit because they took a risk.  I don't even mind them making an insane profit because they took a risk.  That's not what this is about.  It is the fact that they currently hold so much power over the future of the currency that I have a problem with, and that many other people will have a problem with when they hear about bitcoin and think about what it would mean to have it replace a national currency.

That's why bitcoin replacing a national currency will never happen.  And if you don't have a problem with that, then I guess you never had much hope for bitcoin in the first place.

[RodeoX]

Need I remind my American friends that something like 90% of our wealth is in the hands of the top 2%. Why doesn't that piss you off?

[SgtSpike]

0.5% is way too much. 0.005% is much more fair.

And there you have it. Those complaining about ownership distribution have a fundamental aversion to "some people having more than others." Fairness? Why is .005% fair, but .05% or .5% is unfair? This is arbitrary silliness.

SgtSpike's point about the world not wanting to be part of Bitcoin because some might have lots of it... I think that's a myth. Maybe if someone owned greater than 10% of the currency it would be an issue for stability? But really, this is such a short-term problem. Early adopters will sell coins over time and their ratio will fall. If they don't sell, then there's no problem for market price. If they sell all at once, then it's a fantastic buying opportunity for any who aren't tricked by short-term market prices. The fact that such a sale could disrupt the market is but a temporary blip, and in a free market there is insurance and hedging which keeps such fluctuation from harming those with big positions.

Again, it's a non-issue.It's "fair" for anyone to have as much BTC as they've bought, mined, or traded for.

Satoshi, if he does indeed have the rumored 1.5 million coins, would hold 7%.  That is a HUGE amount of the total currency to be able to "play the market" with.  Or do whatever the heck he wants.  Again, it's not jealousy, it's my concern for the power that that would give him to manipulate the currency and the people.

You can think it's a myth all you want, but when people already feel that $60B is too much, I can't imagine what they would think about a single person owning $1T.

[SgtSpike]

Need I remind my American friends that something like 90% of our wealth is in the hands of the top 2%. Why doesn't that piss you off?

Because 2% is still 6 million people.

[kokjo]

0.5% is way too much. 0.005% is much more fair.

And there you have it. Those complaining about ownership distribution have a fundamental aversion to "some people having more than others." Fairness? Why is .005% fair, but .05% or .5% is unfair? This is arbitrary silliness.

fairness! no its not "some people having more than others.", its simply people with too much power/money can't handle the responsibility.
if they just put anything over 0.005% in the faucet, when they think the price was high enough so they could live their live with out even moving a finger. it would be fine with me.
i have absolutely no problem with some one having more then me.
but it seems that you have some problem, with understanding our opinion.

SgtSpike's point about the world not wanting to be part of Bitcoin because some might have lots of it... I think that's a myth.

no think thats true, why would anyone buy something, that some early adopter, could just crash, if they felt it could be fun?
 

Maybe if someone owned greater than 10% of the currency it would be an issue for stability? But really, this is such a short-term problem.

short-term problem. maybe, i don't know. but its a huge problem.
 

Early adopters will sell coins over time and their ratio will fall. If they don't sell, then there's no problem for market price. If they sell all at once, then it's a fantastic buying opportunity for any who aren't tricked by short-term market prices.

buy with what? the btc that we own? when the whole world are using bitcoin in every day life, and a early adopter decides to cash out then there will be mass panic.

Again, it's a non-issue.It's "fair" for anyone to have as much BTC as they've bought, mined, or traded for.

true, but not if the world didn't know about it.

[aq]

I'm not jealous.  I just know that when the world looks at Satoshi and a few others as owning a large percentage of the currency (and thus having a large amount of power with regards to money supply, inflation/deflation, pricing, political movements, etc), the world is going to have a problem with it.  It's one big roadblock to Bitcoins replacing any fiat currency.

The fed, which is a single institution, can print as much USD as they want. So they print them self a much larger percentage than Satoshi will ever have. Is it a roadblock to use USD? Apparently no. So Satoshi could end up as a tiny little mini-fed, sort of a small regulative to the bitcoin world, if he even cares

But the government is GIVEN the power by the people, and the people, for the most part, trust the government.  They trust that even though the government is printing money, they aren't going to be stupid about how they manipulate the market with it.  They trust that even though the government may not always make the best decisions, it is at least TRYING to make the best decisions for the people.

Having a random individual (or set of a few individuals) have the same power as the government with regards to money supply IS a problem.  You can't trust that Satoshi, or any of the others, have the best interests of the people at heart.  There's no checks and balances to any activities they can do.  The number of people they could pay off to do things in their interests if bitcoin ever did come to be widely used is incalculable.

I was not talking about the government. I was talking about the fed. The fed is a private owned bank, that prints USD generated out of thin air. You really think the fed gives anything about the people? They only care to secure and increase the wealth of their very owners.

[N12]

Satoshi, if he does indeed have the rumored 1.5 million coins, would hold 7%.

Wrong, that would currently be more than 21%. It will take a long time until it is diluted substantially.

But yeah, no problem at all, because FREE MARKET. Having an anonymous individual with a percentage that large is no problem at all, it’s absolutely not like he could just drastically decrease the value of everyone’s Bitcoin savings by throwing a bit of his Bitcoins on the market.

Everyone who says something else is just jealous/communist and doesn’t understand how the free market works!

[SmokeAndMirrors]

What's all this talk about early adopters taking "risk?" If anything, people nowadays are taking more of a risk with current prices of bitcoins.

Early adopter wants 10,000 coins a year ago? he sells someone a pizza.

A bitcoiner these days wants 10,000 coins? he sells his house.

Mining coins was a hell of a lot easier during the early-adopter stage, a lot cheaper too. It didn't require you to go out and buy thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of hardware in order to make 5 bitcoins in a day. Hell, most people would set-up their miners, leave their computer running all night (like most people do here regardless if their mining or not) and probably not even notice that their electricity usage went up.

The stage we're at now is risky. Businesses are popping up every day, people are investing in coins to hold, hardware is being purchased at a value worth tens of thousands of dollars by the sum of all miners, etc. etc. You can't honestly believe that the early adopters took any real risk...

[stryker]

+1,000,000 to smokeandmirrors couldnt put it any better 

[stryker]

I think anyone arguing in favour are simply trying to protect their "investment" but the fact stands that if there are peeps holding 10's, 100's of thousands of bitcoin then recent days show they can bring the system crashing down... who knows in a few years those of us with a few 10's of bitcoins could cause the same should 1btc be worth 100,000 dollars so just imagine the damage someone could do with thousands.... this will always be a risk to potential investors and the 21 million limit is the factor that causes btc to grow in its infancy but also to pose the risk?!?

[N12]

What's all this talk about early adopters taking "risk?" If anything, people nowadays are taking more of a risk with current prices of bitcoins.

Early adopter wants 10,000 coins a year ago? he sells someone a pizza.

Thanks, I agree with this notion.

CPU mining for a few weeks was not taking a risk in any real sense, so please, let’s stop with this myth.

The more time in the Bitcoin world passed, the riskier everything got, due to Bitcoin’s value increasing, of course. Bitcoin viruses, MtGox, MyBitcoin etc. never were issues in the past, but newcomers see themselves confronted with infrastructure that is insufficient (and also the Bitcoin client), and they may not be aware of it.

The people who take risks are those who are using the infrastructure, investing fiat, buying rigs, building businesses etc.

Satoshi is like a gold miner who goes mining without a pickaxe and then bringing 5% of all gold ever to be in existence home with him. Crazy to think about it, but the complete inelasticity of the inflation rate makes it possible – tens of thousands of people are now competing for the same supply Satoshi and early miners had.

[jancsika]

Or maybe it's just me.  Can someone please explain the lack of relationship I mentioned above, without resorting to "Satoshi designed the system so he/she deserves those coins," or, "whiners be hatin'," or, "RALLY!!!, etc."?  In fact let's make it really clean by leaving miners/investors out completely-- I just want to know why Bitcoin is designed this way.

This is actually a very simple question to answer. This design allowed to solve bootstrap problem, also known as catch 22 or chicken and egg problem.

i.e. it is not a bug it is a feature as are many other properties of bitcoin.

Just to be clear, Satoshi's paper just says that block rewards solve the bootstrapping problem (under heading #6).  It says nothing more on the subject.   However, Satoshi also wrote the initial code for the client, so I suppose there's no need for me to be cautious-- I'm quite happy calling it a feature.  That's fine, and completely irrelevant, because it's still poor design.  Please read carefully: I'm asking why there is _zero_ relationship between block reward and block difficulty, which is clearly not the only way to solve the bootstrapping problem.

I'd be asking the same question if, say, the client were designed so that the block reward goes from 50btc directly to transaction-fees only, instead of periodically halving the block reward.  If that were the case we should agree it's a feature _and_ poorly thought out.

But I fear if that wouldn't be the case because the unfortunate fact of this forum is that a discussion of any bitcoin property is always met by a whole host of believers ready to defend their bitcoin property.

[stryker]

guys that is my point.... I cant knock anyone protecting their earnt bitcoin as I'd do the same, but the risk caused by those holding massive stashes is real, simple as, such as the guy who lost 25k to a worm.

I think when the block reward reaches a certain level (25 coins, who knows) then it should go no lower, at the very least it should cover replacing "lost" coins.... this could be calculated by a years worth of "spending" versus total number of minted coins..... thus if coins do not pass hands due to lost coins or massive hoarders then more are minted at a faster rate.... solves all problems really

[stryker]

I forgot to say the above I'd hope would encourage peeps to "spend" their earnt coins which can only be good for btc

[Gabi]

Guess what, the discussion turned about early adopters.


My question is, who of these whiners bought bitcoins at 6$? So? You missed them at 0.01$ and so on, but you were HERE when bitcoins were at 6$, a cheap price. Since all your whine i am sure you invested a lot in buying bitcoins at 6$ am i right??

Or you are only good at whining omg pizza for 10.000 btc?

[OgNasty]

Well, did you buy them at 6$ now? What? You didn't? Guess what? I expected that.

I did.  $6.01 actually.  Unfortunately I sold a little early at $10.49.  Hoping it falls back down to $8 so I can stock back up.

[Dansker]

Good points made by OP.

I do agree with others though, that I hope that Satoshi and other early birds will spend some of their coins now.

[N12]

Guess what, the discussion turned about early adopters.


My question is, who of these whiners bought bitcoins at 6$? So? You missed them at 0.01$ and so on, but you were HERE when bitcoins were at 6$, a cheap price. Since all your whine i am sure you invested a lot in buying bitcoins at 6$ am i right??

Or you are only good at whining omg pizza for 10.000 btc?

I bought a bunch at 1$ and ~0.7$ a few months ago.

Good points made by OP.

I do agree with others though, that I hope that Satoshi and other early birds will spend some of their coins now.

Hahahaha, is this the Bitcoin trickle-down theory?

Oh please, Satoshi, spend some of your Bitcoins so we can have an economy! And please set up some bounties! And bail out the MyBitcoin users!