Poll: Is Satoshi a scammer, out to enrich himself?

[porc]

This conclusion (Satoshi=scammer) is inescapable, if you agree with certain assumptions:
1) Satoshi is highly intelligent
2) If Bitcoin wants to become currency, it must be widely distributed and in actual use (not hoarded)
3) Bitcoin goes against point 2)

Here is why Bitcoin goes against point 2) (as has been explained on this board before):
1) Bitcoin heavily favors early adopters. 50% of the currency supply is already mined, and Satoshi holds the biggest stack.
2) This fact entices people to hold onto their bitcoin and not spend them.  
3) This fact discourages people from adopting bitcoin, as they would enrich the early adopters, unless  they believe that they are early adopters as well that can still profit from a coming wealth transfer.

Pyramid, get rich quick nature:
It seems to me, that the distribution of bitcoin heavily favors its pyramid get rich quick nature. Satoshi never wanted to create currency, but instead was out to create a pyramid to enrich himself. He cleverly disguised this pyramid as a currency.

This might be the reason why he wants to stay anonymous.

The result:
A boom of people wanting to get rich. A bust once no one enters (believing that they are too late to the get rich quick party).

Destruction of confidence after the bust.

[johnyj]

You have this doubt because you still have faith in government issued money, so you think dump the coins for some fiat is a nice move. I guess Satoshi does not have such faith, it is clearly written in the genesis block

[porc]

You have this doubt because you still have faith in government issued money, so you think dump the coins for some fiat is a nice move. I guess Satoshi does not have such faith, it is clearly written in the genesis block

Instead of arguing the actual points at hand, you attack me personally, by stating that I am dumb enough to trust fiat.

[msc]

Bitcoin heavily favors early adopters.

Yes, but that doesn't make it a scam.

[Hunterbunter]

Pyramid, get rich quick nature:
It seems to me, that the distribution of bitcoin heavily favors its pyramid get rich quick nature. Satoshi never wanted to created currency, but instead was out to create a pyramid to enrich himself. He cleverly disguised this pyramid as a currency.

This might be the reason why he wants to stay anonymous.

He absolutely could have done this, but it would only have worked if people felt there were getting something out of it, when they really weren't.

As it seems, people are using bitcoins for both hoarding and transactions. It may not be much of an improvement over fiat trading, but it's still happening. If there's an actual use, and people prefer to use it over fiat, then is it really fair to say something of value wasn't actually created? A scam only means something when nothing comes of it, and in that regard bitcoins can only be called a scam or pyramid scheme if it's fatal flaw just hasn't been discovered yet. Until then, you have to assume he's innocent, because it's quacking the way it's supposed to quack.

[furezasan]

You have this doubt because you still have faith in government issued money, so you think dump the coins for some fiat is a nice move. I guess Satoshi does not have such faith, it is clearly written in the genesis block

Instead of arguing the actual points at hand, you attack me personally, by stating that I am dumb enough to trust fiat.

And that's why Satoshi left, no face for attackers to go after... just the Bitcoin protocol as it is.

[porc]

Bitcoin heavily favors early adopters.

Yes, but that doesn't make it a scam.

This point alone makes it a scam, as Bitcoin cant succeed due to its heavy concentration towards a handful of early adopters. It was a FATAL DESIGN FLAW BUILT IN ON PURPOSE, so that Satoshi could enrich himself via this pyramid.

[Hunterbunter]

Bitcoin heavily favors early adopters.

Yes, but that doesn't make it a scam.

This point alone makes it a scam, as Bitcoin cant succeed due to its heavy concentration towards a handful of early adopters. It was a FATAL DESIGN FLAW BUILT IN ON PURPOSE, so that Satoshi could enrich himself via this pyramid.

Bitcoin heavily favors early adopters, but only to the point where they actually sell.

Land ownership also favors early adopters. Is property ownership also a scam? Other precious, limited metals have the same issue, are they also scams?

[Mike Christ]

Bitcoin heavily favors early adopters.

Yes, but that doesn't make it a scam.

This point alone makes it a scam, as Bitcoin cant succeed due to its heavy concentration towards a handful of early adopters. It was a FATAL DESIGN FLAW BUILT IN ON PURPOSE, so that Satoshi could enrich himself via this pyramid.

I'll take you seriously once you list any other way this would've worked without a central authority.

[mdmx]

It was my understanding that Satoshi only controlled the Genesis block, which as of today still remains untouched...

How could he use this to enrich himself if he doesn't have any more than 50BTC?

[bitcon]

colonialism only benefits early settlers. life is a scam. 

[rico666]

Instead of arguing the actual points at hand, you attack me personally, by stating that I am dumb enough to trust fiat.

You make it quite hard not to attack you because of certain ... logical insufficiencies.

Despite your very biased post, which BTW is always a sign of bad style when issuing a poll, the poll results are against "your arguments".


As for your arguments:

 * You have not provided proof, that Satoshi is holding the biggest stack
 * You have not provided proof, that the 50% of the mined coins are in the hands of but a few

It seems to me you are angry about some aspect of bitcoin, but it remains unclear what it is. Didn't you get enough BTC? Is it too hard thus frustrating for you to get your hand on some?

Look - the market price is crashing. The same way it went hysterically up is now going down.

You may get it cheap in some time again. When you do - and hold it - please inform us in some years if you consider yourself being on top of "the pyramid".


Rico

[rico666]

It was my understanding that Satoshi only controlled the Genesis block, which as of today still remains untouched...

How could he use this to enrich himself if he doesn't have any more than 50BTC?

AFAIK the genesis block contains unspendable BTC. Therefore it may remain untouched for a very long time to come...



Rico

[solidshotnosh]

This conclusion (Satoshi=scammer) is inescapable, if you agree with certain assumptions:
1) Satoshi is highly intelligent
2) If Bitcoin wants to become currency, it must be widely distributed and in actual use (not hoarded)
3) Bitcoin goes against point 2) and Satoshi knew this.

Here is why Bitcoin goes against point 2) (as has been explained on this board before):
1) Bitcoin heavily favors early adopters. 50% of the currency supply is already mined, and Satoshi holds the biggest stack.
2) This fact entices people to hold onto their bitcoin and not spend them.  
3) This fact discourages people from adopting bitcoin, as they would enrich the early adopters, unless  they believe that they are early adopters as well that can still profit from a coming wealth transfer.

Pyramid, get rich quick nature:
It seems to me, that the distribution of bitcoin heavily favors its pyramid get rich quick nature. Satoshi never wanted to create currency, but instead was out to create a pyramid to enrich himself. He cleverly disguised this pyramid as a currency.

This might be the reason why he wants to stay anonymous.

The result:
A boom of people wanting to get rich. A bust once no one enters (believing that they are too late to the get rich quick party).

Destruction of confidence after the bust.

I think you have scam and "Skewed towards his favour" mixed up.

At this point, the market is it's own living breathing organism.

In America, a small portion of the population controls a large portion of the money supply, just as early adopters do bitcoin, but this doesn't stop the markets from functioning, all it means is that John Doe gets to buy Porsche's and Lobster tail every night.

[porc]

Instead of arguing the actual points at hand, you attack me personally, by stating that I am dumb enough to trust fiat.

As for your arguments:

 * You have not provided proof, that the 50% of the mined coins are in the hands of but a few

This is just embarrassing. Do you think before you write?

[Bitcoin Oz]

Satoshi deserves to be filthy rich for creating bitcoin.

[viboracecata]

No one get you in but yourself.

[Lethn]

Where's your actual proof of this, time and time again I see all this whining from people about how Bitcoin is a scam and it only benefits the few who own a gigantic portion of it but there is very little in the way of proof to actually support this, if you want to prove people wrong then do it with mathematics, not stating an opinion as fact and then immediately getting defensive and indignant like all of you do when somebody points out you're wrong.

. Bitcoin is open source, why would a scammer post the code to his scam for everybody to read?

. I was actually corrected about pre-mining, apparently Satoshi didn't pre-mine Bitcoin at all but I wouldn't be surprised if he had some himself, personally it doesn't bother me in the slightest if a dev has coins of their own as for miners mining a currency, people mine gold and silver and early adopters always benefited from that, central banks just print what they want for themselves and give it to their buddies benefiting in the exact same way so this stupid 'early adopters benefit too much' argument is ridiculous when you don't even compare it to existing or historical economies

. The 'hoarding' argument has been debated to death, some people are going to hold them long term so they appreciate in value, some are going to spend and some are going to save up, the thing is though if the economy doesn't produce any products that people actually want or need then what's the point of spending them? You don't just piss away your money to 'help' the economy when they aren't even providing a service or product that benefits people in some way, I'm seeing more and more shops pop up now though because of reliable payment processors appearing so perhaps the speculative phase of Bitcoin is almost over

. None of what you say is actually a fact, it's actually too early to tell whether anything of what you and many others have said is true and I highly doubt it will come to fruition because a lot of it is bullshit or mathematically improbable anyway

Oh and the fact that you talk about 'confidence' in a market also reveals to me your high school/primary school level of economics knowledge.

[porc]

Where's your actual proof of this, time and time again I see all this whining from people about how Bitcoin is a scam and it only benefits the few who own a gigantic portion of it but there is very little in the way of proof to actually support this, if you want to prove people wrong then do it with mathematics, not stating an opinion as fact and then immediately getting defensive and indignant like all of you do when somebody points out you're wrong.

. Bitcoin is open source, why would a scammer post the code to his scam for everybody to read?

. I was actually corrected about pre-mining, apparently Satoshi didn't pre-mine Bitcoin at all but I wouldn't be surprised if he had some himself, personally it doesn't bother me in the slightest if a dev has coins of their own as for miners mining a currency, people mine gold and silver and early adopters always benefited from that, central banks just print what they want for themselves and give it to their buddies benefiting in the exact same way so this stupid 'early adopters benefit too much' argument is ridiculous when you don't even compare it to existing or historical economies

. The 'hoarding' argument has been debated to death, some people are going to hold them long term so they appreciate in value, some are going to spend and some are going to save up, the thing is though if the economy doesn't produce any products that people actually want or need then what's the point of spending them? You don't just piss away your money to 'help' the economy when they aren't even providing a service or product that benefits people in some way, I'm seeing more and more shops pop up now though because of reliable payment processors appearing so perhaps the speculative phase of Bitcoin is almost over

. None of what you say is actually a fact, it's actually too early to tell whether anything of what you and many others have said is true and I highly doubt it will come to fruition because a lot of it is bullshit or mathematically improbable anyway

Oh and the fact that you talk about 'confidence' in a market also reveals to me your high school/primary school level of economics knowledge.

You have not addressed my argument.

[rico666]

* You have not provided proof, that the 50% of the mined coins are in the hands of but a few

This is just embarrassing. Do you think before you write?

I can ensure you, that I'm far better in personal attacks than you are. 
And I am very tempted to say. "YES! Contrary to you I actually DO think before I write."

You know what? Consider it being said.

Your so-called arguments are nothing but claims backed up by nothing.

And if I observe your 1-sentence "answers" to elaborated counter-arguments of other people here, I must come to the inevitable conclusion that you are nothing but a troll and I regret any second spent considering your text.

*plonk*


Rico