Goat's speculation thread (currently HODL)

[rpietila]

HODL FOREVER   


(unless you need hooker and blow fiat)

Fiat is suitable for criminals. Why isn't it on the news already?? 

[knightcoin]

HODL FOREVER   


(unless you need hooker and blow fiat)

Fiat is suitable for criminals. Why isn't it on the news already?? 

+1

[jdough]

HODL FOREVER   


(unless you need hooker and blow fiat)

Fiat is suitable for criminals. Why isn't it on the news already?? 

Because it's old news.

[JimboToronto]

Haven't heard much from Goat lately. Forum become too much of a bearish trollbox?

Or just riding around in the Goatmobile, you know the one with the bull logo on it?

[thatbluedude]

perhaps he's too busy in his private btc-elite only forum to spend time with the unwashed masses .
though I admitt I would like a peek at it to see if it will generate interesting content or if the isolation devolves it into an elitist Groupthink circlejerk.

[biafore]

Or mabey hes to busy getting money, fucking dimes, blowin yay off their asses. Like most of the petty people here dream they could, or are to salty to admit that they would ever partake in suck events. That dont sound like fun riiiiite.....  Small money wouldnt know what to do with big money, that why they will never have it. Hater gonna hate

[rpietila]

perhaps he's too busy in his private btc-elite only forum to spend time with the unwashed masses .
though I admitt I would like a peek at it to see if it will generate interesting content or if the isolation devolves it into an elitist Groupthink circlejerk.

I am there, and will offer a sneak peek for free (asked permission from the poster).

This one is from an ongoing essay competition where 1,000mBTC will be given to the forum member who most succintly expounds the importance of why the decision-making in the Supernode Network is based on economic majority, with the votes based on the difference of status (rank), which is closely tied to Bitcoin ownership and thus the wealth of the SN member, instead of the majority of number of members.

Because that's the natural way - and that's how everything works anyway, even if you tried to distort it on some superficial level.

In "democracy", power is artificially and superficially re-distributed equally between all - well, not really, but to sell the idea, to keep masses peacefully going along - and this is even more important: whether deserved or not. Unconditional love is the coolest thing. Unconditional power is probably the worst of all things. That's like deciding that that from now on everyone can benchpress 100 pounds and not a pound more. Well, it's in some people's nature to press much more than that - AND THEY WILL. It's better to let them do it openly and naturally, so they don't have to do what's naturally anyway, but do it sneakily behind the scenes, while selling the weaker people the image that all power is distributed equally. When you go to the gym, and it's okay to openly lift as much as you want, you get people sharing secrets, inspiring each other to grow and give more - heck, even making music videos on how cool it is to be in this together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3UUpta18w4

Distributing power equally is so artificial that you need force to force it. And guess who end up using and owning that force? Of course the naturally more powerful (or power-hungry) ones. Except that now, besides power, they also have all the apparatus of force in their hands - of course, paid by all those "equal" people, or middle class. When the masses try to deny anyone from lifting more than 100lb, the big (or motivated) guys have to use force to keep others out of their own secret gyms. It's good to keep in mind, that to really go against nature, there's always some kind of war going on - and in war it's not always the best people who win. The war is not won by using even heavier (and even more expensive) force to make things even more unnatural, but actually letting the stream finally settle on the path of least resistance & most flow.

The more you try to equalize people, the more you end up separating them. The more atificiality you introduce to the system, the harder it is for people with less initial connections or shrewdness to ever make it up the ladder. And the cronier it gets. The more proggressive the tax system, the more reggressive it in actuality gets - because of course the people in power will make it so for themselves, while having to exert massive, otherwise unnecessary work to make it appear proggressive to the common folk - or, the average voter. And, in the progress introduce massive amounts of soul-crushing friction to the whole system, where it's no longer sufficient to serve your customer well, but you also need to become an expert in international law and all the silly complications in tax code, even though your time is valueble and you initially wanted to invest yourself in (improving) the service you actually cared about.

Let the powerful be powerful. The less there is need to resort to cronyism to attain power, the likelier you are to create culture of actual service and creative, attentive value sharing.

 ** ** ** **

I feel like I live in a society (Finland, to be exact), where you can go through your whole life without really ever touching this thing of wealth and power. You don't really negotiate your salary; the union does it for you. You know, those guys in the cabinets; the ones that are "qualified" to play these dangerous, difficult and awfully mysterious power games - so that me, the small person, don't have to; I can just go through my life minding my own business; go through the motions, not cause too much hassle.

Reminds me of the Steve Jobs quote:

"When you grow up you, tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again."

What's left out in that quote, is that to Really Live in this world, you need to "get your hands dirty", and realize that there is this thing called power, and I'm going to be playing with it sooner rather than later. I'm going to be negotiating, strategically upping my position. It's not going to come by simply increasing my contribution and letting someone else handle the money matters. Steve Jobs himself tends to give you that impression (that he didin't really need to think about money), but even he was in fact a quite wonderful negotiator and quite a player in corporate power games.

It doesn't need to be like that. The more naturally power is distributed, the more you can just earn and deserve it, and the less you have to "play" for it, of know all the complications of law, and other distractive barriers the "heavy lifters" have had to raise to make it difficult for common people to enter their secret gym.

 ** ** ** **

It's clear, that even if all votes were equally distributed, you'd still feel like guys like Goat or rpietila are on a different position or status, than someone with less than one BTC in his paper wallet. So why not let the voting system reflect that which we already feel is natural anyway? Of course the ones with more at stake should have more votes.

But it goes deeper than that.
All my life I've sort of struggled, ever since the school system tried to make us all bench press that same 10lbs weight over and over again. Also there was this forum at one point, where I was probably the most influential contributor, and lots of very high class contributors came along to join ranks & have a ball together. And then there was this one homo ignoramus, who didn't even want nor seek to contribute, but rather talk against the whole topic of the forum (which was organic, fresh, real, high quality food by the way, along with holistic health). The owner of the forum maintained his opinion that "everyone needs to get an equal chance in this forum". Well, soon all the best contributors found better things to do with their valuable time, so the owner of the forum was left with... well, what you get from trying to artificially make "everyone's contribution equal", even when it clearly is everything but.

In my life experience, I've noticed huge differences in people't energy levels and how they live their lives. The most impressive contributors are often the biggest eaners - and they usually end up re-investing a ton, in what they originally cared about. Making it better, making it bigger, perhaps adding diversity as well, depth; heck they even take steps to increase the value of social capital in the whole industry, and basically make everyone happier. Anyone could be more like that, but perhaps they haven't read their Napoleon Hill yet, perhaps because they were busy reading sociology of gender studies (which they didin't even care about in the first place, but thought that was okay, not too bad at least). It's wrong to say that the guy living hundreds of times bigger, having a network worth 10 000 times more, and making ridiculous contributions, while garnering masterful experience and ridiculous insigth to the matter, should have equal vote to the guy who was reading sociology and didn't even care about that - and probably cares even less about the subject matter at hand.

Usually - not 100%, but usually - the people who care deeply and personally about subject matter A, have more knowledge, experience, relevant networks, personal investment, social investment - and also financial investment in A. At least they should, and it would be very natural for them to.

 ** ** ** **

Now comes the interesting part.

I'm that guy with <1000mBTC on my name. And even for me it's preferable to live in a "society" where power is distributed naturally rather than equalized artificially. First, it gives me clear incentives, to serve more, earn better, step my value up. It creates culture where my friends have similar incentives, so it's exponentially more fun for each of us to walk the walk, make our journey upwards - not by doing bad the bad, evil, sneaky or in best case irrelevant things you often need to do in a forcefully artificial system to rise up, but just simply improve my communication, courage, wisdom, experience, skill; serve the market, use my network and treat them well. Secondly, even when my voting power is ridiculously low, I have much better chances to influence things, and do it in intelligent manner. I don't have to sink my self worth to convince the masses, when I can see who has the power, and I can be sure it's their own money that's at stake, so there aren't any sneaky conflicts of interest complicating things. All I need to do is talk sense, or present my argument, to the guy(s) who have lots at stake in this - and I can be quite sure that they are the ones who actually care (because it's their property, not public land), and they either know and understand this stuff very well, or at least have the incentives to make otherwise sure that their decisions are of high quality, for example by hiring some knowledgeable people who have demonstrated their love and deep caring for this thing (plus perhaps ability to make good decisions).

Ultimately it's about (finally) creating world without politics. What is politics? It's really the art of re-grabbing the power that was artificially (and forcefully) re-distributed, and then vandalize one's own integrity in all the complicated mess that follows. When you erase the ultimate reason to have any conflicts of interest in the first place, you pretty much get rid of (the need for) politics, or any other forms of bad behavior. FINALLY the best argument wins, not the sneakiest or most evil, or populist - or the one bought with other people's money. The highest uncommon denominator finally beats the lowest common - by 10 000 to one, in the case of me and rpietila for example. Like Steve Jobs would say, "that's how it should be." Come to think about it, that is the natural, and right way of things.

There are things that I have cared about more, and invested more of myself in, than Risto. And in those things I naturally have more say than him. If a superfood distributor wants to know what strains of enzymes to use in his newest product, of course he'll ask me. That's the natural, correct and intelligent way of things. The "democratic" way would be to have an equal vote between me and Risto, where Risto's vote would be equal to mine. But he doesn't know crap about enzyme strains or how and where they were produced and what the practical implications of all that are... so why on earth should Lasse from Rawmance Ltd even care about Risto's opinion? Well, in "democracy", you kind of have to. Let's not be that silly in this community. I'm better of off by having Risto have more power than me when it comes to decisions concerning matters of Bitcoin. Plus, I know who to talk to, in case I happen to think I have a better idea - and best of all, even in that case I don't have to worry about politics, or winning over every average person who might not even care let alone understand that much, or might have most his stakes & attention invested somewhere else. That's all good, natural - and in every imaginable sense most effective way to advance things. Who would you ask, who's opinion do you trust most (in matter A)? It kinda makes sense to let that person have an equal share of votes - not equal to the number of his fingers or hands, but his ability and will to benefit us all.

This is written by a newbie of 0 posts before this one. We aim to make it a quality place with meaningful discussion, and are happy to see this forum cater to other needs.

[thatbluedude]

I am there, and will offer a sneak peek for free (asked permission from the poster).

thanks,
It would be great if there was a thread where selected elitetalk content would get reposted. 

[JimboToronto]

HODL! unless we get a good dip and then buy more!!!

You're preaching to the choir.

Just bought some more at last week's dip and I'm waiting on a fiat deposit to buy some more while prices are still low.

I haven't sold any coins since last spring. Price goes up, my hoarded coins increase in potential value. Price goes down, I get to hoard more coins. Either way I'm ahead.

No ulcers here. LOL 

[fortune143]

100% HODLer here buying in monthly increments. I'm one of those classics who heard about Bitcoin ages ago but did nothing about it until the last ATH. However I find the technology and the possibility for it's uses fascinating and will be in on the Bitcoin/crypto/digital autonomous 'x' train for the long haul.

Now that thats out of the way I just want to take a look at a few points from this essay:

In summary the question was asked:  please explain the importance of having a system in which voting power is based on the size of individual's wealth, rather than distributed equally on a one-member-one-vote basis.

Putting aside the fact that this is a massively leading question, the newbie then replies with a series of points in agreement with that question which must be looked at closely.

Newbie refers multiple times to the idea of nature vs the artificial; that there is a 'natural way' that things happen or should happen. This idea is flawed in my opinion for a few reasons:
a) 'nature' is not a heirarchy where power is distributed, the natural world could maybe more accurately be described as a system comprised of interdependent entities that to some degree depend on others for their own survival. In the natural world there is only one living organism that holds dominion over almost all others, and that dominion was certainly human-made.
b) What do you mean when you say 'nature', do you mean that that is how things 'have always been' or 'should be'? Is it that, outside the human world, this is just how things 'are'. If so then I'm afraid that is a normative interpretation of our existence, positioning your interpretation of the world as fact. for millenia all sorts of world ills and pseudo-beliefs have been legitimised in the name of them being 'the natural order of things' - genocides, conquests, rape, pillaging, slavery etc. To say that 'people should be allowed to be as powerful as they can be because thats how it would work in nature' is a statement fraught with preconceptions and personal bias.
c) leading on from point b) by accepting that the equitable distribution of power is 'unnatural', you negate the fact that we as human beings have invented things like communities, societies, civilisations, structures and systems that we all live by, whether we know it or not and in some cases whether we like it or not. None of these things are 'natural' at all, and were actually created as a way of mitigating the human experience against the harshness and difficulties of nature. Bitcoin is the latest invention seeking to contribute to that aim, why should it then apply to the rules of 'nature' if this is the case?

The newbie also claims that the distribution of power leads to cronyism and actually pulls people apart. This is factually incorrect, as hundreds of studies have shown that societies with greater equality also have lower rates of crime, obesity, debt and depression, as well as greater levels of trust, community, health and happiness. Also, a corrupted form of power distribution does not lead to cronyism, it is crony. A power distribution system based on something more trustworthy than human goodwill, maybe a system based on math lets say, would be allow much less space for corruption than current systems have.

Newbie makes the point that in some societies, like his (or hers), people can live their whole lives without even having to engage with power. These people can just let others, the ones with power, do the hard stuff for them - the example of trade unions or politicians 'the guys in the cabinet'. Some people will always feel inadequate to others, and in some cases are happy to live a life of relative subservience in order to just get on with things. On the flip side there will always be others who want more (the steve jobs quote), others who will seek command over their lives and will become significantly invested (through time, money, effort etc) in a particular facet of life.

These people, Newbie says, will 'naturally' drift towards positions of power, and they deserve it for putting in the work. While others will actively want people like this to make the decisions for them as it makes life easier.

For me this is a problem, and I must say for a place where decentralisation is supposed to be embraced and centralised authority avoided, this is a somewhat odd statement. This type of deferring of lifes problems to others while allowing the pursuit of power to go generally unchecked, actually leads to the type of centralisation, cronyism and heirarchical subjugation that most of us do not support. Power corrupts and the powerful only seek to gain more power, the very idea of an elite is the direct opposite of an informed and empowered mass. 

Finally Newbie states that even for a small time hodler like him/her, he/she prefers a situation where power is distributed 'naturally'. This gives him/her incentive to do better, lets him/her know his/her role, and again makes things simpler for Newbie - if he/she can get the ear of the one/s in power then his/her interests can be met.  The ones with the most bitcoin and therefore most power are held accountable as their wealth is negatively affected with each bad decision they make, and the fact that they know/care about this stuff provides incentives to make good decisions anyway. This then creates an environment where the best argument always wins, it eliminates conflict of interest situations from ever arising, and provides us with a 'world without politics'.

Again this is a statement rife with oddities. Conflicts of interest will certainly arise when contesting opinions, ideas or ideologies are put against each other, or when the outcome of one event (say for example the imminent death/survival of MtGox) benefits one set of people if it plays out one way, or another set of people if it plays out the other way.

Accountability cannot be tied into the desire to maintain Bitcoin wealth either. If the supernodes decide on something that negatively effects the bitcoin price or worse the protocol, that decision will effect everyones bitcoin - mine, yours, theirs, everyones. Meaning that in relative terms, their position of power would be absolutely no different to how it was prior to the decision, and that in fact their power their power is entrenched as those lower down would never be able to reach their level no matter how much effort/time/money they invested.

And a world without politics... if by this you men a world in which groups of more than two people in a shared space no longer discuss the ways and means in which they shall live their lives or distribute resources, I'm afraid that's nearly impossible.

So to conclude, the post by Newbie is fraught with inconsistencies, suppositions and non-facts, and fails to set a case for why voting ability should be distributed according to bitcoin wealth.

To the original question itself, it is very well withing the realms of possiblity that a voting structure such as this might serve to entrench the power of a relatively small elite, and go on to mirror the existing power structures we have all over the world. Newbie's biggest mistake was probably assuming that the only alternative to a 'natural' survival of the fittest form of power sharing is a socialist-dream-each-and-every-single-person-is-as-equal-as-the-next-guy form of power sharing, which is as utopian and ridiculous as the vision Newbie sets out. An equitable form of distribution where voting power is shared more equally and based on a system trusted by all that participate may be more desirable, as this would guard against the centralisation of authority and the entrenchment of heirarchy. 

[thatbluedude]

Now that thats out of the way I just want to take a look at a few points from this essay: ...

I just want to note that the question itself concerns the voting rights for a private club not society as a whole. Maybe it implies it but it doesn't directly say that one vote per dollar should be universally applied.

[fortune143]

Now that thats out of the way I just want to take a look at a few points from this essay: ...

I just want to note that the question itself concerns the voting rights for a private club not society as a whole. Maybe it implies it but it doesn't directly say that one vote per dollar should be universally applied.

Yes that is correct, in this specific case it is referring to the voting power/capabilities of individual nodes on the bitcoin network.

However the question does also say this:

votes based on the difference of status (rank), which is closely tied to Bitcoin ownership and thus the wealth of the SN member, instead of the majority of number of members.

and asks the prospective writer to argue why this form of power allocation is more favourable than distributing to the majority of users. Thats a pretty value laden statement which, in order to correctly answer the question, leaves little room for rubuttal other than by the rejection of that central premise (in this specific case) outright.

[knightcoin]

one man, one "volt" ....  

[knightcoin]

Alts becoming popular I think is inevitable. Think of it as an expression of Bitcoin's random block reward in mining. Investing in all increase your luck but not all will be around when the difficulty increase. 

Go through your portfolio and research each of your best and worst performers.
the ones with a community, a motivated developer, an innovation people beleve in, and a vocal advocates, are more likely to survive. (There are many scam coins in the mix.)

Just investing a fiew XBT can radically alter the markets perception of price and catalyse movement, UNO and DOG being two examples.

Also looking at the total Alt and Bitcoin market cap you start to see how to manage your Alt portfolio.

Investing in innovation alone is risky, while Bitcoin will most likely always maintain its first mover advantage, innovation in the Alt space is easily copied.

I thought about doing this, but at this point, all lot of the valuation for these coins seems to be very "dotcom," in that you go off things like quality of the name, logo, website, etc. The only tweak I've really done is to double from 0.05BTC to 0.1BTC in anything that's below 10 satoshi (with the exception of the Cryptostocks where I doubled at 100 satoshi since it's the lowest level). I'm thinking of going back and increasing anything below 10 satoshi with decent enough volume to 0.25BTC, but beyond that, I'm not going to tweak much further.

I'm surprised that BTC mania hasn't spilled over into the general public. I mean, stories of making 15,000% in FTC and putting $100 into LTC and getting $30K a year later should have people willing to gamble in a time when alternative investment vehicles are only returning 1% if you're lucky.

Indeed few days ago I was watching a documentary on Discovery Channel about dotcom in 90's the internet boom and how Ebay e Amazon became what they are today ... but as everything else, not only in a tech field ...but if you got a nice idea and you are able to implement in a proper way, get surround of nice and competent people is very likely you become successful investor.   

[Adrian-x]

I'm surprised that BTC mania hasn't spilled over into the general public. I mean, stories of making 15,000% in FTC and putting $100 into LTC and getting $30K a year later should have people willing to gamble in a time when alternative investment vehicles are only returning 1% if you're lucky.

Just wait until Bitcoin goes vertical, there will be a noticeable segment that see Bitcoin as a lost opportunity and invest in alts, I expect we will see huge growth. The Big money will always be in Bitcoin, at the moment alts can’t accommodate it. Anyway this is off topic but interesting.

[ISAWHIM]

The thing with alts, as I see it, is this...

Alts HAVE to be lower. Due only by immaturity as a "real limit".

BTC will be the Gold, LTC the Silver, and the rest like Copper...

You can only hold so much Copper, before you get dirt-rich, and have to upgrade at some point to Silver trades. Again, once you are muddy-rich in Silver, you then have to upgrade to Gold to become filthy-rich...

After Gold, there will be a specialized Plutonium or Uranium to get into, but only for the filthiest of the rich, to exchange riches for power. (That would be back to a "registered miner base", I am sure. If you can even join that club.)

Each level-up does and will require some losses in the leveling, sort of an unavoidable "cash-out" sacrifice to obtain the higher level, as what happens now. (You can only own so many junk-coins before you are the whole market. After that, you have to actually work to add value to your holdings. Thus, why we take the loss. It is just easier and provides more potential for competition to rise.)

Every nation needs a king... not to rule them (though they will try)... Just to have some kind of higher goal to reach. Some will want to be king, and will be... Some just want to be in the path of the kings golden dust falling off his royal ass, and will thrive above those who are just down-wind of the odor. Still, some will strive to be in that repugnant air, to catch the silver dust falling off the other guys rotten souls. Furthest from the line, is those who just pretend to not care, pride driving them to remain the servants they despise being. Living in the oxidized toxic copper dust falling from the polluted air.

Some junk-coins will be another mans treasure, while the rest will just always be junk. BTC would not thrive without them, as a dollar would not thrive without pennies and other dollars of other countries.

Crypto-coins are (as a whole), a universal value to glue and bond gaps where dollar/dollar and dollar/asset conversions would otherwise fail. They are needed as much as a dollar and credit, for "currency value" to progress into the future. Dollars alone, like all other dollars before, would just eventually fail. Like all prior governments have all failed, and these that exist now will soon too. They just don't suit us anymore. They are failing us, as the dollars that fund them have failed. Change and progress is inevitable, resistance is futile, there is no spoon!

It is not change they fear, it is the transition and loss of power that they worked so little to obtain, which scares them.

[Syke]

I mean, 70B-700B in market cap could happen in isolation

Bitcoin is not a stock. There is no "market cap".

[knightcoin]

The thing with alts, as I see it, is this...

Alts HAVE to be lower. Due only by immaturity as a "real limit".

BTC will be the Gold, LTC the Silver, and the rest like Copper...

You can only hold so much Copper, before you get dirt-rich, and have to upgrade at some point to Silver trades. Again, once you are muddy-rich in Silver, you then have to upgrade to Gold to become filthy-rich...

After Gold, there will be a specialized Plutonium or Uranium to get into, but only for the filthiest of the rich, to exchange riches for power. (That would be back to a "registered miner base", I am sure. If you can even join that club.)

I think altcoins (sha-256) could help to protect small miners investors, like myself, from hardware depreciation. It could be like smart ming ..such as get coinwarz index and automatically select the more profitable coin to mine. ( I tried to do it manually but I am suspecting about kind of manipulations, pls I am not putting a finger to anyone ) it could be also a nice index/ranking to measure the altcoins wealth adoption correlation to bitcoin as a center meter mark of the thermometer      

Each level-up does and will require some losses in the leveling, sort of an unavoidable "cash-out" sacrifice to obtain the higher level, as what happens now. (You can only own so many junk-coins before you are the whole market. After that, you have to actually work to add value to your holdings. Thus, why we take the loss. It is just easier and provides more potential for competition to rise.)

Every nation needs a king... not to rule them (though they will try)... Just to have some kind of higher goal to reach. Some will want to be king, and will be... Some just want to be in the path of the kings golden dust falling off his royal ass, and will thrive above those who are just down-wind of the odor. Still, some will strive to be in that repugnant air, to catch the silver dust falling off the other guys rotten souls. Furthest from the line, is those who just pretend to not care, pride driving them to remain the servants they despise being. Living in the oxidized toxic copper dust falling from the polluted air.

A legendary king that people even does not know/agree if its real or not ... Like King Arthur and Knights of round table .. (ps reminds me Monty Phyton but Satoshi is already enigmatic enough and definitively it's him that star ... if you think the bitcoin as a much bigger ecosystem...  

Some junk-coins will be another mans treasure, while the rest will just always be junk. BTC would not thrive without them, as a dollar would not thrive without pennies and other dollars of other countries.

Crypto-coins are (as a whole), a universal value to glue and bond gaps where dollar/dollar and dollar/asset conversions would otherwise fail. They are needed as much as a dollar and credit, for "currency value" to progress into the future. Dollars alone, like all other dollars before, would just eventually fail. Like all prior governments have all failed, and these that exist now will soon too. They just don't suit us anymore. They are failing us, as the dollars that fund them have failed. Change and progress is inevitable, resistance is futile, there is no spoon!

It is not change they fear, it is the transition and loss of power that they worked so little to obtain, which scares them.

We always have a collateral don't we ?

[Syke]

Okay. Coin market capitalization. Anyway, if you look at BTC as a temporary store of value that can be sold for more later, then that's pretty much all a stock is.

But multiplying the number of mined coins times the current price at an exchange gives a totally bogus number.

[Syke]

so does trying to value the whole company of apple by what one share of stock traded at, but people do it.

Well, in the case of a stock, each share has been purchased at least once (at the IPO) and then traded some number of times for varying amounts of cash. There was never a Bitcoin IPO. The vast majority of bitcoins have never been purchased at any price. Only a small fraction of mined coins ever make it to an exchange.