Forbes: "$10: One Perspective On What Bitcoin Will Be Worth In 2014"

[jballs]

Well there is early adopting and its rewards, and there is meritocracy. I don't know that being tech savvy enough to conjur up crypto currency is the same talent as controlling a financial system. Viz Mt Gox and all the prowess demonstrated there. The world can't be run like that and really the point of Bitcoin was decentralized.

I don't know, that's what sold me on Vertcoin. Only 19 people with more than 10,000 coins and top holder has 50k, and that will probably not get much more skewed than that as the price is already prohibitive and likely to get more so. They can cohabitate obviously and serve different functions but I would rather have a truly decentralized option on the table.

  

Lolwot. How can you be so certain about the distribution of Vertcoins

This

http://graph.vertcoin.org/balance_count.json

Updates every 2 hours. Granted there may be multiple wallet holders but its not much more than that as they have only existed for less than a month and no premine, and no couple years when a couple dozen guys were the only ones who knew it existed. You can see it is fairly concentrated in VTC same as bitcoin except there are only about 1. 5 million of 84 million so those percentages will drop to nil in a few months, the way bitcoin would have been had it been properly distributed from the get go.

I love bitcoin, I am really glad they have a toehold on mainstream breakthrough. But I do worry they will get choked by the powers that be and the best deterrent for that is good forks and truly distributed alternatives. If nothing else to make the point that they aren't going to kill it. Russia et al will have to come around because we are going this way with or without them and that is all there is to it.

So in other words you're not certain about the distribution of Vertcoin. Stop spreading untruths as fact. Thanks.

The distribution (factual) is right there in the link. I don't know who has how many wallets but since less than 2% of the coins have been mined there is basically no way it can centralize from here. I think the reality is setting in that bitcoin is a breakthrough, but it is by design neither novel nor irreproducible. So it doesn't make all that much sense to be paying 800 no 700 dollars each for them.

I guess it makes sense. The idea of bitcoin wasn't to make 50 people rich.

[solid12345]

No, it does not. They earned them.

So did all the powerful banking families earn their power, wealth, and influence.

That stuff doesn't grow on trees you know. Takes a certain level of guile, intelligence, determination, fearlessness in the face of vast risktaking over several generations at that.

I disagree, early bitcoin adopters were in large part not risk takers but just lucky or had good foresight. I think the average user now who is willing to drop a few grand on just 3-5 bitcoins hoping to strike it rich has much more nerves of steel than the college kids who hoarded hundreds or thousand for pennies 3-4 years ago and just happened to hold onto them.

[Cluster2k]

I guess it makes sense. The idea of bitcoin wasn't to make 50 people rich.

Until 'Satoshi Nakamoto' reveals his or her true identity we don't know that.

[windjc]

Article from January, but I think it's worth sharing.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthasharf/2014/01/15/10-one-perspective-on-what-bitcoin-will-be-worth-in-2014/

It has become more and more obvious that Mark Williams is using Bitcoin to make money. Not by buying BTC, but by capitalizing of the fear of the unknown and controversy. And it has worked. He has gotten himself speaking gigs, appeared on TV in front of the world at the NY regulatory hearings. He is becoming an anti-bitcoin celebrity.

But if you listen to some of his very last comments at the NY regulatory meetings, he literally conceded that bitcoin has a lot to offer and simply needs more professional guidance and that it was his hope that it would get that guidance. GASP!

Mark doesn't hate bitcoin as much as he wants you to think he does. He is just looking for some fame and fortune.

[jballs]

I guess it makes sense. The idea of bitcoin wasn't to make 50 people rich.

Until 'Satoshi Nakamoto' reveals his or her true identity we don't know that.

True. I believe that was not the purpose. Having felt a certain sense of dissatisfaction at the time, my interpretation of the message about the bailouts embedded in the first block was i was the first step towards decentralizing the monetary authority and leveling the playing field. I think it is safe to assume he/they had no idea what would become of it. I would like to see multiple channels evolve from bitcoin though or it will cease to live up to most of its potential.

[DeathAndTaxes]

The distribution (factual) is right there in the link. I don't know who has how many wallets but since less than 2% of the coins have been mined there is basically no way it can centralize from here. I think the reality is setting in that bitcoin is a breakthrough, but it is by design neither novel nor irreproducible. So it doesn't make all that much sense to be paying 800 no 700 dollars each for them.

I guess it makes sense. The idea of bitcoin wasn't to make 50 people rich.

Why do you assume 1 address = 1 person.

MtGox cold storage address likely holds the coins for tens of thousands of users but in your "math" it is all owned by one person.  The same would apply to every major exchange, eWallet, and bitcoin related business.

Likewise under similar math you would say 80% (or some asinine number) of all the dollars in the world are personally owned by four people named Chase, BofA, Wells Fargo, and Citibank.

[billyjoeallen]

What Professor Bitcorn fails to see is that cartels don't work in a free market.  These 47 whales who supposedly coordinated to drive prices higher had more reasons to mistrust each other than any other cartel in history. Even OPEC can't keep oil prices high. The reason is that the higher the price goes, the greater incentive to defect.

It's a variation of the Prisoner's dilemma in game theory. Always screw the other guy if you can and your incentives are purely selfish.