Three ways to save Bitcoin

[SgtSpike]

i asked you before and you never answered:  why do you begrudge the early adopters who put up their hard earned USD's to buy hardware, pay for electricity, spent time and effort to build and secure the blockchain from scratch, and verify tx's when Bitcoin was worthless with the only hope of getting paid off for doing so by a rising price?

I never answered because it is a pointlessly rigged question. They didn't have to buy hardware, they paid an absolute pittance in electricity, and a computer spent time and effort to build the block chain and verify tx's, not people. They're not delivering mail in a war zone in the Congo. The only one who had any claim to profit from actual work was Satoshi for coding the software. But it is open source, a type of software that millions of people work on everyday with absolutely no intent in profiting.

I've never said early adopters don't deserve a profit. I've always argued that early adopters sure as shit don't deserve to control the economy. Even if they "trickle in" coins over years, with the hordes accumulated from early adoption, one could potentially INDEFINITELY support themselves, their children, their grandchildren, their great-greatchildren, and so on without ever doing a single thing for the economy once it reached a minimum amount of stability.

Early adopters could have said that they plan on stabilizing the price, could have been completely transparent about it and taken a one-time profit (which would have been in the millions, quite a fair payment imo). But Satoshi especially went to immense lengths to remain totally anonymous and then disappeared. These are not the actions of a rational actor. These are the actions of someone who is looking to pump and dump. And probably already did. Problem is, he still has hundreds of thousands of coins to do it all over again many times.

This + 1.

It's not about having a problem with early adopters being rewarded.  It's about having a problem with a single person holding more than 0.5% of the currency.  That should never, ever happen, or the currency will be subject to the whims of that person.

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[cypherdoc]

i asked you before and you never answered:  why do you begrudge the early adopters who put up their hard earned USD's to buy hardware, pay for electricity, spent time and effort to build and secure the blockchain from scratch, and verify tx's when Bitcoin was worthless with the only hope of getting paid off for doing so by a rising price?

I never answered because it is a pointlessly rigged question. They didn't have to buy hardware, they paid an absolute pittance in electricity, and a computer spent time and effort to build the block chain and verify tx's, not people. They're not delivering mail in a war zone in the Congo. The only one who had any claim to profit from actual work was Satoshi for coding the software. But it is open source, a type of software that millions of people work on everyday with absolutely no intent in profiting.

how do u know they didn't have to buy hardware?  alot of early miners clearly did and bought lots of it.
i guess the paper shufflers on Wall St would disagree with you about not delivering value as well as they just sit behind their computers and push buttons.
those open source workers are probably speculating on Bitcoin just like the rest of us.

I've never said early adopters don't deserve a profit. I've always argued that early adopters sure as shit don't deserve to control the economy. Even if they "trickle in" coins over years, with the hordes accumulated from early adoption, one could potentially INDEFINITELY support themselves, their children, their grandchildren, their great-greatchildren, and so on without ever doing a single thing for the economy once it reached a minimum amount of stability.

i disagree that they are controlling the economy.  i'd argue that the naysayers are the ones driving down the price and thus the eonomy.  they've flooded this forum with FUD since the Spring.

Early adopters could have said that they plan on stabilizing the price, could have been completely transparent about it and taken a one-time profit (which would have been in the millions, quite a fair payment imo). But Satoshi especially went to immense lengths to remain totally anonymous and then disappeared. These are not the actions of a rational actor. These are the actions of someone who is looking to pump and dump. And probably already did. Problem is, he still has hundreds of thousands of coins to do it all over again many times.

this is just your opinion.

[justusranvier]

i'd argue that the naysayers are the ones driving down the price and thus the eonomy.  they've flooded this forum with FUD since the Spring.

The increase in the quantity of Bitcoins more quickly than an increase in the number of real goods and services being purchased with Bitcoins is responsible for the decrease in price.

[Etlase2]

how do u know they didn't have to buy hardware?  alot of early miners clearly did and bought lots of it.

No, they clearly didn't (see first 32,000 blocks and how the average time is 13 minutes which is about 4 CPUs worth, and never deviated or increased in difficulty), and even if they did, we are talking a few hundred dollars for millions in profits.

i guess the paper shufflers on Wall St would disagree with you about not delivering value as well as they just sit behind their computers and push buttons.

paper shufflers on wall st have caused the worst economic crisis since the great depression by screwing with the currency. It is the exact same power that early adopters have and will abuse.

You are obviously a bitcoin shill so there is little point in saying anything more.

[SgtSpike]

i disagree that they are controlling the economy.  i'd argue that the naysayers are the ones driving down the price and thus the eonomy.  they've flooded this forum with FUD since the Spring.

It doesn't matter whether they are currently doing so or not.  What matters is that they have the capability to do so.  You can't trust a currency when people have that kind of power over it, even if they profess to be do-gooders and haven't shown any signs of potential malicious behavior.

[Dan The Man]

i disagree that they are controlling the economy.  i'd argue that the naysayers are the ones driving down the price and thus the eonomy.  they've flooded this forum with FUD since the Spring.

It doesn't matter whether they are currently doing so or not.  What matters is that they have the capability to do so.  You can't trust a currency when people have that kind of power over it, even if they profess to be do-gooders and haven't shown any signs of potential malicious behavior.

If someone was dropping huge quantities of bitcoins to "control" the economy, they would be diluting their power pretty quickly. Basically it is better that someone dumps all of their coins now and causes the ripples in the economy when it doesn't really matter much.

[SgtSpike]

i disagree that they are controlling the economy.  i'd argue that the naysayers are the ones driving down the price and thus the eonomy.  they've flooded this forum with FUD since the Spring.

It doesn't matter whether they are currently doing so or not.  What matters is that they have the capability to do so.  You can't trust a currency when people have that kind of power over it, even if they profess to be do-gooders and haven't shown any signs of potential malicious behavior.

If someone was dropping huge quantities of bitcoins to "control" the economy, they would be diluting their power pretty quickly. Basically it is better that someone dumps all of their coins now and causes the ripples in the economy when it doesn't really matter much.

You're missing the point.

It's not about the actual act of dumping coins, it's about the threat that they could do so at any time and cause economic turmoil, that makes a currency untrustable.  I completely agree that it would be better if someone dumped all of their coins early on.  It would spread the coins so that a single person doesn't have that kind of power anymore.  But, with early adopters STILL holding on to Bitcoins, that threat is still there.  And it will be there for a long time, even if those early adopters DO move their coins, simply because we wouldn't know whether they just moved them to a set of addresses they own elsewhere, or whether they actually sold them to a variety of people.

In summary:  Dumping coins causes a currency to become unstable (with regards to its value), and the threat of dumping coins causing a currency to be untrustable.

[cypherdoc]

i disagree that they are controlling the economy.  i'd argue that the naysayers are the ones driving down the price and thus the eonomy.  they've flooded this forum with FUD since the Spring.

It doesn't matter whether they are currently doing so or not.  What matters is that they have the capability to do so.  You can't trust a currency when people have that kind of power over it, even if they profess to be do-gooders and haven't shown any signs of potential malicious behavior.

If someone was dropping huge quantities of bitcoins to "control" the economy, they would be diluting their power pretty quickly. Basically it is better that someone dumps all of their coins now and causes the ripples in the economy when it doesn't really matter much.

You're missing the point.

It's not about the actual act of dumping coins, it's about the threat that they could do so at any time and cause economic turmoil, that makes a currency untrustable.  I completely agree that it would be better if someone dumped all of their coins early on.  It would spread the coins so that a single person doesn't have that kind of power anymore.  But, with early adopters STILL holding on to Bitcoins, that threat is still there.  And it will be there for a long time, even if those early adopters DO move their coins, simply because we wouldn't know whether they just moved them to a set of addresses they own elsewhere, or whether they actually sold them to a variety of people.

In summary:  Dumping coins causes a currency to become unstable (with regards to its value), and the threat of dumping coins causing a currency to be untrustable.

its not worth worrying about large holders b/c they are just part of the market and will always be there.  there's nothing you can do about them and you have no way of predicting what they'll do.  and there will always be some of us who have more money than others.  for all you know they all might all have agreed to not ever sell a coin until the price hits $10,000. 

[SgtSpike]

i disagree that they are controlling the economy.  i'd argue that the naysayers are the ones driving down the price and thus the eonomy.  they've flooded this forum with FUD since the Spring.

It doesn't matter whether they are currently doing so or not.  What matters is that they have the capability to do so.  You can't trust a currency when people have that kind of power over it, even if they profess to be do-gooders and haven't shown any signs of potential malicious behavior.

If someone was dropping huge quantities of bitcoins to "control" the economy, they would be diluting their power pretty quickly. Basically it is better that someone dumps all of their coins now and causes the ripples in the economy when it doesn't really matter much.

You're missing the point.

It's not about the actual act of dumping coins, it's about the threat that they could do so at any time and cause economic turmoil, that makes a currency untrustable.  I completely agree that it would be better if someone dumped all of their coins early on.  It would spread the coins so that a single person doesn't have that kind of power anymore.  But, with early adopters STILL holding on to Bitcoins, that threat is still there.  And it will be there for a long time, even if those early adopters DO move their coins, simply because we wouldn't know whether they just moved them to a set of addresses they own elsewhere, or whether they actually sold them to a variety of people.

In summary:  Dumping coins causes a currency to become unstable (with regards to its value), and the threat of dumping coins causing a currency to be untrustable.

its not worth worrying about large holders b/c they are just part of the market and will always be there.  there's nothing you can do about them and you have no way of predicting what they'll do.  and there will always be some of us who have more money than others.  for all you know they all might all have agreed to not ever sell a coin until the price hits $10,000. 

Not true.  There are a variety of ways you could start a currency that avoids giving any single person more than 0.5% of the currency.

I don't mind people having a large amount of money.  The richest man in the world has what, $60B?  But that's pittance compared to the total amount of USD in circulation - $14T, or more.  $60B of $14T is 0.4%.  I don't have a problem with that.  In fact, anything less than 1% would probably be ok.

But it's when you have early adopters in the case of Bitcoin, who have upwards of 7% of the total currency, that you cannot trust the currency until that amount of wealth is redistributed.  Because having that much of the currency really truly DOES mean you wield the power to wreck the economy, just because you feel like it.

[cypherdoc]

i disagree that they are controlling the economy.  i'd argue that the naysayers are the ones driving down the price and thus the eonomy.  they've flooded this forum with FUD since the Spring.

It doesn't matter whether they are currently doing so or not.  What matters is that they have the capability to do so.  You can't trust a currency when people have that kind of power over it, even if they profess to be do-gooders and haven't shown any signs of potential malicious behavior.

If someone was dropping huge quantities of bitcoins to "control" the economy, they would be diluting their power pretty quickly. Basically it is better that someone dumps all of their coins now and causes the ripples in the economy when it doesn't really matter much.

You're missing the point.

It's not about the actual act of dumping coins, it's about the threat that they could do so at any time and cause economic turmoil, that makes a currency untrustable.  I completely agree that it would be better if someone dumped all of their coins early on.  It would spread the coins so that a single person doesn't have that kind of power anymore.  But, with early adopters STILL holding on to Bitcoins, that threat is still there.  And it will be there for a long time, even if those early adopters DO move their coins, simply because we wouldn't know whether they just moved them to a set of addresses they own elsewhere, or whether they actually sold them to a variety of people.

In summary:  Dumping coins causes a currency to become unstable (with regards to its value), and the threat of dumping coins causing a currency to be untrustable.

its not worth worrying about large holders b/c they are just part of the market and will always be there.  there's nothing you can do about them and you have no way of predicting what they'll do.  and there will always be some of us who have more money than others.  for all you know they all might all have agreed to not ever sell a coin until the price hits $10,000.  

Not true.  There are a variety of ways you could start a currency that avoids giving any single person more than 0.5% of the currency.

I don't mind people having a large amount of money.  The richest man in the world has what, $60B?  But that's pittance compared to the total amount of USD in circulation - $14T, or more.  $60B of $14T is 0.4%.  I don't have a problem with that.  In fact, anything less than 1% would probably be ok.

But it's when you have early adopters in the case of Bitcoin, who have upwards of 7% of the total currency, that you cannot trust the currency until that amount of wealth is redistributed.  Because having that much of the currency really truly DOES mean you wield the power to wreck the economy, just because you feel like it.

its not rationale for a large holder of btc's to dump them onto the market to crash the price at any pt in time unless you're the gov't or a bank who somehow got their hands on a large chunk of btc and want to destroy it.

for the early adopters however, they will slowly bleed their holdings out to minimize the impact on the price they decide to sell at.  you see this happen all the time with penny stocks where the founders have their brokers slowly sell their large stock positions to minimize a selloff before they achieve their objectives.

[SgtSpike]

i disagree that they are controlling the economy.  i'd argue that the naysayers are the ones driving down the price and thus the eonomy.  they've flooded this forum with FUD since the Spring.

It doesn't matter whether they are currently doing so or not.  What matters is that they have the capability to do so.  You can't trust a currency when people have that kind of power over it, even if they profess to be do-gooders and haven't shown any signs of potential malicious behavior.

If someone was dropping huge quantities of bitcoins to "control" the economy, they would be diluting their power pretty quickly. Basically it is better that someone dumps all of their coins now and causes the ripples in the economy when it doesn't really matter much.

You're missing the point.

It's not about the actual act of dumping coins, it's about the threat that they could do so at any time and cause economic turmoil, that makes a currency untrustable.  I completely agree that it would be better if someone dumped all of their coins early on.  It would spread the coins so that a single person doesn't have that kind of power anymore.  But, with early adopters STILL holding on to Bitcoins, that threat is still there.  And it will be there for a long time, even if those early adopters DO move their coins, simply because we wouldn't know whether they just moved them to a set of addresses they own elsewhere, or whether they actually sold them to a variety of people.

In summary:  Dumping coins causes a currency to become unstable (with regards to its value), and the threat of dumping coins causing a currency to be untrustable.

its not worth worrying about large holders b/c they are just part of the market and will always be there.  there's nothing you can do about them and you have no way of predicting what they'll do.  and there will always be some of us who have more money than others.  for all you know they all might all have agreed to not ever sell a coin until the price hits $10,000.  

Not true.  There are a variety of ways you could start a currency that avoids giving any single person more than 0.5% of the currency.

I don't mind people having a large amount of money.  The richest man in the world has what, $60B?  But that's pittance compared to the total amount of USD in circulation - $14T, or more.  $60B of $14T is 0.4%.  I don't have a problem with that.  In fact, anything less than 1% would probably be ok.

But it's when you have early adopters in the case of Bitcoin, who have upwards of 7% of the total currency, that you cannot trust the currency until that amount of wealth is redistributed.  Because having that much of the currency really truly DOES mean you wield the power to wreck the economy, just because you feel like it.

its not rationale for a large holder of btc's to dump them onto the market to crash the price at any pt in time unless you're the gov't or a bank who somehow got their hands on a large chunk of btc and want to destroy it.

for the early adopters however, they will slowly bleed their holdings out to minimize the impact on the price they decide to sell at.  you see this happen all the time with penny stocks where the founders have their brokers slowly sell their large stock positions to minimize a selloff before they achieve their objectives.

I never said a malicious person would have to be rational.  And do you really trust a person to make rational decisions 100% of the time anyway?  I certainly don't.

If you trust the people who hold on to 7% of a currency, then you have no reason for concern.  But the vast majority of the population will NOT trust people who hold such a large amount of it.  And for that reason, they will refuse to adopt it.  That is my point.  You can try to rationalize and justify the holdings of the early adopters all you want, but the bottom line is, it's TOO MUCH.  Not from a greed or envious standpoint, but from a standpoint of wanting to achieve a stable and trustable currency.

[Etlase2]

If you trust the people who hold on to 7% of a currency, then you have no reason for concern.  But the vast majority of the population will NOT trust people who hold such a large amount of it.  And for that reason, they will refuse to adopt it.  That is my point.  You can try to rationalize and justify the holdings of the early adopters all you want, but the bottom line is, it's TOO MUCH.  Not from a greed or envious standpoint, but from a standpoint of wanting to achieve a stable and trustable currency.

And the sick part of it all is that no one can even be sure IF someone holds a large portion of the economy in their back pocket, so many will join up without realizing it. What a sick, sick way to pull off potentially the greatest pyramid scheme in history.

[Dan The Man]

I don't think it would be that catastrophic. What happens when there is a major find of some commodity? Suppose Oak Island had 5% of the world's gold buried. Would it destroy gold if that were to be dug up? It would certain tank the price, but things would just balance out again like ripples in a pond.

[ElectricMucus]

I don't think it would be that catastrophic. What happens when there is a major find of some commodity? Suppose Oak Island had 5% of the world's gold buried. Would it destroy gold if that were to be dug up? It would certain tank the price, but things would just balance out again like ripples in a pond.

At first: It isn't

Second: You'd need to pay people to get that for you in the real world.

There simply isn't any equivalent, the only thing that comes somewhat close are diamonds, and I think it is clear what it is with them.
But it doesn't have to be that way with bitcoin, there are possibilities which weren't yet considered which could solve the problem, but it would have to be voluntary or at least democratic in an anarchistic sense.

[Dan The Man]

I don't think it would be that catastrophic. What happens when there is a major find of some commodity? Suppose Oak Island had 5% of the world's gold buried. Would it destroy gold if that were to be dug up? It would certain tank the price, but things would just balance out again like ripples in a pond.

At first: It isn't

Second: You'd need to pay people to get that for you in the real world.

I guess you haven't read much about Oak Island. It might have excavation costs, but they would be less than insignificant in comparison to 5% of the world's gold.

[ElectricMucus]

I don't think it would be that catastrophic. What happens when there is a major find of some commodity? Suppose Oak Island had 5% of the world's gold buried. Would it destroy gold if that were to be dug up? It would certain tank the price, but things would just balance out again like ripples in a pond.

At first: It isn't

Second: You'd need to pay people to get that for you in the real world.

I guess you haven't read much about Oak Island. It might have excavation costs, but they would be less than insignificant in comparison to 5% of the world's gold.

What?
Are you saying that there actually is more than 5% of the worlds gold on there?
All I can see are speculative theories.... unlikely to be true from the way resources are distributed in nature. Pirate treasures... right 

With bitcoin it is something different, we can see that in the blockchain and confirm it.
But as I've written: It doesn't have to be that way.... I'm not saying there should be a 'robin hood' movement, a split of the blockchain or the liking... there are other ways to archive that, and if those people are really interested in profit instead of power they would join it... there are a lot of things in 'p2p' yet to be considered...

[SgtSpike]

I don't think it would be that catastrophic. What happens when there is a major find of some commodity? Suppose Oak Island had 5% of the world's gold buried. Would it destroy gold if that were to be dug up? It would certain tank the price, but things would just balance out again like ripples in a pond.

Value changes in a commodity don't matter.

Value changes in something that is trying to be used as a currency DO matter, because it affects whether people will want to use the currency or not.  If there is a risk of the value of a currency dropping significantly in the future, without warning and at the whim of a random, unknown person, no one (except those who enjoy risk) will want to use it on a regular basis.

[Dan The Man]

I don't think it would be that catastrophic. What happens when there is a major find of some commodity? Suppose Oak Island had 5% of the world's gold buried. Would it destroy gold if that were to be dug up? It would certain tank the price, but things would just balance out again like ripples in a pond.

Value changes in a commodity don't matter.

Value changes in something that is trying to be used as a currency DO matter, because it affects whether people will want to use the currency or not.  If there is a risk of the value of a currency dropping significantly in the future, without warning and at the whim of a random, unknown person, no one (except those who enjoy risk) will want to use it on a regular basis.

Kind of like printed money, and nobody uses that.

[SgtSpike]

I don't think it would be that catastrophic. What happens when there is a major find of some commodity? Suppose Oak Island had 5% of the world's gold buried. Would it destroy gold if that were to be dug up? It would certain tank the price, but things would just balance out again like ripples in a pond.

Value changes in a commodity don't matter.

Value changes in something that is trying to be used as a currency DO matter, because it affects whether people will want to use the currency or not.  If there is a risk of the value of a currency dropping significantly in the future, without warning and at the whim of a random, unknown person, no one (except those who enjoy risk) will want to use it on a regular basis.

Kind of like printed money, and nobody uses that.

They don't print an additional 7% of the entire money supply in a day.  Otherwise, yes, that would cause havoc too.

[Dan The Man]

I don't think it would be that catastrophic. What happens when there is a major find of some commodity? Suppose Oak Island had 5% of the world's gold buried. Would it destroy gold if that were to be dug up? It would certain tank the price, but things would just balance out again like ripples in a pond.

Value changes in a commodity don't matter.

Value changes in something that is trying to be used as a currency DO matter, because it affects whether people will want to use the currency or not.  If there is a risk of the value of a currency dropping significantly in the future, without warning and at the whim of a random, unknown person, no one (except those who enjoy risk) will want to use it on a regular basis.

Kind of like printed money, and nobody uses that.

They don't print an additional 7% of the entire money supply in a day.  Otherwise, yes, that would cause havoc too.

In some situations it has happened at much faster rates than that. But a day, a year, two years. Either way the value of your currency is fluxuating. What does the time scale matter? There is someone with an infinite reserve of cash that is slowly dumping it into the market. Basically if the money supply is controlled, it's like we are all playing with a tiny fraction of the total money and at any given time it COULD be flooded with as much new money as can be desired..