"I don't want to make early adopters rich"

[CurbsideProphet]

You don't only need early adopters for such statement, you need early adopters who cared at all about they wallets through all of this time. Some people might have mine a lot of bitcoins in 2009 for fun and forget about them .

I guarantee this is the case.  While 21 million will be mined, I'm sure a lot of those early coins are gone due to loss of the private key.  How much we'll never know but I think it's more than people realize.

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[Ix]

The problem is that there are many things in life that are unfair.  You know that picture of your pretty little girlfriend that you've been proudly posting around the forum?  A lot of other women would feel it is unfair that she was born so beautiful.  Maybe we should "do something" about this too?  

Why does bitcoin exist? Don't most people argue it is a response to the "unfairness" of the fiat monetary system? The gist generally being that banks and special political interests are provided with an unfair amount of control via mechanisms that cause inflation. If I feel like arguing why fiat is fine, can I borrow your pretty girlfriend argument to make my case as to why it shouldn't bother you? I work for a multibillion dollar banking firm and it all looks fine from my perspective.

[Peter R]

Why does bitcoin exist? Don't most people argue it is a response to the "unfairness" of the fiat monetary system?

Bitcoin exists because it is a powerful and useful new technology.  It enables users to store, transport and exchange wealth with other users across the world without the assistance of a third-party or the permission of an authority.  

Fair/unfair/libertarian/statist/smart/dumb/get-rich-quick/ponzi-scam are labels that people project onto the technology to rationalize their "feelings."  

The gist generally being that banks and special political interests are provided with an unfair amount of control via mechanisms that cause inflation. If I feel like arguing why fiat is fine, can I borrow your pretty girlfriend argument to make my case as to why it shouldn't bother you? I work for a multibillion dollar banking firm and it all looks fine from my perspective.

Yes, that could be their attitude.  

[Ix]

without the assistance of a third-party or the permission of an authority.

Well, while technically true, the reality is that you (the average joe) will need that assistance and implicit permission because bitcoin doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it is going to be heavily linked to fiat for some time to come.

Fair/unfair/libertarian/statist/smart/dumb/get-rich-quick/ponzi-scam are labels that people project onto the technology to rationalize their "feelings."

Well, then I think you're going to have to do a better job explaining how the potential investor should accept it if you want to convince people to utilize the "store of wealth" aspect of bitcoin, because it does not come no strings attached. "Deal with it" isn't very convincing.

[rpietila]

I used to be a bit envious of the "early adopters."  Having heard about BTC when it was only around $5 a coin it was frustrating to buy in a small amount at $50.  Of course it then shot up within weeks and I purchased the bulk of the coins I have at over $100 thinking "if only I had bought sooner."  But it is interesting how once I understood that in a way I am still investing very early, and many of the so called "early adopters" have already sold some of their shares, it really is more about how long I decide to hold and when I decide to sell, more than how many coins I actually have.  This is why everyone that has any belief that Bictcoin could actually grow to any greater level of adoption should just invest what they can afford to lose, and hold as long as they decide.  It isn't so much a matter of "how much" it is mostly about just joining in and enjoying the "ride" so to speak. 

As a wealth/portfolio manager, you have every week your chance to allocate assets however you wish. It is irrelevant whether your wealth is in the past generated by holding bitcoins or something else. Today you make decisions for the future, and holding bitcoins is a decision against selling them.

The whole "early adopters" thing is a generalization, which has its uses for classifying people. But it is nothing that they have miraculously been given unfair gains. Rather an early adopter is a person who has for hundreds of days decided to not sell, despite the opportunity to diversify and in this sense "make huge profits".

[LiteCoinGuy]

risk was very high at the beginning of btc and in the end the early adopters won. if you bought gold in the year 2000, you won. if you bought google, MS, apple etc some years ago, you won.

[rpietila]

To add to my previous post, there is no lock-in with Bitcoin. If you buy today, you can sell tomorrow. The early buyers did not buy a lottery ticket that won. They accumulated assets that they could have sold any day 24/7 for the going price, so the decision was not a one-off type the least.

Today, I made a decision to not buy bitcoin with all my non-bitcoin assets (significant). This makes me an early anti-adopter, as well as all my peers who could have bought today but did not

(In most cases, I can't understand people who have a portfolio but disregard Bitcoin and not invest even 1% into it. That would be a maximum 1% loss and a potential 10-bagger in 3-5 years, something that should appeal to rational people.)

[Tzupy]

To add to my previous post, there is no lock-in with Bitcoin. If you buy today, you can sell tomorrow. The early buyers did not buy a lottery ticket that won. They accumulated assets that they could have sold any day 24/7 for the going price, so the decision was not a one-off type the least.

Today, I made a decision to not buy bitcoin with all my non-bitcoin assets (significant). This makes me an early anti-adopter, as well as all my peers who could have bought today but did not

(In most cases, I can't understand people who have a portfolio but disregard Bitcoin and not invest even 1% into it. That would be a maximum 1% loss and a potential 10-bagger in 3-5 years, something that should appeal to rational people.)

Such hypocrisy... For the noobs who don't know, rpietila IS an early adopter.
His claim that because he chose not to buy today, somehow makes him an 'early anti-adopter' is bullshit.
He knows that in today's bear market there is little profit to make, but risks are high, so he (and his buddies) simply don't buy today.

[Luno]

You don't know for years if you are an early adopter! You just spend money on hardware or buying bitcoins while your wife and friends think you are nutters, then one day they stoped laughing!

I mined on average 1 Bitcoin a day worth 5$ spending slightly more on power feeling like a looser constantly.

[Asrael999]

To add to my previous post, there is no lock-in with Bitcoin. If you buy today, you can sell tomorrow. The early buyers did not buy a lottery ticket that won. They accumulated assets that they could have sold any day 24/7 for the going price, so the decision was not a one-off type the least.

Today, I made a decision to not buy bitcoin with all my non-bitcoin assets (significant). This makes me an early anti-adopter, as well as all my peers who could have bought today but did not

(In most cases, I can't understand people who have a portfolio but disregard Bitcoin and not invest even 1% into it. That would be a maximum 1% loss and a potential 10-bagger in 3-5 years, something that should appeal to rational people.)

+1   Why it would hurt anyone to put 1-2% of their retirement planning into bitcoin, or even all their savings is beyond me. Worst case your net worth declines a small amount. Best case, you end up 50+% in bitcoin and then sell some to balance out your asset allocation. If you end up 98% in Bitcoin fantastic, but I would then sell some to diversify your risk.

[RAJSALLIN]

To add to my previous post, there is no lock-in with Bitcoin. If you buy today, you can sell tomorrow. The early buyers did not buy a lottery ticket that won. They accumulated assets that they could have sold any day 24/7 for the going price, so the decision was not a one-off type the least.

Today, I made a decision to not buy bitcoin with all my non-bitcoin assets (significant). This makes me an early anti-adopter, as well as all my peers who could have bought today but did not

(In most cases, I can't understand people who have a portfolio but disregard Bitcoin and not invest even 1% into it. That would be a maximum 1% loss and a potential 10-bagger in 3-5 years, something that should appeal to rational people.)

A potential 10-bagger in 3-5 years? I think the potential is bigger than that and also a shorter time frame

[rpietila]

To add to my previous post, there is no lock-in with Bitcoin. If you buy today, you can sell tomorrow. The early buyers did not buy a lottery ticket that won. They accumulated assets that they could have sold any day 24/7 for the going price, so the decision was not a one-off type the least.

Today, I made a decision to not buy bitcoin with all my non-bitcoin assets (significant). This makes me an early anti-adopter, as well as all my peers who could have bought today but did not

(In most cases, I can't understand people who have a portfolio but disregard Bitcoin and not invest even 1% into it. That would be a maximum 1% loss and a potential 10-bagger in 3-5 years, something that should appeal to rational people.)

A potential 10-bagger in 3-5 years? I think the potential is bigger than that and also a shorter time frame

I mean your total portfolio can at most go down 1%, at most go up 900% (equals a 10-bagger)

[Revolution]

True enough

Smart folks get this, but a lot of vestigial fear of being manipulated

To be honest, its more of the fear of what is really going on, since a few people are playing around with the worth of crypto and it is so volatile.

[BitOnyx]

It is just basic laws of economics . Early expenses are not similar to late ones. Sow hats such big deal any way?!

[tonto]

You don't only need early adopters for such statement, you need early adopters who cared at all about they wallets through all of this time. Some people might have mine a lot of bitcoins in 2009 for fun and forget about them .

I guarantee this is the case.  While 21 million will be mined, I'm sure a lot of those early coins are gone due to loss of the private key.  How much we'll never know but I think it's more than people realize.

This happened to me with name coin (which, btw, is an awesome idea and complement to bitcoin).  I had a miner doing name coin for the web value, and at some point I stopped mining.  I kind of forgot all about it.  Fast forward where I realized name coin was trading over a dollar (I forget what it is now, like 2 and half or something?) and I realize "oh shit I never backed up my name coin folder".  500 name coins gone, *poof* vanished.  Oh there're out there I s'pose, out there in the nether, but it's 500 i'll never be able to use *sigh* 

[OROBTC]

...

I am late to this thread, but I do not have any problem with early adopters getting rich!  They took the chances, hey, why should they NOT reap some rewards?

As long as I get rich too, bully for them!

[BitChick]

I used to be a bit envious of the "early adopters."  Having heard about BTC when it was only around $5 a coin it was frustrating to buy in a small amount at $50.  Of course it then shot up within weeks and I purchased the bulk of the coins I have at over $100 thinking "if only I had bought sooner."  But it is interesting how once I understood that in a way I am still investing very early, and many of the so called "early adopters" have already sold some of their shares, it really is more about how long I decide to hold and when I decide to sell, more than how many coins I actually have.  This is why everyone that has any belief that Bictcoin could actually grow to any greater level of adoption should just invest what they can afford to lose, and hold as long as they decide.  It isn't so much a matter of "how much" it is mostly about just joining in and enjoying the "ride" so to speak. 

As a wealth/portfolio manager, you have every week your chance to allocate assets however you wish. It is irrelevant whether your wealth is in the past generated by holding bitcoins or something else. Today you make decisions for the future, and holding bitcoins is a decision against selling them.

The whole "early adopters" thing is a generalization, which has its uses for classifying people. But it is nothing that they have miraculously been given unfair gains. Rather an early adopter is a person who has for hundreds of days decided to not sell, despite the opportunity to diversify and in this sense "make huge profits".

I think the harder decision now is deciding when to sell!  BitchicksHusband and I have debated this a bit.  I am more of a long-term holder (why not wait until the coins are worth $100,000 each ) but he is very sold on your SSS plan, Rpietila.  I cannot argue with the logic and at some point it will be good to actually realize some of the gains.  We did not take advantage of the spike in price last time.  It has to be an "unemotional" response that is calculated out ahead of time.  As a female I have a very hard time not being "emotional" about anything though.   But hubby is planning on taking out 10% when we start hitting some new ATH.  At that point we can perhaps take advantage of dips if and when they come as well and build up our portfolio a little by using the volatility to our advantage. We will have nothing to lose if we are already planning on selling coins systematically.

[greenlion]

Envy is generally a disgusting emotion that pushes people to entertain all manner of irrational ideas in order to justify the insidious cognitive bias that if someone else does well they were just lucky, if someone else does poorly they were stupid, if you do well you were a genius, and if you do poorly you were just unlucky.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

The forum is slow today, so I thought I'd share a thought that hit me yesterday.  

"I don't want to make early adopters rich."

I've heard this said in person and I've read it in reader comments on MSM articles.  But is doesn't actually make sense.  The benefit to early adopters moving forward in time is exactly the same as to adopters who choose to buy today.  Early adopters may already be rich, but if that's true then it's already happened.  As of right now, it is just as risky to continue to hold, as it is to choose to buy.  

Consider this:  Alice and Bob each have $1,000,000 in financial assets.  Alice is an early adopter of bitcoin and holds half her wealth in BTC.  Bob just learned about bitcoin today, and holds 100% of his wealth in US treasuries and stocks.  The risk Bob takes by moving $500,00 into BTC simply puts him at the same risk level as Alice moving forward in time.  The fact that Alice's bitcoins performed well in the past has no bearing on portfolio allocation moving forward.  Alice choosing to continue to hold $500,000 in bitcoin is just as risky as Bob deciding to buy $500,000 of BTC.  

The public cannot make early adopters un-rich by not investing in bitcoin.  And by investing in bitcoin, the public makes early and current investors rich to the exact same degree from this point in time moving forward.

This logic does not make any sense.

People should be rewarded for taking risks. The early adopters took on a lot of risk when they used/mined bitcoin in it's early days. As of 2010 or 2011 the chances that bitcoin would catch on to the level that it is at now were slim to none.

They should be rewarded by this.

If you are referring to the MSM as in the liberal media then I would expect an article to say exactly what you said.

[PolarPoint]

Can't people accept those who mined the earliest bitcoin are already rich and there is nothing we can do. Think what bitcoin could do in a few years and WE are early adopters NOW. Stop complaining and do what you think is best for you now, whichever you views are.