The following two "Vision" posts are why I'm invested in KARM for the long haul ..
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Post #677
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Thank you for your good suggestions.
Yes, 4 weeks is very ambitious, generally-speaking. I suppose even 3 months would be ambitious for such a project, for most teams.
For PoS we have not finalized our decision at this time but are waiting to see the effects of PoC and also considering the parameters and implementation of PoS carefully. Such a transition as ours to PoS has not been done before (to our knowledge) so we want to be sure to maximize its success (i.e., not fu$# it up).
We're not just considering the next couple of months for Karma, but far beyond. This isn't some coin that you day trade and dump when it gets as high as Snoop Lion. We imagine a day when Karma is used in all kinds of situations. That is what cryptocurrencies are meant to be: alternative currencies. So instead of just doing something for short-term benefit we are also thinking long-term. We must balance long-term requirements (if we are to be a true alternative currency) with short-term needs (number of coins). We don't want to get to a point where our market cap is $225 million and we need to change the parameters again because we don't have
enough coins to make for a healthy economy.
If even 1 of our projects over the next 3-5 years is successful, those 60+ billion coins will dry up really fast. Think about it. Most big investors will not even consider investing in a cryptocurrency. But a legal entity tied to a cryptocurrency that works like a startup incubator? These are firms that think nothing of throwing $25 million at companies that make colorful web buttons. And our market cap now is far less than $1 million. Once we are known as a sound investment that offers a lifetime of passive income, you'll never look at Karma the same way again.
Imagine the public had a chance to buy shares of YCombinator, the company that funded Reddit, Scribd, Xobni, Omgpop, Dropbox, Disqus, Heroku, Airbnb, Hipmunk, Rap Genius, Coinbase, and many more. This is not a big company. It's basically 1 guy (Paul Graham) and a team dedicated to doing awesome stuff. Take a look at some of those names to realize that more than one is worth over $1 billion now. When those founders first came in YCombinator's door those projects were nothing.
Now imagine there was a YCombi
coin that anyone could buy into to be an owner of YCombinator. Not just venture capital firms and accredited investors, but any member of the public in any country around the world can own a piece of this awesome company by buying just $1 worth of YCombicoin. How many millions of people would want to buy just $1? Or spring for $100, or even $1,000? And then China gets wind of what we're up to? That's a whole lot of new wallets, and a tremendous opportunity for Karma to be used in a ton of places around the world. And then all these people realized that they can own YCombinator
for the rest of their lives, and will benefit from any profits and sales. What kind of market cap do you think YCombicoin would have? We're talking tens of billions, not tens of millions. Bitcoin would not offer much in comparison. Resources would shift from Bitcoin to YCombicoin.
And then YCombicoin also had a plan to be used as an alternative currency, marketed to transactions of the Good economy (tipping, sharing, microloans, donations, microtransactions, etc). So now everyone wants to trade in YCombicoin because they realize how valuable it could be. At any moment YCombinator could come out with another Airbnb. "Dammit, I better start accepting YCombicoin in my shop!"
So now you have a triple whammy: 1) everyone wants YCombicoin, and can buy lots of coins for just $1; 2) lots of new people use the YCombicoin wallet, further expanding the economy; 3) the higher it goes up the more their stash of 8 billion coins is worth, allowing them to hire full-time developers and make lots more things that will increase the value of YCombicoin
So now millions+ of people around the world are scrambling for 92 billion coins, several billion of which don't exist yet. I personally know a couple of people who would love to snap up more coins than you can imagine once the search engine shows some momentum, or even Hireplex or Wespond, or something else that we're working on. And Karma is still relatively unheard of, and an unknown in the tech world. Imagine if there's just 1 small mention of us in Wired or the WSJ? We have not begun to realize our value in the marketplace right now, and that is a very good thing for investors and their returns.
With Karmashares, people will not
want to sell Karma. But we still have to be sure there are enough coins to go around. That's what we're thinking about now.
All of a sudden the number of available coins isn't in the billions anymore. And people that were talking about dumping when we hit 10 or 20 satoshi re-think the situation and realize this isn't your average coin. "Maybe holding onto this coin is a better idea." times a thousand. All it takes is for 10-15% of the actors in the marketplace to snap up shares for the price to really spike, causing a stampede.
But we also want to make for a good economy. This means having more than enough coins for everyone. So while 92 billion possible coins may look like a lot now, it isn't as much as you think with such a low market cap. Again, Karma is not like any other coin out there.
For example, when our search engine is released our market cap will likely be under $400,000. A few hundred thousand for any search engine that has a community behind it is an absolute steal in an industry where just 1% of the market is worth a cool $1,000,000,000. Smart investors will realize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And then sell walls will be eaten up left and right, because even at a $5MM market cap it would
still be tremendously undervalued.
If there are any economists in the audience who would like to run models of various scenarios please speak up
But anything a coin does in regards to changing their parameters is just guesswork. For example, thousands of people invested in Mintcoin thinking that the price will go up after the minting period begins. It was "obvious" that the economy would increase to probably 99% of Mintcoin enthusiasts. We don't wish to make such assumptions. Especially when the success of the first few weeks of Karmashares has changed the nature of the game.
There was more than one person who thought that we'd never make it above 1 satoshi again once we dropped into the abyss of single-digit litoshis. "It's never been done before. Karmacoin is dead!"
We are not your average coin.
We are re-writing the rules of the game, and going where no coin has gone before. We're like the USS Starship Enterprise trekking to a new galaxy. We can move quickly because we're so damn excited to get there and reap the rewards or we can ensure our continued survival by moving carefully into this strange new unchartered territory. With a good crew like Jean-Luc, Number 1, Data, commander Warfwarf, and others also making observations and careful considerations you guys can be sure you've picked the right ship and we're less likely to crash into some invisible force field that we didn't see coming because we're the first ones there.
Go Karma!
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Post #1313
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A good currency will be backed by something of value. The USD used to be backed by gold. Now it's backed by a promise from the US government and the fact that it's the de facto world currency. Its value now comes from the government's ability to enforce the dollar standard through diplomacy and military might, and confidence in the present and future economy.
Bitcoin is backed by confidence in its blockchain and the promise of a brighter future because it's the leader in the industry. In this way it mirrors the USD and has a "military" made up by the investors, developers, and companies supporting it.
The great majority of cryptocoins are not backed by anything. They rise in value from irrational exuberance in the marketplace.
Karma is unlike all other coins in that it is backed by something of value. "Karmashares" is our gold mine. There is no limit to the amount of value in this mine. The only limit is our imagination and our willingness to venture inside and discover the value. (It could be argued that NXT, NEM, and other similar coins are backed by the commodities/equities on their asset exchanges. However, the legality of such coins is questionable. Further, Karmashares will own all of its assets outright.)
But let's put it in context of US history.
The American Revolution and Karma's Place in History
Cryptocurrency is like the US economy before the US Constitution. We were first dependent on Bitcoin (the British) and their monetary instruments. The American Revolution changed that, but worthless paper money was still being used in the colonies.
Each colony is like a coin and prints their own money. The time now is like the birth of the US Constitution, with Karma. We are establishing standards and setting guidelines. Other coins do not care about such things because they do not plan for a real future. The future might and power of the new "United States of America" wasn't obvious then and it isn't obvious now. The founding fathers had foresight.
But what Karmashares is doing is "bringing the colonies together" in a different way. The model that we are building will facilitate exponential growth and expansion of Karma once we have some momentum.
There is a war going on now in the industry, whether or not it is called such. The war is Bitcoin vs. all other coins. We started out peaceably, as any new pilgrims do. But once the vast resources, wealth, and opportunity of this new industry are realized colonies (coins) began to declare independence from the motherland.
Regulation, consolidation, and surrender (and death) of coins is coming in 2014 and 2015. It is already starting to happen. Casualties abound. And colored coins, merged mining, contracts, and other inventions will swallow up remaining altcoins like there's no tomorrow. Few coins will survive this. I'm not saying these are bad things. Innovation is good. But what side of innovation will you be on? Will your next coin be a colored coin inside of Bitcoin (the British)? A contract inside of Ethereum (the French)? Perhaps you'll just be an asset on the exchange of another coin (stateless Welsh or Sikh). Maybe you'll survive by giving up your power and merging your mining with someone stronger (an alliance) or sacrifice your independence for security (colonization).
Karma is adding value to its coin through Karmashares in order to be at the forefront of these changes. The coin landscape is not obvious now, but it will be. When billions are pouring into Bitcoin via the new equities on US markets (possibly followed by other markets such as China, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc) it will become very obvious that cryptocurrency is going mainstream.
Once Karmashares takes off the devs of other coins will flock to us from their worthless coins and want to do iPOCOs of their own. Then you will see the true power of Karma backed by the value that Karmashares has built up over the months.
So, in my opinion, the only coins that will survive are the British (Bitcoin) and the United States of America (Karma). There will be other coins under the influence of both, but with our model we can actually become much stronger and more valuable than Bitcoin.
We are the only non-Bitcoin coin laying the foundation for our survival. It will be more obvious as time goes on, but only the foolish would be loading up on "colonial scripts" right now.
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This trip is just getting started ..
Thanks to all members of team KARMA ..
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Triff ..
