The Startup Curve

[Stephen Gornick]

Forget Gartner's Hype Cycle ... Bitcoin is following Paul Graham's Startup Curve!




An excerpt from Fred Wilson's post:

It turns out, like most success stories, the answer was simplifying the service. Taking features out. Reducing the value proposition to a clear and simple use case. This was not done in a vacuum. This was done by releasing a less than perfect product to the market, finding a few customers who wanted a less than perfect product, and then listening carefully to those customers to get to the ideal product.

 - http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/03/the-startup-curve.html

 - http://www.shirlawscoaching.co.uk/shirlawsresources/2011/8/25/article-from-paul-grahams-trough-of-sorrow-to-infinity-and-b.html

Related discussion, on Bitcoin and The Hype Cycle:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=53068.0

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[finway]

Yes, bitcoin should grow faster than Gartner's Hype Cycle

[Stephen Gornick]

Yes, bitcoin should grow faster than Gartner's Hype Cycle

Especially since, unlike a startup, bitcoin is an open source project.  It is not a small group of employees trying to forge some idea into gaining traction against the odds.  Bitcoin is a concept that has so many interesting facets and continues to gain recognition and participation from an ever-widening subset of the population.  Over a half decade ago in his book MacroWikinomics author Don Tapscott described what is happening.  Mass collaboration + openness + sharing and collaboration = rebooting of an industry.

Bitcoin is not a startup like Square, Stripe or like a PayPal even which are all just simply reducing slightly the friction of the banking system.  Bitcoin instead is in the process of rebooting the industry of money.

Here's another example showing this:

YouTube: Bitcoin GitHub History Visualized [through October 3, 2011]



 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OztVYTS_Ei8

And that is just for the bitcoin.org client.  Add in all the software developed by the exchanges, daytrading and arbitrage bot developers, e-commerce sites, etc.   Add in all the forum posts, news articles, blog entries, twitter and facebook updates, youtube videos, etc.    

Some day there will be a term that describes the model that Bitcoin is emerging as.  It isn't just mass collaboration on an open system. It isn't just a type of crowdfunding, or just some type of startup.  

It is something entirely different.  

We all know this.  We can feel it inside.

What words will help to explain what this is?

[proudhon]

Yes, bitcoin should grow faster than Gartner's Hype Cycle

Especially since, unlike a startup, bitcoin is an open source project.  It is not a small group of employees trying to forge some idea into gaining traction against the odds.  Bitcoin is a concept that has so many interesting facets and continues to gain recognition and participation from an ever-widening subset of the population.  Don Tapscott described what is happening over a half decade ago with his book MacroWikinomics.  Mass collaboration + openness + sharing and collaboration = rebooting of an industry.  Bitcoin is not a startup like Square, Stripe, PayPal which are reducing slightly the friction of the banking system -- Bitcoin is in the process of rebooting the industry of money.

Here's another example showing this:

YouTube: Bitcoin GitHub History Visualized [through October 3, 2011]



 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OztVYTS_Ei8

And that is just for the bitcoin.org client.  Add in all the software developed by the exchanges, daytrading and arbitrage bot developers, e-commerce sites, etc.   Add in all the forum posts, news articles, blog entries, twitter and facebook updates, youtube videos, etc.     

Some day there will be a term that describes the model that Bitcoin is emerging as.  It isn't just mass collaboration on an open system. It isn't just a type of crowdfunding, or just some type of startup. 

It is something entirely different. 

We all know this.  We can feel it inside.

What words will help to explain what this is?

I love that video.  Who is that first little bee we see buzzing around - sirius_m?

[hazek]

It is something entirely different.  

We all know this.  We can feel it inside.

What words will help to explain what this is?

Yep, you're right and I also have no idea what words to use to explain it It has it's downside though.. after Bitcoin every other currency project that I come across simply seems far inferior and almost comically flawed, so I'm afraid Bitcoin ruined me for a lot of other forms of money  

p.s.: love the video too! It's almost like watching a life form being assembled

[SkRRJyTC]

It is something entirely different.  

We all know this.  We can feel it inside.

What words will help to explain what this is?

I'm afraid Bitcoin ruined me for a lot of other forms of money  

It has taught me not to save green paper.  Use the green paper to buy assets.

[hazek]

I save in PMs and BTC, call them what you will but I call them money.

[Crypt_Current]

p.s.: love the video too! It's almost like watching a life form being assembled

I suspect that this is (literally) precisely what is happening.

[ElectricMucus]

the facts disagree with you OP.
What has happened happened, it can either stabilize here or get much much higher in the next months, there is no way difficulty will resemble your curve.

[Red Emerald]

the facts disagree with you OP.
What has happened happened, it can either stabilize here or get much much higher in the next months, there is no way difficulty will resemble your curve.

I don't think the OP was saying that the difficulty is going to resemble that line.  I think he was saying that adoption will.

[ElectricMucus]

the facts disagree with you OP.
What has happened happened, it can either stabilize here or get much much higher in the next months, there is no way difficulty will resemble your curve.

I don't think the OP was saying that the difficulty is going to resemble that line.  I think he was saying that adoption will.

Oh I forget to mention, I think difficulty resembles adaptation, not entirely but somewhat closely.

[Crypt_Current]

the facts disagree with you OP.
What has happened happened, it can either stabilize here or get much much higher in the next months, there is no way difficulty will resemble your curve.

I don't think the OP was saying that the difficulty is going to resemble that line.  I think he was saying that adoption will.

Oh I forget to mention, I think difficulty resembles adaptation, not entirely but somewhat closely.

Adaptation is a great movie.

[Red Emerald]

the facts disagree with you OP.
What has happened happened, it can either stabilize here or get much much higher in the next months, there is no way difficulty will resemble your curve.

I don't think the OP was saying that the difficulty is going to resemble that line.  I think he was saying that adoption will.

Oh I forget to mention, I think difficulty resembles adaptation, not entirely but somewhat closely.

I think that is only true if the majority of the people adopting are also mining.  Once Bitcoin is easier to use, I think less people will be attracted to it because of the potential profits of mining and more will be attracted because Bitcoin is actually a useful system.

[ElectricMucus]

I don't think so. My theory is while adoption grows the percentage of people new interested in mining shrinks. But it should be a monotonic function.
I also think that influx or outflux of miners is more relevant than upgrades from enduring miners. So I conclude a direct relation between adoption and difficulty.
time will tell.

I agree that bitcoins usefulness is the major factor for growth but from those coming because of it there will always be some considering mining worth the effort.

damn those microsoft spell checkers.

[cheat_2_win]

p.s.: love the video too! It's almost like watching a life form being assembled

I suspect that this is (literally) precisely what is happening.

My first reaction while watching the video was "wow! it looks like bees constructing their beehive."

[Stephen Gornick]

So I conclude a direct relation between adoption and difficulty.

Most mining is done in seeking profit.  Right now there is profit (though at a fairly small degree) for mining using off-the-shelf hardware (GPUs).  If the exchange rate (price) goes up, the amount of mining will go up as there is greater profit available.   If the price drops and mining turns unprofitable, eventually the amount of mining will drop.

This does not work the other way around.  7,200 BTC (approx) are produced every day, regardless of how much mining occurs.   So the miners are all competing for those same 7,200 BTC.  More mining does not increase the supply and thus push down the price.  And more mining (in aggregate) does not make bitcoin "more secure", at least not at these levels.

I'm not saying miners aren't an important part of Bitcoin's success -- but I am saying that bitcoin mining only needs to occur at a level sufficient to protect the value of the payment network.   And to paraphrase a term someone else used once, bitcoin is currently protected (in terms of difficulty in attaining 51% control) as if it were Fort Knox with a sniper every ten feet, except inside there are only a few bags of pennies, nickels and dimes.

As far as bitcoin adoption reflecting the startup curve ... if the exchange rate reflects the amount of faith in bitcoin, and that faith is correlated to adoption of the technology, then this can show the trend of bitcoin's adoption chart:




i.e., not that much different from Paul Graham's chart!

[Matthew N. Wright]

Stop talking about the Bitcoin Magazine. 

[old_engineer]

It is something entirely different.  

We all know this.  We can feel it inside.

What words will help to explain what this is?

Actually, Linux had a very similar development model, and it was the first truly novel open-source ecosystem (not just project).  I remember clearly when professional service companies started springing up to support Linux in the enterprise, offering 24/7 phone support and next-day on-site support; and these companies were being profitable and expanding. It was at that point that I knew Linux was going to fly.  So far, I see some consultants around Bitcoin forming, but it's still too new to support many professional consultants, nor is there any need for 24/7 support when there are almost no shopping carts that use Bitcoin.

And instead of bitcoin exchanges, Linux had different programming languages and support groups/magazines, like Perl, Perl Mongers (regional in-person groups), and the Perl Journal, respectively.  These were tangentially related to Linux and dependent upon it, very much like exchanges and Bitcoin.  I've been to an in-person Bitcoin meetup with 5 people, which is similar to the starting days of Perl.  And I hear there's a new Bitcoin magazine...

One thing that I'm happy to observe is that Bitcoin has avoided forking so far.  BIP16/17 was the first real fork test I've observed, and it appears to have been settled without someone taking their ball and going home (or to a different playing field).

[stochastic]

Yes, bitcoin should grow faster than Gartner's Hype Cycle

Here's another example showing this:

YouTube: Bitcoin GitHub History Visualized [through October 3, 2011]



 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OztVYTS_Ei8

I cried at 3:24 

[ElectricMucus]

i.e., not that much different from Paul Graham's chart!

There is a much shorter dip in the price, and no flatlining or no flatlining over a long period.
I'm not saying that couldn't happen, it might, but that would mean a much lower floor than we saw in the last months, and at least now it doesn't look that way.

The Bitcoin price could more be like the historical silver price with an extended drop for a decade with smaller and smaller rallies in-between until it finally shoots to the moon. But even that would require that we'll see new lows sooner than later, which doesn't quite look that way right now.