Topic: 75% of bitcoin mined? - page 2. (Read 1180 times)

No, it's not unfair. That's socialist nonsense and it is not a problem for the general acceptance of Bitcoin as a currency. For the early adopters of Bitcoin there was no assurance that Bitcoin would ever succeed and grow to the economic proportions it has today. So in the early days, investing in Bitcoin involved higher risks than today. The first adopters of Bitcoin were smart people that were at the right place at the right time. Only because of their initial involvement in Bitcoin and their willingness to take risks, Bitcoin could grow to what it is today. So every single Satoshi these early adopters hold is well deserved.

In fact Bitcoin is much less monopolized than traditional fiat currency. Also the deflationary effects of Bitcoin are not promoting monopolization like inflationary fiat currency does. That's because even poorer people can easily maintain the buying power of their savings by just holding BTC. In addition, Bitcoin makes international trade easier for everybody, especially for small businesses in developing countries. So in fact, Bitcoin is a highly attractive currency, even if (almost) all coins are mined. It might even become more attractive as generation of new coins diminishes, because real deflation of monetary supply may set in (coins getting lost due to usage errors).

ya.ya.yo!

It is a open market ole chap, anyone with money is free to buy as much bitcoin as he or she desires. Everyone has a price, so there will always be someone willing to sell at a specific price. New coins are being mined every day, so there is a injection of new coins into the system, daily.

The early adopters might have a slight advantage, but that is just reward for their bravery and insight when nobody else saw potential in the technology. ^smile^

Once all the coins are created, miners make money by verifying transactions and updating the blockchain?
(Im a little confused as to what role miners have at that point and how confirming transactions works.)

Yes your opinion on the matter is exactly what i had in mind. Maybe the author doesnt really understand how the market works. In understanding bitcoin it is necessary not to focus only on mining but on the market, on the demand and supply and the market price trend. But as you said, the author has nothing to fear since bitcoin users grow more and more everyday even it has millions in circulation if it will be out it will still be distributed to potential buyers and users.

All things you have mentioned seem true however the early holders never gonna keep holding all bitcoin they have till all bitcoin get mined for sure other than satoshi, as till now satoshi haven't moved any of his coins. So i don't think there will be fear of market monopoly untill satoshi starts to move his millions of coins (which i don't think will happen ever).

You can see some nice stats at http://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com/
Some numbers of interest:
Total Bitcoins in circulation:   15,938,525
Total Bitcoins to ever be produced:   21,000,000
Percentage of total Bitcoins mined:   75.90%
Total Bitcoins left to mine:   5,061,475

Now the miners are paid from transaction fees and from "block reward".
The block reward decreases over time (it's called halving, see the link from the previous post) and it will become 0 at some point.
From then the miners will have to rely only on the fees.

Just:
* there's a lot of time until the block reward will become 0, nothing to worry about yet.
* Miners have to pay for their tools (ROI) and electricity, so they'll sell Bitcoin; it's not really such a monopoly. You can buy whenever you want / afford. Just beware, some still call Bitcoin a risky investment because of the high volatility.


(Sorry Foxpup if some things you wrote are here too, I've seen your post only now, when I finished mine and I'm a bit lazy on editing/reformulating)

It means what it sounds like. Of the 21 million bitcoins that will eventually be mined, nearly 16 million already have.

There is only so much of any currency in circulation. Dollars, gold, seashells, you name it, there's only a limited amount to go around. A currency can't function unless there's only a limited amount of it; if there's unlimited money for everyone, what incentive does anyone have to work or sell things?

Early adopters of a currency take the risk that it might never be widely accepted and the currency will become worthless. This risk must be taken into account when considering any advantage earlier adopters may have. It is not clear to me what you mean by "an alternate monopoly"; everyone who holds currency does so with the intention of eventually spending it, at which point the currency will flow into the hands of other people (specifically, people who provide goods or services worth paying the money for).

The block reward halves roughly every 4 years (actually it halves after x blocks, just can't remember the exact number):
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply

At one point, the reward will go from 1 satoshi to 0 satoshi's, and every bitcoin will be mined. This will not stop miners from mining blocks for the fees tough, so the network probably will not stop once the block reward goes to 0.

This isn't a real problem, since bitcoin can be divided into smaller parts if needed, so even if the complete population would use BTC, it would still be usable. In this fictive example, there will be problems with the size of the blocks tough, so thing like the lightning network will be necessary if this would ever happen.

Is it unfair for the late adopters? Well, that's an open discussion... Most people could have started mining in the beginning, or bought BTC when the price was low, but most people didn't (myself included). You can call this unfair, but in reality, maybe it's not that unfair, since nothing was hidden or premined....

What does this even mean? If there is only so much BTC in circulation how can it grow to become a widely accepted currency? wouldn't this give an unfair advantage to holders like us, and causes an alternate monopoly which eventually will fail the objective of becoming a widely accepted currency?