Topic: If Bitcoin is an experiment,... - page 2. (Read 5353 times)

I did my own thought experiement on this a few weeks ago. I envision MarsCoin, VenusCoin, JupiterCoin, KuiperCoin, etc, all traded at varying rates on a solar system wide crypto-currency exchange.

That's why we shouldn't have such a bit fucking federal government and states rights are so important. If you dont like what's going on in California, you can move to nevada (like I did).

Really? And what does this "vote"(not really a vote) mean for me as a bitcoins owner? Nothing. If I don't like what you're doing with your hashing I can sell my bitcoins the very next minute and put my wealth into another currency. I really don't see how that is possible in a democracy. In a democracy if you don't like how the majority votes, there's nothing you can do. You have to live under their rules or not live at all. Not so with Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has ZERO similarity with a democracy other than the fact that both are run by people. ZERO, period.

I think that the assumption that BTC would collapse overnight if it was to be replaced has no grounds.

It's also a plausible scenario that future competitors would be exchanged with BTC and keep stable prices for some time.

Of course there is it just happens to be 1 hash = 1 vote instead of the more common 1 person = 1 vote (or 1 white land owning citizen = 1 vote)

How the reward is divided up has nothing to do with rules and forces no one to acknowledge someone's reward if they didn't follow the rules.


You are clueless about history and how the American republic looked like right after it's inception. It had 0, yes 0 "features" of a previous system, because there was no previous system. It's the last form of government, the last algorithm that was invented from almost a completely clean slate. People were actually nut just free, but sovereign and owned what they produced. Their privacy was sacred and they could do or own virtually anything that didn't hurt someone else. A far cry from today. What they have today is a gradually corrupted government into a fascist corporatism that evolved because while what little power that the original limited government had, there still was some power to be auctioned off, and guess what, special interest bought it all up and controls it today.

The only answer moving forward is not back to the same recipe for inevitable disaster but forward with something new and even more radical. No central government with no power to be auctioned off.

Btw I bet you don't even realize that you are a slave today and what it means to be a sovereign and truly free. I'm willing to bet money on it.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

And Bitcoin, if you didn't realize this, is a tool some slaves are trying to fight back against their masters.

I think it would be more accurate to describe a democracy as proportional representation of opinions. Bitcoin is like a democracy with a minority government. The miners are simply casting votes that say "I should get all the Bitcoins!" And by a convoluted process, a ballot is drawn so that someone indeed gets all the Bitcoins roughly every 10 minutes.

Also, are you forgetting that political systems are generally shaped by history? If a so-called democracy evolves out of a monarchy, it's likely to have many features of the previous system, such as a large bureaucracy and a police force. Or, more generally: structure. What would democracy be like if it started out with no structure? Or at least a certain bare minimum that is needed to enforce the system?

I stand corrected on my terminology, yes Republic is a better word. Democracy is often used to refer to the American style of politics by laymen such as myself. This does not change the facts presented. I choose to use Democracy because Republic reminds me of George W. and the current Republican Party.

Changing the Bitcoin protocol requires a majority agreement. Your argument about using a non agreed to algorithm is a strawman. Besides, democracies always have loopholes if you want to skirt the grey areas. In America there are many forms of alternate currency in legal use.

Democracy is not the same as majority rule, though majority gets more weight, at least in America.

Finally, minarchsm and anarcho capitalism are hypotheticals. I am talking facts. If you have an example of such a successful society, please enlighten me.

Sir, please get your facts straight. Although I'm not a believer in minarchism (limited government), I actually despise democracy and think anarcho capitalism is the best way to structure a society, but I still have to correct you when you make a grave mistake like you just did.

The word democracy does not once appear in the U.S. Constitution. Not even once. That "algorithm" was suppose to create a republic, not a democracy but people didn't, as you correctly put it, give it enough constant attention, participation or guarding so through time it's interpretation by people in power changed where today they practically already scrapped the whole thing.

Another thing I have to correct you is thinking that freedom and democracy can possibly go hand in hand or be synonymous. Fact is democracy is majority rule, the direct opposite of freedom and actually actively working against it. (I cannot express how much I hate democracy.)

And finally Bitcoin has no similarity with a democracy. None. There is no majority rule. There is only the rule of the algorithm everyone voluntarily agreed upon using. Even if miners start using another algorithm, even if the majority of it's users start using a client with another algorithm, no one is forced to use it. Which is something that will get you imprisoned or killed in a democracy. (don't believe me? try calling your precious government and ask if you can renounce your citizenship without taking on another and see what happens)


I suggest you start learning the ugly truth about democracy and perhaps research the idea of a peaceful society living in spontaneous order and of which membership is voluntary but requires following a few mandatory but consistent rules if you really want freedom, peace and prosperity.

THIS. all day long. +1

American Democracy is an experiment created by an algorithm called the Constitution. It requires constant attention, participation, and minor tweaking along the way whenever someone discovers exploits. I could go on about the analogy between cryptocurrency and democracy, but the point is that I feel that Bitcoin is the key to spreading freedom and democracy everywhere. Maybe freedom based democracy is not the best form of government, but I've never heard of anything better. The same goes for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is an experiment because there was nothing like it at the time of the release. Bitcoin is all types of experiments, it is a social experiment, an economic experiment, and a technological experiment.

• Social Experiment - By introducing a new currency, and the community around the currency, people need to adopt it. Bitcoin is an experiment in this sense because people had to adopt an entirely new idea, and build an economy and community around it. I often wonder, how Bitcoin as a whole would survive without the forum. Without the forum, how would Ideas spread? Or thoughts be shared? What about speculation?
• Economic Experiment - Much like the social factors of Bitcoin, people need to adopt the Bitcoin currency. Even if one Bitcoin were worth 1Billion USD, if there were no ways to spend it, then why own any?*
• Technological Experiment - Bitcoin is obviously a technological experiment because of all of the computers, programming, and other tech associated with it. Cracking that SHA256 isn't as easy as a gpu makes it in the micronanosecond it takes.**

Yeah, my .02BTC

* - Figurative. Obviously 1 BTC wouldn't be worth a $billion if you couldn't use it.
** - Speaking in terms of a single hash.

Not at all.. There will just be realms of crypto-currencies: here on earth and there out there. And exchanges for entities to trade between, perhaps facilitated with Open Transactions and RipplePay technologies.

The question was not the probability of it "succeeding", but the probability of it accounting for 1% of txns carried out by 1% of people (weighted according to their income). This is easily calculated and the robustness of the calculation can be tested by exploring different scenarios which alter the math. If you don't believe in standard economics (which these calculations are), fine, then we won't have any language to communicate with each other in. Best just to flip the ignore button.

Now this is a powerful post!

May I suggest expanding this list to show...

1 Canadian dollar = X USD
1 Antigua and Barbuda = X USD
1 Bahamian dollar = X USD
1 Barbadian dollar = X USD

etc., doing only the "dollar" currencies. Use this link to view the rest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_circulating_currencies.

Picture this generated list on a shirt, with Bitcoin (in slightly larger font) on the bottom. Wear the shirt at all major conventions where Bitcoin could be considered a concern.

~Bruno~

call me crazy but when 1 Australian dollar = 1.0358 U.S. dollars
and 1 Bitcoin = ~$4.9 U.S. dollars

I think BTC are doing fine

Does not compute. According to Wall St accounting (sic) principles (sic), all bitcoins in existence are a liability.

Just out of curiosity how many BTC do you need to be part of the 1% of the BTC market?

Empirical data suggests that Bitcoin currently has a lower velocity than "normal" money. Economic theories about money usually assume a single currency, or at least a territorial monopoly, so you're right, their usability is limited. Good point on the gold.

I can't imagine you pulling the probability of a technology "succeeding" based on the current price of one of it's units out of your ass and at the same time anyone taking you seriously, I certainly don't.


I think it's practically impossible to quantify Bitcoin's chances of how Gavin described reaching it's success are because it depends on oh so much more than merely it's current price of a unit, market velocity or transaction volume. It's a technology after all. You can't predict how it will behave in all environments you can't predict all the breakthroughs, you can't predict all the problems, you can't predict all the sentiment changes of it's users. You just can't predict how the world using Bitcoin will look like. All you can do is guess. And when it comes to guesses, your's is as good as mine.

As far as I'm concerned people paying $5 to own a digital key that has the number 1 associated with it in a publicly shared copy of a ledger is already a huge success.