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Topic: Solution to The Bitcoin Foundation (the announcement) - page 2. (Read 5137 times)

hero member
Activity: 496
Merit: 500
acoindr is spot on.

His mission is not to convince anybody to follow his way, but simply to show people the way things will play out.
Bitcoin is much bigger than a single crypto-currency. It is a hyper-dimensional concept which intersects with our 3D reality in a variety of ways. Intersections may appear as separate objects in space and time, but they really are just parts of a bigger more complex idea.

Imagine how fingers on your 3D hand would intersect with 2D plane - a bunch of independent circles here and there.
Similar thing happens when our plane of existence gets Bitcoin treatment. Instead of arguing about which finger is "the finger" I would say that we would need all those fingers when doing such a delicate and complex job as liberating humanity from oppressive grip of fiat.

Now from the market dynamics point of view the timing of events is so interesting that it hints at an intelligent design rather than being a mere coincidence. While Bitcoin Foundation is filling the vacuum in its own niche, a new vacuum forms in the mining business. As Bitcoin shifts to a specialized ASIC hardware, the general purpose hardware (CPUs and GPUs) become available for the next contender. This vacuum will be filled with a second most valued crypto-currency with independent hash algo, which is Litecoin.

This cycle would likely to continue as Litecoin shifts to ASIC mining at some point in the future until the market somewhat saturates with different coins filling all the necessary vacuums. The point of this thread is not to influence this process, but to point out the direction where to watch to see it unfold.
hero member
Activity: 728
Merit: 500
In cryptography we trust
newbie
Activity: 12
Merit: 0
I asked this when I was in Newbie jail and didn't get an answer:

Is Litecoin dying?  I looked at coblee's github (he is still the main ltc dev I think) and no commits in a few months.

Maybe ltc needs a foundation!
legendary
Activity: 1050
Merit: 1002
If people have no interest in the thread it will die away.

No it won't, seeing how you post 4 times in a row to bump it up.

Well obviously I can't keep posting if people stop replying...
legendary
Activity: 2030
Merit: 1000
My money; Our Bitcoin.
The announcement of the Bitcoin Foundation has shaken this community; its thread received 50 plus pages and over 13K views in about 72 hours.

LOL

It seems to me the only ones who were shaken were a relatively few who posted the same paranoia over and over again.  

The exact same paranoia was posted in 50 plus pages?

Not all exactly the same. There was different types of paranoia mixed in with downright hating.

I am neutral myself, perhaps tending towards somewhat positive.   I don't see the foundation as being any danger to Bitcoin,
nor of it being a great force bringing awareness and light to the masses.  

There are many ways it can help, sure, along with many other factors.

Yes, I agree exactly with your last sentence. It's the "along with" other factors that raises concern.

You are concerned about other things helping bitcoin along with the foundation helping it? 
That's what I was saying. 

hero member
Activity: 938
Merit: 1009
If people have no interest in the thread it will die away.

No it won't, seeing how you post 4 times in a row to bump it up.
legendary
Activity: 1050
Merit: 1002
Moderators: Please move this thread to the Alternative Currencies section as more than half of the OP is an alternative currency.

Have you not been paying attention? This is a discussion about Bitcoin, actually the concept of cryptocurrencies itself, and its ramifications and possible course as determined by the free market.

What's the matter, afraid of a little competition for Bitcoin? If people have no interest in the thread it will die away.
legendary
Activity: 1050
Merit: 1002
Acoindr,

While others may call you a hater, troller, ect. I commend you.

Right now, you are the only one who said "Hey, there is something about this I dont like, so Im gonna make it better"

Instead of just complaining, you are showing effort, and an idea thats worth discussing.

I'd happily debate you any day, and if you come to New York City, first beers are on me!  Cheesy

-Charlie

Thanks for the recognition, Charlie Smiley

Actually I don't see what I'm doing as being of my own creation. I think it's a natural progression of the market, and I'm simply fulfilling a role.
legendary
Activity: 1050
Merit: 1002
I would be more worried about corruption if bitcoin value exploded...which I don't think it will do without TBF. I see it as a catch 22...

I actually think Bitcoin value would explode either way eventually but TBF could accelerate it.
legendary
Activity: 1050
Merit: 1002
I will never accept Litecoins because I'll always have to worry that the sort of people who will jump to a similar chain will just do it again (Lightercoin?) and there won't be goods backing it when I go to get payback for my work.

Now here you touch on a very important point, which I discussed in the OP.

It's the basis for the thread, in fact.

Up to this point most of the community imagined Bitcoin would slowly gain acceptance creeping into the mainstream, at which point its value would explode. What's interesting is nothing like Bitcoin has ever existed in the history of the world, so nobody knows exactly how things will play out.

As people learned more about how Bitcoin worked the topic of other versions of coins starting came up. Since the code is all open source and nobody controls anything, then why couldn't other coins start up trying to win support and enriching early adopters?

It wasn't long before such alt-coins did begin. The first was actually Namecoin if I remember correctly, and its purpose was not wealth creation or storage, but rather decentralizing distribution of naming rights to address government control/censorship of Internet TLDs.

Many people asked your exact question. What would prevent people jumping to other coin versions? The answer is nothing, really, except alternates would have to win support against coins having the advantage of already being established. And since there is no limit to the number of alternates that could be created they would all challenge each other as well. The result would be that adoption of any new coin wouldn't happen simply because it was new and offered the chance at early adoption. A coin would only gain favor for some specific reason, something existing which established coins didn't offer.

Soon other wealth purposed coins did pop up, like IOCoin and IXCoin, but these offered no real reason for adoption other than the early adopter play, which as explained isn't enough. So such versions went nowhere. But then other coins started that actually did seek to offer some specific benefit of use besides early adoption. Of these Litecoin has gained the most traction, as it has some neat aspects like CPU focused mining, and faster confirmation times. It was designed to be the silver to Bitcoin's gold. Vircurex.com I think gives good indication of coin traction because you can compare exchange and hash rates to see market preference.

But none of the "specialized" coins has really done much to date either. The community has only had eyes for Bitcoin. In fact, I myself only looked into what Litecoin actually did a couple days ago when I made the connection for usage as regards TBF. Any coin needs a catalyst for adoption, and I think this is it for Litecoin. Now there is a compelling reason for Bitcoin community members to adopt it: it can check the power any Bitcoin Foundation might garner over Bitcoin.

Most people probably assumed alt-coins would enter the market a some time far into the future, once Bitcoin was established and more thought went into specialized coins. So nobody paid much attention to them. However, I think the time is now for at least one of them - Litecoin.

As for the dangers of people switching from coin to coin you mention, that's what I address in my OP in the "An Unexpected Development" section. Please re-read that to understand what I mean Smiley

I plan to soon offer a Cryptocurrency Index with live exchange rates, a first step which should help the community understand what I envision.

legendary
Activity: 1304
Merit: 1014
Moderators: Please move this thread to the Alternative Currencies section as more than half of the OP is an alternative currency.
legendary
Activity: 1050
Merit: 1002
LAME

You know what the fail and lame comments remind me of? The typical reaction to people first hearing about "Bitcoin". We're seeing how that's turning out.
legendary
Activity: 1050
Merit: 1002
The announcement of the Bitcoin Foundation has shaken this community; its thread received 50 plus pages and over 13K views in about 72 hours.

LOL

It seems to me the only ones who were shaken were a relatively few who posted the same paranoia over and over again.  

The exact same paranoia was posted in 50 plus pages? I think many distinct points were made actually. And besides, we're talking about future events. Who can exactly predict and articulate the future?

What could opponents to the adoption of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 have said at that time? Could not all of their objections been hand waved away as "paranoia"?


If you count the number of unique users making comments as opposed to total posts it seems to me like the first pages
of that thread, you mention, had more positive comments than negative...  and then there are all the users who might
not have posted due to... meh...  

Of course early pages would be expected to start off positive. It was meant to be a positive announcement was it not? Heck even I can see the advantages of having such an organization. I've never disputed that. But as dialogue continued and objections were raised opinions could have shifted. This reminds me of the forum poll on the topic. That poll started fairly early in the debate. To my knowledge you can't go back and change answers, yet that poll still shows clear reservation to TBF was held.

I am neutral myself, perhaps tending towards somewhat positive.   I don't see the foundation as being any danger to Bitcoin,
nor of it being a great force bringing awareness and light to the masses.  

There are many ways it can help, sure, along with many other factors.

Yes, I agree exactly with your last sentence. It's the "along with" other factors that raises concern.
legendary
Activity: 1050
Merit: 1002
Don't like changes to the Bitcoin protocol? Hard fork.

I don't understand all the fuss.

Hard fork and your coins aren't recognized by most as Bitcoins. No, that solves nothing. It appeases the developers but not people who want to use their money on their terms.

A fork works well for Linux when you get the same experience afterwards. That's not the case for money.

Nobody wants to deal in a unrecognized currency. That is not a choice. That's a cop-out.

Yes, it solves everything. I use Bitcoin because I don't like fiat. Bitcoin popularity is growing, in my opinion, for that very reason. If Bitcoin becomes something that resembles fiat, we, the early adopters, will hard fork and stick with the original protocol, for the same reasons we use Bitcoin now. If the unwashed masses that you love to fear choose Bitcoin 2.0, let them. I don't care.

I've been dealing in an unrecognized currency since I've found Bitcoin. That's my choice.

What are you going to do, call everyone on the phone form the "early adopters" section of your phone book?

No. I'm simply going to ignore changes to the protocol that I disagree with. It's as simple as not "updating" some software on my computer. I'm sure when the "update" involves something like third party control or inflation, I will not be alone. And if I am, so be it.

Well, you're essentially saying the same thing I am. the only difference is your fork happens after something bad happens, but my version happens before.

No. I'm currently running software that I am comfortable with. This is "before" something bad happens. No problem.

Also, my example gets even better. If a fork occurs, I will own the private keys to Bitcoins on the "2.0" fork, which I can promptly sell to purchase more original Bitcoins. I'm actually starting to look forward to "something bad".

I don't think you have an accurate view of likely outcome...

What you have to realize is things change. In the future Bitcoin may be far more widely adopted than now. There may be no bitcointalk.org and cozy little community which is all we've ever known at this stage in Bitcoin's progress. This may be a future where TBF is a large and powerful global corporation and with recognized brand name and many legions of followers. Now supposing the "something bad" starts to happen. Your answer is, no problem hard fork, right?

Okay, how do you go about that? Are you going to do it? Alone? Is someone else going to do it? Are multiple people going to do it, at different times? And if any one of these happen how will others know about it? Say there are 14 different hard forks. How is anyone going to know which one to follow?

The minute you jump on one of the Bitcoin 2 forks your coins have zero value, because they are not accepted anywhere.

What gives money value is that it is widely accepted. Once something you have to trade as money is not accepted, it ceases to have any value (if it ever had any).

A Bitcoin 2 would not magically materialize, uncoordinated, and have people miraculously know to follow that particular fork. That's why waiting for forks after something bad happened wouldn't work.

On the other hand by supporting a different Bitcoin version now at this stage, when the original Bitcoin is not widely accepted, the second version can grow along with the original one grows. Make sense?
legendary
Activity: 1050
Merit: 1002
Sorry for the delay in response. Was watching the presidential "debate". It's like watching a slow motion train wreck; you just can't look away. Typing replies now.
legendary
Activity: 1078
Merit: 1000
Charlie 'Van Bitcoin' Shrem
Acoindr,

While others may call you a hater, troller, ect. I commend you.

Right now, you are the only one who said "Hey, there is something about this I dont like, so Im gonna make it better"

Instead of just complaining, you are showing effort, and an idea thats worth discussing.

I'd happily debate you any day, and if you come to New York City, first beers are on me!  Cheesy

-Charlie
legendary
Activity: 1937
Merit: 1001
Trololol, you forgot to sell your SolidCoins? xD
donator
Activity: 1463
Merit: 1047
I outlived my lifetime membership:)
I would be more worried about corruption if bitcoin value exploded...which I don't think it will do without TBF. I see it as a catch 22...
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1014
Strength in numbers
I will never accept Litecoins because I'll always have to worry that the sort of people who will jump to a similar chain will just do it again (Lightercoin?) and there won't be goods backing it when I go to get payback for my work.
hero member
Activity: 490
Merit: 500
... it only gets better...
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