What makes bitcoin viciously beautiful is that it doesn't really favour early-adoption. It favours adoption. Period. The incentive to adopt it never ceases without artificial costs being forced upon it from the government.
Even more beautiful is that bitcoin's deflationary nature actually punishes non-adoption. The complaints from non-adopters will surely only increase over time, especially if bitcoin ever becomes big enough to affect exchange rates to the degree that price-inflation actually increases for non-adopters. It's the greenback all over again.
Topic: The early-adoptor unfairness - page 3. (Read 10231 times)
If you look at the actual rewards, then yes mining in 2009 was lower risk. But that's using hindsight. That's cheating. You can't do the risk/reward calculation using today's numbers. That's survivor bias.
As late as May 2010 those months and months of work would get you two pizzas. When mtgox opened, early adopters sold bitcoins for pennies. Were these people just stupid early adopters? Or was it the general consensus among the adopters that bitcoins just weren't worth that much?
As late as May 2010 those months and months of work would get you two pizzas. When mtgox opened, early adopters sold bitcoins for pennies. Were these people just stupid early adopters? Or was it the general consensus among the adopters that bitcoins just weren't worth that much?
So essentially the complaint is against the "numbers changing", so this is basically a complaint against the world taking a certain course that the individual had not anticipated. So actually, this is a complaint against the complainer himself: his uninformedness or his lack of imagination and/or balls to take action.
There are 1 million games to be played, why complain not being one of the best in a certain one? As sipa says: "petty jealousy".
I once complained regularly about early adopter unfairness, but now that prices have touched all the way down to $2 and stayed there long enough to be well within reach of anyone with vision, I don't think the complaint has merit anymore.
Bitcoin is either going to be really big or really not. If it's going to be really big, then being able to get your fill on them at $2 or $3 or $4 is a fucking deal.
Bitcoin is either going to be really big or really not. If it's going to be really big, then being able to get your fill on them at $2 or $3 or $4 is a fucking deal.
+1
But you can bet your ass, in summer, should bitcoin hit $100 or something even crazier, you'll have newbies complaining that they haven't been in the game in 2011 and that this is obviously unfair
Buy bitcoin NOW instead of starting "early adopter are unfair" bawhhh thread
Guess what, these threads appear ONLY after bitcoin rise a bit
Guess what, why you didn't open that thread when bitcoin dropped to 2? Oh right back then bitcoin was DEAD. You risked 0, you bough 0 bitcoin at 2$. And now you whine as a KID because OTHERS bought them at 2 and are making a +200% PROFIT
Bawhhh
Guess what, these threads appear ONLY after bitcoin rise a bit
Guess what, why you didn't open that thread when bitcoin dropped to 2? Oh right back then bitcoin was DEAD. You risked 0, you bough 0 bitcoin at 2$. And now you whine as a KID because OTHERS bought them at 2 and are making a +200% PROFIT
Bawhhh
dude.. that is as natural 'human' behaviour as it can be..
Buy bitcoin NOW instead of starting "early adopter are unfair" bawhhh thread
Guess what, these threads appear ONLY after bitcoin rise a bit
Guess what, why you didn't open that thread when bitcoin dropped to 2? Oh right back then bitcoin was DEAD. You risked 0, you bough 0 bitcoin at 2$. And now you whine as a KID because OTHERS bought them at 2 and are making a +200% PROFIT
Bawhhh
Guess what, these threads appear ONLY after bitcoin rise a bit
Guess what, why you didn't open that thread when bitcoin dropped to 2? Oh right back then bitcoin was DEAD. You risked 0, you bough 0 bitcoin at 2$. And now you whine as a KID because OTHERS bought them at 2 and are making a +200% PROFIT
Bawhhh
You could say the investors are pushing the price up, and as a result also pushing up the hype encouraging press coverage. Press coverage being the modern (open source) method for getting advertising.
In a strange abstract way it does. It's an incentivized race to authenticate the coins. In any currency the coins need to be produced authentically somehow and that takes work. (However, since it's the future all we have to do is push the automation button.)
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I simply do not think that donating a bit of computer time should be classified the same as an investment in a startup like Google. Call me old-fashioned.
That was one of my very first initial reactions to bitcoin, too. Where's the logic that says burning your processor to max creates wealth?! o_0In a strange abstract way it does. It's an incentivized race to authenticate the coins. In any currency the coins need to be produced authentically somehow and that takes work. (However, since it's the future all we have to do is push the automation button.)
i like your way of thinking
The unfairness is not yet realized, it's a potential unfairness that will materialize if and when bitcoins become widely used. At that point the early adopters would be able to exchange their bits for huge real-world assets without tanking the market, and that would be quite unfair - they have contributed nothing of substance to our society, with the exception of a few individuals like Satoshi or Gavin.
What do you care if an early adopter buys a yacht a private jet or even whole Islands with his "unfair worth"?
What effect does that have on you or the rest of the bitcoin users?
bitcoins are valuable only in as much as they can be widely used as an exchange medium, yet all those who acquire or have them treat them as a long term investment, preventing their very spread which would enable bitcoins to fulfill their promise.
with at least 8 decimal places, this does nothing at all to prevent their spread.
even with massive hoarding, the remaining 3.62 btc could still be introduced and sold to millions of people.
And it isn't a transfer of wealth that's going to happen. It is wealth creation. If the value increases it's because Bitcoin is valuable. The new value will go to people in proportion to how quick and sure they are.
This, right here.
Way too many people think the world is nothing but a huge zero-sum game. If this were true, the mean wealth of mankind would have done nothing but steadily shrink since the industrial revolution, at least in proportion to population growth.
Wealth doesn't always have to be redistributed. It can also be created, and yes, true, meaningful wealth (not to be confused with paper notes) CAN be created "out of thin air," as it were. That's the breathtaking beauty of human ingenuity.
You are missing the contribution, bubbleboy. When coins were trading for 6 cents and the total value of all coins was under $1M there wasn't much incentive to build apps and businesses. There just wasn't enough value in the whole system. The injection of value made possible a lot more.
And it isn't a transfer of wealth that's going to happen. It is wealth creation. If the value increases it's because Bitcoin is valuable. The new value will go to people in proportion to how quick and sure they are.
And it isn't a transfer of wealth that's going to happen. It is wealth creation. If the value increases it's because Bitcoin is valuable. The new value will go to people in proportion to how quick and sure they are.
The point of view of the "anti- early adopter" crowd, which I consider myself part of, is severely misrepresented.
What I don't say: "Hey, bitcoins are such a fabulous invention and they are concentrated in the hands of a few people - so when bitcoins make it big time it will be so unfair to the rest of us who did not get it at those low prices... We need communism, redistribution !"
What I do say: "Bitcoins are a flawed monetary medium because the early adopter crowd has already priced-in the chance that they will sometime be a widely used for exchange; so in order for Bitcoin to achieve it's potential as an exchange medium, an implausibly massive transfer of wealth must occur from the millions of people that would use it to the hundreds of people that currently hold it."
The unfairness is not yet realized, it's a potential unfairness that will materialize if and when bitcoins become widely used. At that point the early adopters would be able to exchange their bits for huge real-world assets without tanking the market, and that would be quite unfair - they have contributed nothing of substance to our society, with the exception of a few individuals like Satoshi or Gavin.
In fact this potential for unfairness is precisely one of the reasons bitcoin fails. It's a self-defeating prophecy: bitcoins are valuable only in as much as they can be widely used as an exchange medium, yet all those who acquire or have them treat them as a long term investment, preventing their very spread which would enable bitcoins to fulfill their promise. Therefore the promise is a lie.
In actuality, bitcoins are simply a zero-sum speculative commodity and there's nothing unfair in taking money away from fat geeks. So there's no "early adopter unfairness" to speak of - with the exception of the inherent unfairness of arriving late at a Ponzi party.
If you claim those are the only chairs the world needs, and that sometime in the future millions of people will give an arm and a leg for a few seconds on your chair, then there's nothing unfair about it, you are simply delusional. Yet that is the exact mantra of the Bitcoin people, with the nuance of "indefinitely divisible chairs".
What I don't say: "Hey, bitcoins are such a fabulous invention and they are concentrated in the hands of a few people - so when bitcoins make it big time it will be so unfair to the rest of us who did not get it at those low prices... We need communism, redistribution !"
What I do say: "Bitcoins are a flawed monetary medium because the early adopter crowd has already priced-in the chance that they will sometime be a widely used for exchange; so in order for Bitcoin to achieve it's potential as an exchange medium, an implausibly massive transfer of wealth must occur from the millions of people that would use it to the hundreds of people that currently hold it."
The unfairness is not yet realized, it's a potential unfairness that will materialize if and when bitcoins become widely used. At that point the early adopters would be able to exchange their bits for huge real-world assets without tanking the market, and that would be quite unfair - they have contributed nothing of substance to our society, with the exception of a few individuals like Satoshi or Gavin.
In fact this potential for unfairness is precisely one of the reasons bitcoin fails. It's a self-defeating prophecy: bitcoins are valuable only in as much as they can be widely used as an exchange medium, yet all those who acquire or have them treat them as a long term investment, preventing their very spread which would enable bitcoins to fulfill their promise. Therefore the promise is a lie.
In actuality, bitcoins are simply a zero-sum speculative commodity and there's nothing unfair in taking money away from fat geeks. So there's no "early adopter unfairness" to speak of - with the exception of the inherent unfairness of arriving late at a Ponzi party.
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If I create two finely-crafted wooden chairs, then I am the only person possessing these chairs. How unfair! NOT.
If you claim those are the only chairs the world needs, and that sometime in the future millions of people will give an arm and a leg for a few seconds on your chair, then there's nothing unfair about it, you are simply delusional. Yet that is the exact mantra of the Bitcoin people, with the nuance of "indefinitely divisible chairs".
I guess the complainers about early adopters don't believe that bitcoin will get to the heights that some of us do.
All they see are people that bought or mined BTC at a few cents a piece and are capable of selling it now at a few dollars
( WTF! they can make 10,000's %!! maybe 100,000 % Its not fair!!!)
All they see are people that bought or mined BTC at a few cents a piece and are capable of selling it now at a few dollars
( WTF! they can make 10,000's %!! maybe 100,000 % Its not fair!!!)
When I got into Bitcoins at $7-8 I really whished I could have gotten in at $4-5. Now you can and you are complaining...
You can also invest in Litecoin which not many really believe in just like Bitcoin.
Or realise that you are a somewhat early adopter. Only 45.000 members on this forum!
Or you can wait and continue to complain until there are 90.000...120.000...245.000...
You can also invest in Litecoin which not many really believe in just like Bitcoin.
Or realise that you are a somewhat early adopter. Only 45.000 members on this forum!
Or you can wait and continue to complain until there are 90.000...120.000...245.000...
"Early adopters" are not like the people who complain about "early adopters". They invest in new technology, new businesses, & new risks in general. They make a lot of bad investments, but deal with the loss differently than the whiners of "early adopters".
In fact, instead of complaining about early adopter unfairness, just go out and find a technology to adopt early. Then you can be an early adopter.Don't worry that you can't find the right technology to adopt early. You can pick dozens of them. The effort invested was minimal, right? The payoffs, massive. That's why it's unfair. So you should easily be able to invest that amount of energy in dozens of technologies and adopt *all* of them early.
Get started.
Now.
I once complained regularly about early adopter unfairness, but now that prices have touched all the way down to $2 and stayed there long enough to be well within reach of anyone with vision, I don't think the complaint has merit anymore.
+1
Another thing late adopters don't get is what early adopters were thinking. To illustrate, I have a friend who mined about 5K bitcoins long before the first bubble and cashed out for practically nothing, he just thought "they were fun". I thought of them in the same way -- I got my first coins from selling an unused copy of Windows 7 on biddingpond just for fun. Early adopters were not thinking "I'm going to be rich!" at all, they thought BTC was just play money. I was kicking myself for not getting more back then when the price jumped. Late adopters don't understand this. There was no premeditation or anything for the vast majority of early adopters, it was just damn luck. It was also very hard to get BTC back then, you often had to sell stuff or do cash in the mail due to exchange problems.
Not to mention that I got royaly goxxed and all my "early adopter" coins were stolen anyway. I bought back in when it hit $3 (and keeping them safe this time!), and now have far more coins than before. This "second chance" to get into BTC on a fire sale was a real gift, and if you didn't take advantage of it, you have no right to complain.
"Early adopters" are not like the people who complain about "early adopters". They invest in new technology, new businesses, & new risks in general. They make a lot of bad investments, but deal with the loss differently than the whiners of "early adopters".
I think that most people can't even fathom just how worthless bitcoins were, and how little infrastructure there was back then. Heck, even when I came in here in March, I remember that, to buy bitcoins, my choices were mailing cash to some shady guy in Canada, or buying them on MtGox using some other shady currency that is backed by some company in Costa Rica. Not too long before that, none of this existed. Quite literally, for at least several months, the only bitcoin infrastructure that existed was... this forum. Bitcoins were completely worthless. People were happy to exchange weeks of CPU time to get a "free" pizza. To this point, I think the analogy to collecting comic books is completely accurate. Much like how many now extremely valuable comic books were just thrown away after they were read (or sold in garage sales or to friends for pennies), the same is true for bitcoin. Most likely, a good portion of the bitcoins were just simply deleted without a second thought. Individuals were wiping out thousands of coins each. Miners have come back to bitcoin after over a year to find out that their old harddrive that they were smart enough to archive somewhere is now worth tens of thousands of dollars. If they weren't such a pack-rat, they would have erased the bitcoins. It wouldn't surprise me if it turned out the the only remaining spendable bitcoins from that era are in the hands of less than ten people. Only three of them likely stored them on purpose, and are actively following Bitcoin. And one of those people won't spend them until he is ready to reveal his identity to the world and retire on a private island, which, personally, I think he completely deserves.
Yeah, I also always complain about the people winning in lottery, have been born into a wealthy family or had more luck than I. That's so unfair.
But seriously, any kind of business is a luck thing. See stock markets. There are various stocks, especially Asian where you can invest a very low amount of money and make a lot. Or lottery.
I am a (somewhat) early adopter. I found the project on SF and occasionally had it running. It defiantly wasn't day and night. It wasn't even in auto start. Most of my Bitcoins have been sold way below 20 cent per coin. In some way I've also been an early investor (or from the current point of view, just stupid). I too part in some sponsoring and gave coins to people creating Bitcoin stuff. In the early days it was common to tip people for cools stuff, even forum posts. I think most money has been made by early buyers. People who were still creating full blocks with CPUs were so amazed when early exchanges offered 0.0014 or something like that for one Bitcoin, so they sold. Also the uptrend has been very slow at the beginning, still the curves on the graphs were steep, so when someone was afraid of a falling price they sold. These days I guess most of the coins is in the hands of such buyers. I don't care too much. I am neither rich in my real life nor in the Bitcoin life. It wasn't my intention to become rich. The reason I downloaded the software is that I want an easy, sane, decentralized and independent way to trade stuff. I hate Paypal and all the other companies and I love the approach of pretty much doing it yourself. It still is my primary reason to use Bitcoins. I don't have a mining farm, nor a system running all day. It's not what I want.
About the thing that early adopters are rich now, just for running a small piece of software. Nope, it's not fair. If you want something fair, you should go for something like communism.
But seriously, any kind of business is a luck thing. See stock markets. There are various stocks, especially Asian where you can invest a very low amount of money and make a lot. Or lottery.
I am a (somewhat) early adopter. I found the project on SF and occasionally had it running. It defiantly wasn't day and night. It wasn't even in auto start. Most of my Bitcoins have been sold way below 20 cent per coin. In some way I've also been an early investor (or from the current point of view, just stupid). I too part in some sponsoring and gave coins to people creating Bitcoin stuff. In the early days it was common to tip people for cools stuff, even forum posts. I think most money has been made by early buyers. People who were still creating full blocks with CPUs were so amazed when early exchanges offered 0.0014 or something like that for one Bitcoin, so they sold. Also the uptrend has been very slow at the beginning, still the curves on the graphs were steep, so when someone was afraid of a falling price they sold. These days I guess most of the coins is in the hands of such buyers. I don't care too much. I am neither rich in my real life nor in the Bitcoin life. It wasn't my intention to become rich. The reason I downloaded the software is that I want an easy, sane, decentralized and independent way to trade stuff. I hate Paypal and all the other companies and I love the approach of pretty much doing it yourself. It still is my primary reason to use Bitcoins. I don't have a mining farm, nor a system running all day. It's not what I want.
About the thing that early adopters are rich now, just for running a small piece of software. Nope, it's not fair. If you want something fair, you should go for something like communism.
Don’t you get it? Running your CPU a bit is not comparable to a $5000 investment in a startup. People do that everyday for free for folding@home etc., it’s just a ridiculous "risk" to lose the CPU time or energy expenditure in comparison to the possible gains.
So yes, I think the risk/reward ratio was way higher, along with a lower barrier to entry, and I’m not at all using hindsight.
The problem is not that you are incorrect about the amount risked or the potential reward. The problem is that you completely ignore the probability of the reward. By similar logic, we should all buy lots of lottery tickets. I mean, they cost a buck or two, you blow that on a latte without even thinking about it. And the potential rewards are millions.So yes, I think the risk/reward ratio was way higher, along with a lower barrier to entry, and I’m not at all using hindsight.
And we should also buy lots of penny stocks.
And I suppose everyone who has ever sold a Bitcoin for less than $10 is a fool.
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