Topic: The ultimate bitcoin taboo topic - page 5. (Read 10194 times)

How would you design a cryptocurrency to solve the initial distribution problem? Imagine you are in 2009, when nobody knew that it could succeed as money at all.

Hey! I haven't told you yet how difficult it is to make enough notches to store a real number.

(hint: you need a veeerry, very dense knife)

Please stop.

it's because

$address = abc123
$value = 200

takes up twice as much space as

$name = abc123
$value = 100

That's right, kids: Each of those pesky little integers (or floats, or whatever) is stored by making a tiny little notch in the surface of your harddrive. And that takes a lot of time and work! So don't go throwing around big numbers thoughtlessly, okay?

LOL :-), Use your brain. It is obviously, more coins => more acounts more transaction's history.

Why is nobody actually reading my original post? (EDIT: because it's too long-winded and not to the point enough. that's why.)

I addressed this point in my note below "fact 2". I said the richest person now probably holds less than 0.1% of the actual global wealth. The richest bitcoin holder holds 2.1% (under the assumptions about wallets being shared, etc.) I then assumed that bitcoin will not only take over the money supply in the narrow sense, but also acts as a commodity/store of value, like gold.

I am working from exactly the scenario that many in here on some level seem to believe, if allowed to dream: that bitcoin could one day replace both fiat currencies *and* the current illiqid assets that act as store of value, like gold.

And in that case, "2.1% of bitcoin" does in fact come close to "2.1% of overall wealth"

At the time of the first block, satoshi was holding 100% of the bitcoins. Things are getting better

You are confusing money and wealth. There is an incredibly huge difference between the global money supply and the global wealth. The person that owns 2.1% of all the bitcoins will never own a significant fraction of the global wealth regardless of the value of a bitcoin.

Also consider that 2.1% of all the bitcoins is currently a relatively tiny value compared to the wealth of the richest people on the planet. It is only 0.1% of Carlos Slim's wealth.


The real issue is this: can a person that owns 2.1% of all the bitcoins use those bitcoins to manipulate something, such as the value of a bitcoin.

Actually, you're wrong.

A new blockchain could in theory simply dismiss all old addresses and the respective value they contain, but could transfer a part of the value contained in those old addresses over to the new chain in case you can prove ownership of the old addresses (with, obviously, the private key).

This could be the way to implement, for example, a "50% haircut on all wallets with more than 100k coins" scenario.

One more time, in case I didn't make it clear enough: I'm not saying that's what we should do, just that it would be possible to do that.

Fine, now tell us how the number of coins relates to the number of addresses, or disk space for that matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

Please learn how Bitcoin actually works, thanks.

As I wrote before. Only 0.007% uses Bitcoin 99.993% uses FIAT. Bitcoin still works. :-)

This will disbalance original idea.  100x more coins => 100x more addresses (and required disk space) and 100x less security. But yes 51% can decide to create their alt-coins.

edit: Even 5% can decide to create their own alt-coins.

but can't the 51% decide to increase the max number of coins by 100x?

51% can control future, not past.  Without private key you cannot redistribute old coins.

Concentration-of-wealth is a narrow thing to look at. What OP seems to be worried about is in fact concentration of power. Wealth isn't the only type of power. Family and social connections, political power, military power, control of currency issuance, control of media, pop stardom, affiliation with powerful organizations, and the related skills and knowledge are all forms of power. Critically, these forms of power are what allow concentration of wealth to persist.

Joe Bitcoiner, some nerd programmer who mined what will in some years be a trillion dollars worth of BTC, is certainly going to be in an enviable position, but without the connections, status, social skills, network, government friends, and inclination toward social ladder climbing, he's going to run into major issues - even dangers - converting huge amounts of his bitcoins into actual assets. He's not only going to have to build businesses for funneling money and buy off legislators and other powerful people, he's going to have to develop the skills and tacit knowledge to do so, probably without much motivation to do so since he could just spend lesser amounts gradually over time without drawing too much attention. Without investment ability, business acumen, connections, etc. most of the money he spends isn't going to boomerang back to him like it does for Carlos Slim or the Rothschilds; instead it'll be distributed among the population.

No worries, this is an overblown issue. The only really bad thing that could happen is if some old money person buys or already has bought a large number of bitcoins, but time is running out for that.

This is one thing I love about Bitcoin. It is totally democratic.

Some of the OP's suggestions are tantamount to taxation by the network. Your response demonstrates an opposition view and points out that many, by sticking to the original, would vote "nay".

Let the 51% decide.

Edit:

Oda.krell, sorry about the use of the word "suggestions". You posted while I was typing. I guess I should have said,  "points the OP raised".

I think it is quite possible that bitcoin value will be diluted. The network is controlled by majority of nodes. If majority decides to change something, e. g. to confiscate money from the rich, they can do so. But it would be a shift in a social paradigm.  E. g. if world communistic revolution happens, then it doesn't really matter which currency would be mainstream, it will be either abandoned or adjusted to the new social formation.

I think you are looking at the wrong place. A really smart person that knows the protocol wouldn't leave the largest part of his wealth in a single wallet. That would be insane.

Since I personally found evidence that someone wrote a software to create a "wallet farm" I can be sure there is somewhere a cold storage with thousands of keys worth just a few thousand BTC each. That storage may easily contain a few millions BTC. That could be well above 10% of all coins ever created. Would make Rockefeller look like a beggar.

Now.. let's say something even more taboo. As I'm a SF writer, let's write a cyberpunk fiction on this: The entity known as Nakamoto is a super-secret branch of NSA. They have the power to let bitcoin become mainstream, while at the same time mining a few more millions of coins.

Now think a decade from now an entity with both military power AND financial control. There it is, the draft for my next cyberpunk novel is ready.