Topic: Why I think the 21Million hard limit will never be reached - deflationary spiral (Read 5915 times)

Quote from: hashman on June 05, 2012, 04:06:11 AM

Well... a few weeks after that point, it will be x2 per second. So, close enough. It's just a trend line, not an exact mathematical exponential function.

I don't think "singularity" is meant to be taken literally. The idea is that growth, at some point, will be so absurdly fast that it will represent an unimaginably profound shift in society/human existence. Think of it in terms of "paradigm shifting events". See this resource to get an impression of this:
http://www.singularity.com/charts/page17.html

All it's really saying is that the next "event" is coming within our lifetime. Considering the exponential nature of technological growth (growth is proportional to size. f(x) = df/dx), it seems pretty inevitable to me.

Sorry for being so off topic.

Wow that is a lot of hand waving. Maybe we can fly soon.

What do you mean by "technological growth"? it looks like you are using a scalar quantity "f" in your equation. What does it represent?

I'm just referencing an already documented theory.

technological growth can be measured in a few ways, for example: computational capacity per $. The interesting thing is, whichever metric you use, the growth is exponential.

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Quote from: ElectricMucus on May 12, 2012, 06:40:35 AM

"Technological Progress Grows Exponentially and Reaches Infinity in Finite Time". This is a contradiction. The exponential curve reaches y=infinity @ x=infinity. So the referenced page fails to define exponential growth.

You can't have "infinite progress in finite time". I agree that this is impossible.

Alright then.
Keep in mind that the site just quotes the book on the subject. So this is an "official" position.

Lets define the singularity as "technology growth reaches the rate of x2 per day.". Do you think that this is impossible?

I can't tell if it is possible.
It also could 12233x per month or 0.12x per second or whatever.

But that's irrelevant hence the above definition of it. What you are proposing is something else, just a point on a slope not a singularity (hence the name (!) )

Well... a few weeks after that point, it will be x2 per second. So, close enough. It's just a trend line, not an exact mathematical exponential function.

I don't think "singularity" is meant to be taken literally. The idea is that growth, at some point, will be so absurdly fast that it will represent an unimaginably profound shift in society/human existence. Think of it in terms of "paradigm shifting events". See this resource to get an impression of this:
http://www.singularity.com/charts/page17.html

All it's really saying is that the next "event" is coming within our lifetime. Considering the exponential nature of technological growth (growth is proportional to size. f(x) = df/dx), it seems pretty inevitable to me.

Sorry for being so off topic.

Wow that is a lot of hand waving. Maybe we can fly soon.

What do you mean by "technological growth"? it looks like you are using a scalar quantity "f" in your equation. What does it represent?

The basic idea is a self aware concious A.I more intelligent than humans will be created within the next forty years. Which could invent a superior version of its self which in turn will invent an even cleverer version and so on. An intelligence explosion and event horizon for mankind. Just as Moore's law is predicted to fall off the singularity will kick in.

hashman

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Quote from: ElectricMucus on May 12, 2012, 06:40:35 AM

"Technological Progress Grows Exponentially and Reaches Infinity in Finite Time". This is a contradiction. The exponential curve reaches y=infinity @ x=infinity. So the referenced page fails to define exponential growth.

You can't have "infinite progress in finite time". I agree that this is impossible.

Alright then.
Keep in mind that the site just quotes the book on the subject. So this is an "official" position.

Lets define the singularity as "technology growth reaches the rate of x2 per day.". Do you think that this is impossible?

I can't tell if it is possible.
It also could 12233x per month or 0.12x per second or whatever.

But that's irrelevant hence the above definition of it. What you are proposing is something else, just a point on a slope not a singularity (hence the name (!) )

Well... a few weeks after that point, it will be x2 per second. So, close enough. It's just a trend line, not an exact mathematical exponential function.

I don't think "singularity" is meant to be taken literally. The idea is that growth, at some point, will be so absurdly fast that it will represent an unimaginably profound shift in society/human existence. Think of it in terms of "paradigm shifting events". See this resource to get an impression of this:
http://www.singularity.com/charts/page17.html

All it's really saying is that the next "event" is coming within our lifetime. Considering the exponential nature of technological growth (growth is proportional to size. f(x) = df/dx), it seems pretty inevitable to me.

Sorry for being so off topic.

Wow that is a lot of hand waving. Maybe we can fly soon.

What do you mean by "technological growth"? it looks like you are using a scalar quantity "f" in your equation. What does it represent?

Dabs

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I don't see it mentioned or I may have missed it, but don't forget the transaction fees. They may one day be more than the mining block reward.

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I don't think there is anything in the bitcoin protocol that states on exactly 21Million bitcoin will ever be made. No just that the block reward will keep half'ing. So if bitcoins value goes up and more decimal places are and keep getting added as the value of bitcoin goes up then the block reward can keep getting paid. Even if the block reward gets really small as long as the value of bitcoin keeps rising and more decimal places are added then a valuable block reward can keep being paid. At some point in the future the amount of newly created bitcoins entering the market will be similar to the amount of gold entering the gold market. As where we are at now with such a high block reward is like a gold-rush.

It may or may not be, but I believe the sheer amount of computing that will be required to get that last BTC out of the system will be impressive.

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Quote from: ElectricMucus on May 12, 2012, 06:40:35 AM

"Technological Progress Grows Exponentially and Reaches Infinity in Finite Time". This is a contradiction. The exponential curve reaches y=infinity @ x=infinity. So the referenced page fails to define exponential growth.

You can't have "infinite progress in finite time". I agree that this is impossible.

Alright then.
Keep in mind that the site just quotes the book on the subject. So this is an "official" position.

Quote from: ElectricMucus on May 12, 2012, 06:40:35 AM

Lets define the singularity as "technology growth reaches the rate of x2 per day.". Do you think that this is impossible?

I can't tell if it is possible.
It also could 12233x per month or 0.12x per second or whatever.

But that's irrelevant hence the above definition of it. What you are proposing is something else, just a point on a slope not a singularity (hence the name (!) )

Well... a few weeks after that point, it will be x2 per second. So, close enough. It's just a trend line, not an exact mathematical exponential function.

I don't think "singularity" is meant to be taken literally. The idea is that growth, at some point, will be so absurdly fast that it will represent an unimaginably profound shift in society/human existence. Think of it in terms of "paradigm shifting events". See this resource to get an impression of this:
http://www.singularity.com/charts/page17.html

All it's really saying is that the next "event" is coming within our lifetime. Considering the exponential nature of technological growth (growth is proportional to size. f(x) = df/dx), it seems pretty inevitable to me.

Sorry for being so off topic.

Off-topic posts serve purposes...
I was racking my brain attempting to come up with the explanation you just put forth. DUR; Kurzweil's "singularity" is not meant to be a singularity in the strict physics sense

asdf

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"Technological Progress Grows Exponentially and Reaches Infinity in Finite Time". This is a contradiction. The exponential curve reaches y=infinity @ x=infinity. So the referenced page fails to define exponential growth.

You can't have "infinite progress in finite time". I agree that this is impossible.

Alright then.
Keep in mind that the site just quotes the book on the subject. So this is an "official" position.

Quote from: matthewh3 on May 12, 2012, 02:30:21 PM

Lets define the singularity as "technology growth reaches the rate of x2 per day.". Do you think that this is impossible?

I can't tell if it is possible.
It also could 12233x per month or 0.12x per second or whatever.

But that's irrelevant hence the above definition of it. What you are proposing is something else, just a point on a slope not a singularity (hence the name (!) )

Well... a few weeks after that point, it will be x2 per second. So, close enough. It's just a trend line, not an exact mathematical exponential function.

I don't think "singularity" is meant to be taken literally. The idea is that growth, at some point, will be so absurdly fast that it will represent an unimaginably profound shift in society/human existence. Think of it in terms of "paradigm shifting events". See this resource to get an impression of this:
http://www.singularity.com/charts/page17.html

All it's really saying is that the next "event" is coming within our lifetime. Considering the exponential nature of technological growth (growth is proportional to size. f(x) = df/dx), it seems pretty inevitable to me.

Sorry for being so off topic.

matthewh3

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Quote from: FreeMoney on May 12, 2012, 01:57:46 PM

The new coins each day are being absorbed by new demand and the price is still for quite some time. Assuming new demand keeps showing up at about the same rate the halving will have a strong effect. The only way I see this not happening is if a lot of current demand is thinking this way. In that case demand would drop around the halving and people thinking like that will start to unload.

But I think it all gets swamped by the demand that's going to show up as people realize that bitcoin is here to stay.

I think the reward drop is a strong incentive to some people to invest more in to bitcoin then they normally would. Like the long term bitcoin investors as its better to buy more bitcoins while there only $5 then potentially $10. Although I suspect a lot of the new buying power that is keeping bitcoin at $5 will be speculators looking for a quick profit early next year. So it may take until after Easter next year for price to settle after the volatility of speculators dumping a lot of bitcoins as soon as bitcoin shows any major flattening of growth after January.
So to cut it short I think the bitcoin price will become very volatile in the first few months of next year. As it seems to have been pretty stable over the last twelve weeks and around $5 since the start of the year.

I know this isn't the speculation board but I can bitcoin spiking to at least $9 and maybe as high as $14 in the start of next year before settling to $7>$9 and then slowly growing again. That's just how it looks to me tho.

matthewh3

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Quote from: FreeMoney on May 12, 2012, 01:57:46 PM

The new coins each day are being absorbed by new demand and the price is still for quite some time. Assuming new demand keeps showing up at about the same rate the halving will have a strong effect. The only way I see this not happening is if a lot of current demand is thinking this way. In that case demand would drop around the halving and people thinking like that will start to unload.

But I think it all gets swamped by the demand that's going to show up as people realize that bitcoin is here to stay.

I think the reward drop is a strong incentive to some people to invest more in to bitcoin then they normally would. Like the long term bitcoin investors as its better to buy more bitcoins while there only $5 then potentially $10. Although I suspect a lot of the new buying power that is keeping bitcoin at $5 will be speculators looking for a quick profit early next year. So it may take until after Easter next year for price to settle after the volatility of speculators dumping a lot of bitcoins as soon as bitcoin shows any major flattening of growth after January.
So to cut it short I think the bitcoin price will become very volatile in the first few months of next year. As it seems to have been pretty stable over the last twelve weeks and around $5 since the start of the year.

FreeMoney

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The new coins each day are being absorbed by new demand and the price is still for quite some time. Assuming new demand keeps showing up at about the same rate the halving will have a strong effect. The only way I see this not happening is if a lot of current demand is thinking this way. In that case demand would drop around the halving and people thinking like that will start to unload.

But I think it all gets swamped by the demand that's going to show up as people realize that bitcoin is here to stay.

matthewh3

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Quote from: MoonShadow on May 11, 2012, 04:26:39 PM

Quote from: matthewh3 on May 11, 2012, 02:05:37 PM

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: caveden on May 11, 2012, 05:54:15 AM

I don't think there is anything in the bitcoin protocol that states on exactly 21Million bitcoin will ever be made. No just that the block reward will keep half'ing. So if bitcoins value goes up and more decimal places are and keep getting added as the value of bitcoin goes up then the block reward can keep getting paid. Even if the block reward gets really small as long as the value of bitcoin keeps rising and more decimal places are added then a valuable block reward can keep being paid. At some point in the future the amount of newly created bitcoins entering the market will be similar to the amount of gold entering the gold market. As where we are at now with such a high block reward is like a gold-rush.

In this reasoning you're implying that the value of bitcoin will, in average, double at each 4 years, so that the block reward inflation keeps having the same value.
That sounds too much optimistic to me.

(Total number of bitcoins in circulation) x exchange rate != Bitcoin value.

Total Bitcoin value is a tricky thing to estimate. Since value is very subjective and hard to quantify, I'd try a different angle.

How about counting the number of people for whom Bitcoin has some value. Let's say that number right now is 1M (it might be more, might be less).
How many people are there in the world? ~7000M? Therefore, Bitcoin would have to spread and become valuable to 7000 times more people, or just under 2^13 times, to cover today's population.
If Bitcoin keeps surviving, at some point its ubiquity will plateau (it will have the same problem as "McDonalds"), but there will still be a little bit of inflation.

I put bitcoin and a city of 235,00 people called Salford which is within a larger conurbation (city) of Greater Manchester of 2.4million people and the 235,000 population city of Salford had a higher average trend then bitcoin. I currently think the amount of people holding some bitcoins is below 100,000 and all the people who have ever even heard of bitcoin well below 10,000,000. Long way to go but if bitcoin did catch on as a major form of payment transfer rather than mainly just a commodity that it is now then each bitcoin could end up worth over £10,000 (not including inflation adjustment) each within our lifetimes. If bitcoin adoption just keeps continuing at the rate it is now then it should still beat the inflation of the £/$. I'm guessing a bitcoin will be worth up to and below $7 at the end of the year and up to and below $10 at the end of next year if things just keep plodding on as they are.

The block reward cuts in half in Januarry of 2013, so the inflation rate literally cuts in half. I suspect, then if things just keep plodding along as they have lately, somthing that I consider very unlikely, then the value of a bitcoin in December of 2013 would be closer to $15.

I hope it is $15 but the block reward half'ing in January will take a while to have a hit on the amount of bitcoins available. I know it will half the supply of new bitcoins entering the market but they will still already be 9,000,000 of them in circulation. So I think it will take a good few months to filter through but it might make speculators buy more in the months before therefore increasing the price now. What I think bitcoin needs is to be used to back local community currency's, in places like Africa for instance were they currently use Mpesa and also for something like BitInstant to really compete with PayPal or Western Union and eventually SWIFT and/or VISA Cheesy

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"Technological Progress Grows Exponentially and Reaches Infinity in Finite Time". This is a contradiction. The exponential curve reaches y=infinity @ x=infinity. So the referenced page fails to define exponential growth.

You can't have "infinite progress in finite time". I agree that this is impossible.

Alright then.
Keep in mind that the site just quotes the book on the subject. So this is an "official" position.

Quote from: matthewh3 on May 11, 2012, 02:05:37 PM

Lets define the singularity as "technology growth reaches the rate of x2 per day.". Do you think that this is impossible?

I can't tell if it is possible.
It also could 12233x per month or 0.12x per second or whatever.

But that's irrelevant hence the above definition of it. What you are proposing is something else, just a point on a slope not a singularity (hence the name (!) )

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: caveden on May 11, 2012, 05:54:15 AM

Quote from: caveden on May 11, 2012, 05:54:15 AM

I don't think there is anything in the bitcoin protocol that states on exactly 21Million bitcoin will ever be made. No just that the block reward will keep half'ing. So if bitcoins value goes up and more decimal places are and keep getting added as the value of bitcoin goes up then the block reward can keep getting paid. Even if the block reward gets really small as long as the value of bitcoin keeps rising and more decimal places are added then a valuable block reward can keep being paid. At some point in the future the amount of newly created bitcoins entering the market will be similar to the amount of gold entering the gold market. As where we are at now with such a high block reward is like a gold-rush.

In this reasoning you're implying that the value of bitcoin will, in average, double at each 4 years, so that the block reward inflation keeps having the same value.
That sounds too much optimistic to me.

(Total number of bitcoins in circulation) x exchange rate != Bitcoin value.

Total Bitcoin value is a tricky thing to estimate. Since value is very subjective and hard to quantify, I'd try a different angle.

How about counting the number of people for whom Bitcoin has some value. Let's say that number right now is 1M (it might be more, might be less).
How many people are there in the world? ~7000M? Therefore, Bitcoin would have to spread and become valuable to 7000 times more people, or just under 2^13 times, to cover today's population.
If Bitcoin keeps surviving, at some point its ubiquity will plateau (it will have the same problem as "McDonalds"), but there will still be a little bit of inflation.

I put bitcoin and a city of 235,00 people called Salford which is within a larger conurbation (city) of Greater Manchester of 2.4million people and the 235,000 population city of Salford had a higher average trend then bitcoin. I currently think the amount of people holding some bitcoins is below 100,000 and all the people who have ever even heard of bitcoin well below 10,000,000. Long way to go but if bitcoin did catch on as a major form of payment transfer rather than mainly just a commodity that it is now then each bitcoin could end up worth over £10,000 (not including inflation adjustment) each within our lifetimes. If bitcoin adoption just keeps continuing at the rate it is now then it should still beat the inflation of the £/$. I'm guessing a bitcoin will be worth up to and below $7 at the end of the year and up to and below $10 at the end of next year if things just keep plodding on as they are.

The block reward cuts in half in Januarry of 2013, so the inflation rate literally cuts in half. I suspect, then if things just keep plodding along as they have lately, somthing that I consider very unlikely, then the value of a bitcoin in December of 2013 would be closer to $15.

matthewh3

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