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Topic: Why use rewards instead of starting with 1 BTC? - page 2. (Read 2737 times)

legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1012
Democracy is vulnerable to a 51% attack.
Only if in 2140, a single guy has every Bitcoin in existence and can distribute them however he sees fit.
I think his point would be that Bitcoin in 2140 won't be much different from a 100% pre-mined coin after the coins have become reasonably distributed due to sales, giveaways, or whatever. While true, this model probably wouldn't work well for Bitcoin  -- the block reward was needed to encourage mining which is needed to secure the block chain. And block rewards probably still are needed. By 2140, either Bitcoin will have already died off or a reward won't be needed to encourage mining anymore. Boostrapping Bitcoin adoption by people mining for transaction fees just doesn't seem doable.
legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1005
It would defeat the purpose of Bitcoin if a single person were to be in control of minting it.

Zero people will be minting bitcoins after 2140, so how would that defeat the purpose?  This basically starts right at that 2140 position where no bitcoins are minted, and the only way to acquire them is to trade.  And just like bitcoin, the more you trade early on, the better off you will be long term.
Only if in 2140, a single guy has every Bitcoin in existence and can distribute them however he sees fit.
sr. member
Activity: 247
Merit: 250
It has already been proven that no one likes premined coins except the preminer. I mean, you do realize this scheme is exactly, that, premining, right?

Just like I said before, someone that is born 2140 could say the same thing about bitcoin.
full member
Activity: 221
Merit: 100
It has already been proven that no one likes premined coins except the preminer. I mean, you do realize this scheme is exactly, that, premining, right?
sr. member
Activity: 247
Merit: 250
It would defeat the purpose of Bitcoin if a single person were to be in control of minting it.

Zero people will be minting bitcoins after 2140, so how would that defeat the purpose?  This basically starts right at that 2140 position where no bitcoins are minted, and the only way to acquire them is to trade.  And just like bitcoin, the more you trade early on, the better off you will be long term.
legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1005
Why exactly would he give anybody that 0.01?  For downloading software?  What happens after after 100 downloads, and still nobody is running the client? (because, why run it?)

How would you market this?  "Hey I created a new currency and gave it all to myself.  Please use it." 

Keep in mind, Satoshi basically used the same strategy for bitcoin.  And the same questions can be asked in the beginning of bitcoin.  Giving people .01 is equivalent to him telling people to download the software.   He could have mined forever by himself, accumulating all the bitcoins, but they would be worthless.  Giving away .01 or telling people to download the software prevents him from acquiring every bitcoin but hopefully works out in the long run by making it worth more.

And realize this was before blockchain.info & other online wallets.  So the only way to see your balance or even generate an address to send bitcoins to was to download & run the software.  This idea does remove the incentive to run the software 24/7, but Satoshi could just leave theirs on until more people were transacting & people were making money from transaction fees.
It would defeat the purpose of Bitcoin if a single person were to be in control of minting it.
sr. member
Activity: 247
Merit: 250
Why exactly would he give anybody that 0.01?  For downloading software?  What happens after after 100 downloads, and still nobody is running the client? (because, why run it?)

How would you market this?  "Hey I created a new currency and gave it all to myself.  Please use it." 

Keep in mind, Satoshi basically used the same strategy for bitcoin.  And the same questions can be asked in the beginning of bitcoin.  Giving people .01 is equivalent to him telling people to download the software.   He could have mined forever by himself, accumulating all the bitcoins, but they would be worthless.  Giving away .01 or telling people to download the software prevents him from acquiring every bitcoin but hopefully works out in the long run by making it worth more.

And realize this was before blockchain.info & other online wallets.  So the only way to see your balance or even generate an address to send bitcoins to was to download & run the software.  This idea does remove the incentive to run the software 24/7, but Satoshi could just leave theirs on until more people were transacting & people were making money from transaction fees.
sr. member
Activity: 407
Merit: 250
Imagine Satoshi coded bitcoin so that the first miner would receive the only bitcoin ever to be created & it could be infinitely divisible.  Of course, he would be the first miner, so he receives the only bitcoin.  Just like he distributed early bitcoins by convincing people to run the software, he could have convinced them to download the software & he'd send them .01 BTC.  

That scheme would have no chance of ever becoming popular.

Why exactly would he give anybody that 0.01?  For downloading software?  What happens after after 100 downloads, and still nobody is running the client? (because, why run it?)

How would you market this?  "Hey I created a new currency and gave it all to myself.  Please use it." 

No good.



sr. member
Activity: 247
Merit: 250
Just not good enough. Bitcoin will also reach 21M and there will be no more coins.

We're only half way there.  So your bitcoins will be worth half as much as they could be if 10.5M was the cap.  Still a better inflation rate than fiat.
hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 587
Space Lord
Just not good enough. Bitcoin will also reach 21M and there will be no more coins.

This system is way better.

Interesting idea though...
sr. member
Activity: 247
Merit: 250
Imagine Satoshi coded bitcoin so that the first miner would receive the only bitcoin ever to be created & it could be infinitely divisible.  Of course, he would be the first miner, so he receives the only bitcoin.  Just like he distributed early bitcoins by convincing people to run the software, he could have convinced them to download the software & he'd send them .01 BTC.  Eventually, enough micro-bitcoins would be in circulation that people could buy them from others instead of asking Satoshi.  Then you'd be at the same situation we are now.

The largest differences are inflation & transaction fees.  Inflation wouldn't exist because no more coins can ever be created.  People would understand transaction fees early on because miners would be more restrictive since the fees would support their mining costs.

It is easy to prove the reward model works since bitcoin uses that model.  But I don't see any reason someone couldn't try the other model out with a change to the protocol.  The owner of the first coin could even setup a website like bitcoin fountain to distribute the currency instead of keeping track of PMs & emails.  Would it be a slower distribution model?  Hard to say.  Is the reward model the main reason for bitcoin's success?  Hard to say.  But I'd personally prefer this coin if it was at the same popularity as bitcoin is now.

Any thoughts?  Could this work?  Does this alt coin already exist?  Has this been mentioned before?
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