Quote from: Heathrow on March 15, 2013, 07:55:21 PM

The question is whether there will be enough such people to keep BTC decentralized and secure when the massive ASIC farms start coming online.

Quote from: thoughtfan on March 15, 2013, 09:02:53 PM

My question is why would there not be?

Because the math looks poor. If I were to place an order for a Jalapeno now, by the time it arrived I wouldn't pay it off for a year or longer, and after that, I'd be making next to nothing (at current BTC prices). The investment looks very poor even if one assumes BTC prices will rise a fair bit. Frankly, the only reason I can see for buying a Jalapeno now is to help the BTC network (and it's not much help!). You'd have to gather quite a lot of willing folks who don't care about the math in order to sustain a decentralized network.

Now this isn't as significant a problem for folks who are already on Jalapeno preorder. They'll stand a better chance of making their investment back more quickly, but they'll very shortly be making almost nothing. The profit motive here is tenuous. But maybe you think something other than profit is going to motivate all these people?

To the extent that there is a profit motive for speculators, they'll be motivated to BUY BTC with FIAT, not flush money down the drain buying a Jalapeno.

Try to convince me to buy a Jalapeno. Why should I do it? Out of the generosity of my heart? Because I want to promote a decentralized currency even if it doesn't profit me to do so? Because that's what a good person would do?