Quote from: revans on April 13, 2013, 06:36:27 PM

Quote from: myrkul on April 13, 2013, 06:21:33 PM

Quote from: revans on April 13, 2013, 06:12:19 PM

Quote from: myrkul on April 13, 2013, 06:02:05 PM

Quote from: revans on April 13, 2013, 05:57:07 PM

Quote from: myrkul on April 13, 2013, 05:54:11 PM

Quote from: revans on April 13, 2013, 05:49:40 PM

What risk was there with mining Bitcoins when difficulty was 1?

Quote from: Qoheleth on April 13, 2013, 04:27:41 PM

The problem with proof-of-work is that in order to make the ledger impeachable, people need to throw real-world value into a hole.

Most notably, that the time and electricity would be wasted if Bitcoin failed.

Right, so in the beginnings we're talking absolutely negligible.People throw CPU cycles at all kinds of activities more computationally intense than early coin miners and they do not consider themselves to be taking a 'risk'.

Never said it was a big risk. Just that they took it, back when it was a risk, and as a result, they have seen gains.

I don't see a problem with that... but then, I'm a capitalist, not a communist.

The problem is that for the sake of defending your argument you are attributing risk to a non-risk taking activity. I bet nobody mining these coins for fun at the time considered they were taking a risk, and yet you now argue retrospectively that somehow they were.

Just because they weren't concerned about the risk, or even didn't consider it a risk, Doesn't mean it wasn't a risk. And you're assuming they all kept them. Much more likely, they risked that taco, and gained a few pizzas or similar items of value.

The Shamir paper makes it clear that early adopters went to significant lengths to hide the true extent of their hoarding of Bitcoins. frankly the more you look into the history of Bitcoin, its origins, and the actions of the early players, the more it seems like a big trojan horse.

One argument against the Shamir paper. A large bit coin balance and NO transactions could be just pure neglect or a screwed up hard disk with NO back up

I've read it on reddit..one chappie lost 5 or 10 thousand coins and still had 5000 left on another hard disk / machine that he cashed at around 200 per coin and became a millionaire

I don't think the lost 10 thousand had any transaction , but essentially is NOT an evil get rich hoarder

Having said that I am all against evil get rich schemes

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One way of diffusing that "get rich" idea is to start alternate crypto currencies

Call them litecoins. Call them ripples call them what you want

Already there are venture capitalists investing in the ripples

If you look at hoarding value of bit coins - say anywhere between 0.5 to 1 billion USD as of date versus 'the actual commerce day to day ...again as of date, the actual commerce would be nothing

Amounts traded on mt gox could be 100 x amounts used to order any of the goods or services including shady drugs

Bit coins don't even have the ornamental value that gold has

So bit coins are just being hoarded ...not just by early adopters, but by who ever buys this tulip mania including many a chappie having just 5 or 10 coins and holding on to it for dear life

True ...lite coins and ripples are much less accepted in real commerce as of date, but you..me...late adopters...any large store chain...or the bunch of venture capitalists behind ripples and others behind other currencies could easily reverse that situation ( of better commercial adaptability for the next crypto currency )

I'm beginning to believe that the bitcoin experiment has been allowed to survive so far and even the FINCEN paper has sort of regulated and NOT banned crypto currencies for this precise reason ..this is an experiment and more is yet to come . There is more drama left and we have seen only the first few scenes here