What do you think of adding a low% of crypto allocation

[lifeanon269]

I agree with all of that.  To your first point though, the technology not being there is a big, big problem.  NFTs don't actually do what the proponents say they do.   It is as if someone claimed to invent a hoverboard.   It is claimed to be supercool, fun to ride, and is revolutionizing personal transportation.    Only problem is that it doesn't actually hover.  But if it did hover, it would revolutionize personal transportation.

Same thing with NFTs.   NFTs don't solve any problems that anyone has.   Sure, it is conceivable they could solve a problem some day.   But it is non-sensical to tout benefits that do not exist and may never exist.   Until those benefits materialize, NFTs are a fool and his money program.

I agree and again I have vocally criticized current iterations of NFTs today for their lack of technical soundness that borderlines on fraud. Plenty of people have also fallen victim to that as they've seen their NFTs vanish from centralized marketplaces and plummet in value when that shouldn't be possible with a truly decentralized technology.

I would argue against that last paragraph though. Sure, current iterations of NFTs often lack the technical soundness that they purport. But as I said earlier, that may or may not matter. Consensus on where value lies within any given art community is what matters and value is completely subjective. Maybe the technical soundness of NFTs never fully comes to fruition, but if social consensus among digital artists fails to care about technical purity, then that will do little to stifle the monetary value of the NFTs of their digital art.

I would also avoid insinuating that some technical hurdles may never be solved. There are plenty of decentralized storage solutions out there that can help solve the issue that centralized oracles present. Even something as simple as self-hosted websites as a reference from the NFT itself or IPFS storage can be a solution here. What matters is social consensus here and that is less of a technical hurdle.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

MicroStrategy holds $43 billion in BTC with a $91 billion market cap, which means it should have half of Bitcoin's performance.  Instead, it has 4x Bitcoin performance, driven by hope over data.  MSTR gained +614% in 1 year versus +159% for Bitcoin.  The CEO mentioned leverage, perhaps 1.5x, but he has only managed 0.5x.

I tried an arbitrage against MicroStrategy: short their stock, and buy equivalent Bitcoin.  When the stock collapses back to Bitcoin's performance, I'd sell.  But an institutional short seller announced their short position on MicroStrategy hours after I bought, so my gains became too good to resist within 24 hours, and I sold (+40% on a tiny, experimental investment).
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/passive-investor-20-years-turned-partially-active-in-2019/msg3314724/#msg3314724

Personally, I think next year will be too volatile to own Bitcoin.  But BITU is a better approach than MSTR, if your goal is leveraged exposure.
https://etfdb.com/etf/BITU/#etf-ticker-profile

[YttriumNitrate]

So, yes, I think it makes sense to have an allocation percentage to crypto -- specifically Bitcoin.  Blackrock is recommending 2% to their clients.  Perhaps even 5% allocation to BTC might make sense if you're comfortable with that.

I'm sure their recommendation has nothing to do with the cyrpto funds they are now hawking . . .
https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/products/333011/ishares-bitcoin-trust

[GuitarStv]

Copyright has nothing to do with any of this. This is an entirely new paradigm based on provable cryptography, not nebulous legal matters with jurisdictional boundaries.

I'd argue that it's important to talk about copyright.  Many people I've discussed this with are under the mistaken impression that owning an NFT means they have some sort of control of distribution and use of the art they own the NFT for.

No, not all reasons.  I was pretty specific about this - there is a direct connection with the artist that exists with physical art that is not reproduced with copies.  Holding the strat that Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner on at Woodstock is going to feel very different to a fan than holding a replica strat . . . even if the replica is objectively a better musical instrument (better wired, holds tune better, better paint job, better dressed frets, etc.).

Sure it's scarce, but that's not what drives the value.  It's the connection that a fan feels that drives the value.

It absolutely is the scarcity that drives the monetary value of such an item. You are almost there proving my point for me. Let's take your Hendrix example. Let's say you can create an exact duplicate of the stratocaster that Hendrix used to play the Star Spangled Banner to the point where everyone that wanted one could have one. The emotional attraction and "connection" to such an item is still there for every owner of the item that wanted one. That doesn't change. But because everyone that wants one has one now, the monetary value of such an item diminishes because of the fact that everyone has their own. So I'd argue that scarcity is absolutely critical to the monetary value of artistic works and it is the combination of people's emotional value and scarcity of such works that drives the monetary value of art.

Right, scarcity plays into it obviously . . . but scarcity on it's own is useless.  Every leaf in the forest is unique and therefore scarce.  Nobody is willing to pay big bucks for one though, because there's no emotional connection driving the value.

So it then stands to reason that by creating authenticity of digital works of art so that you can authenticate an original work as well as providing proof of ownership of said work of art, you've now created monetary value for digital art work that wasn't possible previously.

You do not create authenticity with an NFT.  A copy of digital art without an NFT is exactly as authentic as a copy of digital art with an NFT.  They're identical in every measurable way.  All you've really done with an NFT is shown proof of sale.

To be clear, you don't need a centralized marketplace to have an NFT. This has been my criticism of the current form of NFTs at the moment that I've been trying to explain. Colored-coins, for example, were around with bitcoin far earlier than NFT buzz and markets ever were, even though NFTs and color-coins are functionally the same. These centralized marketplaces just allow for the trading of these NFTs between marketplace participants where price discovery can take place. I can take my work of art (or any document or piece of data) and hash it and embed it into a bitcoin transaction. I now have a cryptographically provable timestamp that the work of art existed at that point in time and that I (by virtue of holding the private key behind that transaction) am the owner of it at that time. This is functionally equivalent to an NFT. The missing piece, since hashes are irreversible encryption, is displaying the digital work of art in a way that it can be hashed by others (verified) so that others can validate the authenticity of it.

I mean, in theory no.  In reality though, yes . . . you absolutely need a centralized marketplace to have an NFT.  Otherwise there's no real means to create, advertise, trade, or sell the NFTs.  And that's the whole point of them, right?  Nobody gets an NFT because they care about art.  They can get the art without the NFT in the overwhelming majority of cases . . . they get an NFT because they want to make money from the art and think this sales receipt will help them do that.

At the end of the day, NFTs are supposed to benefit artists.  Most artists are not going to become genius level crypto/NFT traders able to jump through a million hoops to do all of this manually.  They need to be able to create, buy, and sell in a very simple way if you ever want this to catch on.  Which means there needs to be a centralized marketplace in reality.

In the same way that I can digitally sign a message that proves I own a certain amount of bitcoin, someone can cryptographically prove they're an owner of a given work of art. Yes, if an NFT hasn't been created for a piece of art before, someone other than the artist can create one first. But that's beside the point. If the artist cares about NFTs, they have authority to create an NFT of their art before anyone else because they're the ones that created the art.

I feel like we're glossing over a pretty big problem here.

I can create an NFT for my own art.  Then I can create another one.  Then I can create a third.  There's nothing at all to prevent me from doing this and selling all three.  Then you can take my art and create your own NFT for it.  Again, there's nothing to prevent you from doing this.  Once the NFT has been recorded into the blockchain, it's immutable.

Sure, someone could do forensic digging and eventually find out that NFT1 predates NFT10000 . . . but all these NFTs are still going to exist.  They're still going to be verifiable on the blockchain showing that the owner of each NFT is the owner of the art.  They will therefore require massive human intervention to prove that the NFT you've got is the real NFT.  So they don't seem to offer any real verification at all.

If the actual artist themselves is saying I'm the owner of their work of art, that certainly carries value due to that scarcity.

Does it though?  Touching Hendrix's strat that was used while he was playing a concert is a direct connection to the artist.  If there are 1,000,000,000 identical strats and Hendrix used one at random, I buy one of the 1,000,000,000 and Hendrix sends me a sales receipt saying I bought one . . . does that really carry the same kind of connection?  My guess is, maybe yes for a collector and probably no for a music fan.  It's better than nothing for digital art I guess, but doesn't seem like it would ever be as desirable as the one strat that Hendrix used.  Maybe this simply indicates a fundamental difference that will always exist between digital and physical art.

Scarcity is what drives the monetary value of just about all things in life. If everyone can get their hands on something, no one would care to pay money (which is really just a value representation of our time and hard work) for any such object. There are of course different forms of value. Something are "priceless", meaning that no amount of money could replace the immense emotional value of something. Somethings can hold emotional value be also be worthless monetarily speaking, if there is no scarcity behind it or if no one else holds the same emotional feelings behind the object as you do. So it is important that when we talk about the value of art and the value of NFTs, we're talking about the monetary value of art here and why scarcity is absolutely important in that discussion.

NFTs create a forced, artificial scarcity though.  It remains to be seen if this is going to be valued long term for digital art.  So far it doesn't seem to have caught on in a big way.

[FinallyFree]

It's my belief that, yes, it makes sense to have a 2-5% allocation to BTC in ones portfolio and held for 10+ years. 
Blackrock is recommending 2% to their clients.  Perhaps even 5% allocation to BTC might make sense if you're comfortable with that.

So, I'm sorry to nitpick, but I'm trying to understand the reasoning behind this (maybe I should look up what blackrock says). What is the scenario where having 5% of your portfolio in BTC is beneficial/necessary (outside of "line goes up" speculation)? Sounds like you think the use case for BTC (whatever that means) will make this necessary? But how would that work?

If in the future some transactions can only be done using BTC, couldn't I just convert my USD to BTC then? Why would I have to own BTC for 10+ years (and hope)? If this is some important transaction, there will presumably still be 10s of millions of people who don't  own any BTC, so I don't see how there could be an overnight switch where USD is worthless, and BTC is the only method of payment. If the Euro is replaced with BTC, I will simply convert some USD to BTC before a europe vacation, or whatever. I will sell my (USD) VTSAX and convert that to BTC to pay the IRS. Maybe in 2045 I will be slightly less rich than if I had gone 100% BTC in 2024, but I consider that I minimal risk to take (compared to the alternative).

Alternatively, or is the thesis that value of BTC will slowly go up, and USD go down, so in the future you can pay taxes, buy bread or whatever with (small amounts) of BTC but massive amounts of USD? Basically that people with BTC now will be rich in 10 years, and everyone else, who saved in USD/fiat, will be destitute (call this the "enjoy being poor/speculation" scenario). Considering that the majority of rich people have fiat now, and no sign of going 100% BTC I find this basically inconcivable. As you say even blackrock only recommend 5%. Sure some rich people have crypto holdings, but that's in addition to fiat currency, not replacing it (not any I've heard of at least).

I appreciate your curiosity!  There are many books that can be ordered from Amazon explaining the case for Bitcoin.  You'll be well-served by taking the time to read them. 

Edit: just clarifying that I did not say that Blackrock recommends a 5% allocation.  I said they recommended a 2% allocation.  I was the one who suggested a 5% allocation for 10+ years if one is comfortable with it.  But you need to know what you're getting into, of course. 

[FinallyFree]

So, yes, I think it makes sense to have an allocation percentage to crypto -- specifically Bitcoin.  Blackrock is recommending 2% to their clients.  Perhaps even 5% allocation to BTC might make sense if you're comfortable with that.

I'm sure their recommendation has nothing to do with the cyrpto funds they are now hawking . . .
https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/products/333011/ishares-bitcoin-trust

You can say that about every single asset class in your portfolio and the brokerage firms you buy them from . . . .

[Telecaster]

I agree with all of that.  To your first point though, the technology not being there is a big, big problem.  NFTs don't actually do what the proponents say they do.   It is as if someone claimed to invent a hoverboard.   It is claimed to be supercool, fun to ride, and is revolutionizing personal transportation.    Only problem is that it doesn't actually hover.  But if it did hover, it would revolutionize personal transportation.

Same thing with NFTs.   NFTs don't solve any problems that anyone has.   Sure, it is conceivable they could solve a problem some day.   But it is non-sensical to tout benefits that do not exist and may never exist.   Until those benefits materialize, NFTs are a fool and his money program.

I agree and again I have vocally criticized current iterations of NFTs today for their lack of technical soundness that borderlines on fraud. Plenty of people have also fallen victim to that as they've seen their NFTs vanish from centralized marketplaces and plummet in value when that shouldn't be possible with a truly decentralized technology.

I would argue against that last paragraph though. Sure, current iterations of NFTs often lack the technical soundness that they purport. But as I said earlier, that may or may not matter. Consensus on where value lies within any given art community is what matters and value is completely subjective. Maybe the technical soundness of NFTs never fully comes to fruition, but if social consensus among digital artists fails to care about technical purity, then that will do little to stifle the monetary value of the NFTs of their digital art.

I would also avoid insinuating that some technical hurdles may never be solved. There are plenty of decentralized storage solutions out there that can help solve the issue that centralized oracles present. Even something as simple as self-hosted websites as a reference from the NFT itself or IPFS storage can be a solution here. What matters is social consensus here and that is less of a technical hurdle.

Are we in disagreement here?  I said they could solve a problem someday.  I didn't say they will never solve a problem.

The comment that triggered this side discussion was the claim that NFTs allow artists to sell direct to the consumer, which is not an actual benefit of NFTs.    Back in the peak NFT hype days there were lots of benefits being touted that didn't exist.  A common one as @GuitarStv points out is IP and copyright transfer.   But NFTs did not and still do not provide that benefit.   And the list goes on.  Artists were supposed to share revenue on secondary sales; NFTs don't provide full control or ownership; marketplaces were not democratized or decentralized; and so on.  None of the hyped benefits ever materialized.   

Sure, someday that could change, but that's where things sit right now.   Occasionally,  Chris Dixon (A16Z) will pop up on a podcast I listen to.   He wrote a book about benefits of decentralization.   He's allocated billions of dollars to crypto projects and to this day he can't name a single working, decentralized use case for NFTs.   He can only come up with hypotheticals.   

[Telecaster]

Blackrock is recommending 2% to their clients.  Perhaps even 5% allocation to BTC might make sense if you're comfortable with that.

That is overstating Blackrock's position by a lot.   Blackrock said if you want to own Bitcoin, don't allocate more than 1-2% to it.  Emphasis mine:   

Taking all this into account, we do see a case for including bitcoin in multi-asset portfolios – provided you believe it will become more widely adopted in the future and are comfortable bearing the risk of potentially rapid price plunges...

....In a traditional portfolio with a mix of 60% stocks and 40% bonds, those seven stocks each account for, on average, about the same share of overall portfolio risk as a 1-2% allocation to bitcoin. We think that’s a reasonable range for a bitcoin exposure. Why not more? Going beyond that would sharply increase bitcoin’s share of the overall portfolio risk.

https://www.blackrock.com/institutions/en-zz/insights/portfolio-design/sizing-bitcoin-in-portfolios

[lifeanon269]

I'd argue that it's important to talk about copyright.  Many people I've discussed this with are under the mistaken impression that owning an NFT means they have some sort of control of distribution and use of the art they own the NFT for.

But we're not talking about copyright law and that's not what's being discussed here. Frankly copyright law doesn't really different when it comes to NFTs than it does to real artwork. An artist can sell a painting for someone to hang on their wall while still owning the copyright to it for publication of that same artwork elsewhere. None of that changes with NFTs and just like you can transfer copyright of the artwork to someone else with physical art, you can still do that with digital art. But seeing as copyright is a legal matter outside of what NFTs represent, that's a matter for courts and legal contracts, not cryptography. And to be fair, so long as it is expressly written between parties that copyright ownership is being transferred, I see no reason why copyright ownership can't be transferred with a digital transaction on a blockchain and recognized by courts. The prescendent is certainly there and there have been NFT transfers that do include the copyrights.

Right, scarcity plays into it obviously . . . but scarcity on it's own is useless.  Every leaf in the forest is unique and therefore scarce.  Nobody is willing to pay big bucks for one though, because there's no emotional connection driving the value.

Enough with the poor analogies. It is strange that you argue against what I've said and yet your very own words agree and reiterate what I just wrote here:

it is the combination of people's emotional value and scarcity of such works that drives the monetary value of art

I mean, in theory no.  In reality though, yes . . . you absolutely need a centralized marketplace to have an NFT.  Otherwise there's no real means to create, advertise, trade, or sell the NFTs.  And that's the whole point of them, right?  Nobody gets an NFT because they care about art.  They can get the art without the NFT in the overwhelming majority of cases . . . they get an NFT because they want to make money from the art and think this sales receipt will help them do that.

At the end of the day, NFTs are supposed to benefit artists.  Most artists are not going to become genius level crypto/NFT traders able to jump through a million hoops to do all of this manually.  They need to be able to create, buy, and sell in a very simple way if you ever want this to catch on.  Which means there needs to be a centralized marketplace in reality.

Oh please. This is absolutely not true and shows how detached you are from the technology being discussed while being completely pessimistic about where technology can go. We already have decentralized marketplaces capable of providing price discovery among digital assets. There are no breakthroughs there needed. The idea you say people need to be "genius level" at anything to sell an NFT even today, let alone where tomorrow's UI improvements will take us are almost akin to the screams of a luddite.

I feel like we're glossing over a pretty big problem here.

I can create an NFT for my own art.  Then I can create another one.  Then I can create a third.  There's nothing at all to prevent me from doing this and selling all three.  Then you can take my art and create your own NFT for it.  Again, there's nothing to prevent you from doing this.  Once the NFT has been recorded into the blockchain, it's immutable.

Sure, someone could do forensic digging and eventually find out that NFT1 predates NFT10000 . . . but all these NFTs are still going to exist.  They're still going to be verifiable on the blockchain showing that the owner of each NFT is the owner of the art.  They will therefore require massive human intervention to prove that the NFT you've got is the real NFT.  So they don't seem to offer any real verification at all.

I don't see this as a problem at all and is certainly a solvable problem technical problem. Just as we've solved the double-spend problem today with a public blockchain, there is no reason this can't also be solved in a decentralized way. Smart contracts already have the capability to verify data that's already existing on the blockchain. There is no need for "forensic" work to be performed when nodes participating in verification of data on the blockchain will validate whether a new transaction is validate or not. Any new smart contract that is to be validated will be validated against the existing data/merkel trees to ensure it is spendable. The smart contract can easily prevent double minting just as bitcoin prevents double spending today. Sure, an artist could mint the NFT on a completely different blockchain, but just as the market values Bitcoin different from Bitcoin Cash (which is garbage fork), the market will equally value different blockchains differently.

Does it though?  Touching Hendrix's strat that was used while he was playing a concert is a direct connection to the artist.  If there are 1,000,000,000 identical strats and Hendrix used one at random, I buy one of the 1,000,000,000 and Hendrix sends me a sales receipt saying I bought one . . . does that really carry the same kind of connection?  My guess is, maybe yes for a collector and probably no for a music fan.  It's better than nothing for digital art I guess, but doesn't seem like it would ever be as desirable as the one strat that Hendrix used.  Maybe this simply indicates a fundamental difference that will always exist between digital and physical art.

Do you know how many art collectors there are out there that could give two shits about the artwork they're collecting? NFTs can be for art fans or collectors. As I've long said, value is completely subjective, so I find it strange that people are so adamant to argue against subjectivity. Even if NFTs are strictly for collectors and not "art fans", does that change the (monetary) value they're providing to both the collector and the artist? Who are you to argue otherwise?

I've long been critical of many of the technical shortcomings of NFTs and have called out current iterations as being scams for misrepresenting what they are technically. I'm even critical of NFTs when they unnecessarily bloat bitcoin block space like Ordinals have. But even in the face of technical impurity, if an NFT provides value to collectors, fans, and artists, then who am I to argue? From a technical standpoint, I acknowledge they can get there. So it is simply a matter of subjectivism on whether it eventually does and that's not something I care to argue against.

[GuitarStv]

I'd argue that it's important to talk about copyright.  Many people I've discussed this with are under the mistaken impression that owning an NFT means they have some sort of control of distribution and use of the art they own the NFT for.

But we're not talking about copyright law and that's not what's being discussed here. Frankly copyright law doesn't really different when it comes to NFTs than it does to real artwork. An artist can sell a painting for someone to hang on their wall while still owning the copyright to it for publication of that same artwork elsewhere. None of that changes with NFTs and just like you can transfer copyright of the artwork to someone else with physical art, you can still do that with digital art. But seeing as copyright is a legal matter outside of what NFTs represent, that's a matter for courts and legal contracts, not cryptography. And to be fair, so long as it is expressly written between parties that copyright ownership is being transferred, I see no reason why copyright ownership can't be transferred with a digital transaction on a blockchain and recognized by courts. The prescendent is certainly there and there have been NFT transfers that do include the copyrights.

US courts seem to be saying that NFTs aren't worth much of anything.  In 2014, Kevin McCoy minted what was arguably the world's first NFT.  McCoy minted the NFT using a copy of bitcoin, Quantum using NameCoin software.  It required a 250 day renewal to maintain ownership rights.  McCoy let his ownership rights lapse, and was Free Holdings then purchased Namecoin and minted an NFT using exactly the same metadata that McCoy had used.

As long as people are completely clear that having an NFT related to a piece of art does not mean you have ownership of the piece of art or any rights related to the piece of art, sure.

I don't think this is very clear to most people though.

Right, scarcity plays into it obviously . . . but scarcity on it's own is useless.  Every leaf in the forest is unique and therefore scarce.  Nobody is willing to pay big bucks for one though, because there's no emotional connection driving the value.

Enough with the poor analogies. It is strange that you argue against what I've said and yet your very own words agree and reiterate what I just wrote here:

it is the combination of people's emotional value and scarcity of such works that drives the monetary value of art

Yep, we agree that scarcity + emotional value is necessary for something to be worth money as art.  Where we seem to disagree is on the emotional value of assigning an NFT to a random duplicate of a piece of digital art.  I don't believe this has much (if any) emotional value at all.

I mean, in theory no.  In reality though, yes . . . you absolutely need a centralized marketplace to have an NFT.  Otherwise there's no real means to create, advertise, trade, or sell the NFTs.  And that's the whole point of them, right?  Nobody gets an NFT because they care about art.  They can get the art without the NFT in the overwhelming majority of cases . . . they get an NFT because they want to make money from the art and think this sales receipt will help them do that.

At the end of the day, NFTs are supposed to benefit artists.  Most artists are not going to become genius level crypto/NFT traders able to jump through a million hoops to do all of this manually.  They need to be able to create, buy, and sell in a very simple way if you ever want this to catch on.  Which means there needs to be a centralized marketplace in reality.

Oh please. This is absolutely not true and shows how detached you are from the technology being discussed while being completely pessimistic about where technology can go. We already have decentralized marketplaces capable of providing price discovery among digital assets. There are no breakthroughs there needed. The idea you say people need to be "genius level" at anything to sell an NFT even today, let alone where tomorrow's UI improvements will take us are almost akin to the screams of a luddite.

I know and am friends with a few artists.  Any of them who have been involved with NFTs to sell art have expressed annoyance at the difficulty in actually doing so.  It always involves setting up multiple accounts, taking payment in some form of crypto (which requires a crypto wallet and the need to convert it into a real currency), and paying pretty big cuts (so called 'gas fees') of any money made to the marketplace hosting it.  None of them have been able to figure out a way to do it completely on their own without using a centralized market place.  All of them also have stories of finding NFTs being sold online that had been made by other unauthorized people of their own work.

I'm not talking about hypothetical "tomorrow's UI improvements", but people dealing with today in the real world.

I feel like we're glossing over a pretty big problem here.

I can create an NFT for my own art.  Then I can create another one.  Then I can create a third.  There's nothing at all to prevent me from doing this and selling all three.  Then you can take my art and create your own NFT for it.  Again, there's nothing to prevent you from doing this.  Once the NFT has been recorded into the blockchain, it's immutable.

Sure, someone could do forensic digging and eventually find out that NFT1 predates NFT10000 . . . but all these NFTs are still going to exist.  They're still going to be verifiable on the blockchain showing that the owner of each NFT is the owner of the art.  They will therefore require massive human intervention to prove that the NFT you've got is the real NFT.  So they don't seem to offer any real verification at all.

I don't see this as a problem at all and is certainly a solvable problem technical problem.

The purpose of an NFT is to act as a sales receipt to prove ownership.  It's possible (and actually very easy) to create multiple NFTs of the same piece of art.  You don't see this as a problem at all?

If it's not a problem at all, then why does it need to be solved?  I don't follow your reasoning on this.

If the point of NFTs is to give artists money, but artists are having NFTs made of their art and then sold without their knowledge . . . then the NFTs are actually eating into the profit that the artist would have otherwise made.  Rather than empowering the artist, it's actually financially hurting them - taking sales away that otherwise would have been a source of income.  You really don't see a problem with this???

Just as we've solved the double-spend problem today with a public blockchain, there is no reason this can't also be solved in a decentralized way. Smart contracts already have the capability to verify data that's already existing on the blockchain. There is no need for "forensic" work to be performed when nodes participating in verification of data on the blockchain will validate whether a new transaction is validate or not. Any new smart contract that is to be validated will be validated against the existing data/merkel trees to ensure it is spendable. The smart contract can easily prevent double minting just as bitcoin prevents double spending today. Sure, an artist could mint the NFT on a completely different blockchain, but just as the market values Bitcoin different from Bitcoin Cash (which is garbage fork), the market will equally value different blockchains differently.

Now I may just be a simple country-luddite talking here . . . but now in addition to coming up with my own way to create and sell NFTs to avoid centralized repositories, you're saying I need to learn how to program, validate, and use smart contracts in order to ensure that the NFTs I create are being used properly and that all the nefarious actors out there faking my NFTs don't encroach on my rights?  Jesus.

You're saying that 'the market will decide' somehow.  How exactly will the market decide which is the real NFT when multiples arise?  How will you prevent people from being burned by fakes and just saying 'fuck this' to the whole NFT thing?  What you're describing here sounds to me like it will require human intervention for sure, or will be so filled with grifters and theives that it will be nigh impossible for an honest person to get the NFT that they apparently want for some reason.

if an NFT provides value to collectors, fans, and artists, then who am I to argue?

I'm not arguing with this either.  Fundamentally I just don't see much of a case to make that NFTs provide value to collectors and fans (anything that gives money to artists provides value to them obviously - but the hassles and headaches certainly eat into this too).  That's why most NFTs today are worth effectively nothing.  The market has been speaking.

[lifeanon269]

I don't think this is very clear to most people though.

People are already confused by copyright law and how it applies. I don't think people being confused about how copyright law applies to NFTs is actually a critique against NFTs and simply a critique on copyright law itself. My point still stands though, there is nothing preventing the transfer of copyright via an NFT should the copyright holder wish to do so. But saying this as a criticism against NFT I don't think is a valid argument. There are plenty of arguments to be had against them, this ain't one. People being idiots is a criticism toward people.

Now I may just be a simple country-luddite talking here . . . but now in addition to coming up with my own way to create and sell NFTs to avoid centralized repositories, you're saying I need to learn how to program, validate, and use smart contracts in order to ensure that the NFTs I create are being used properly and that all the nefarious actors out there faking my NFTs don't encroach on my rights?  Jesus.

Where are you getting any of this? You're very clearly twisting my words around. I didn't ever say that you had to program or be an expert in anything. Applications and programs do all of this automatically. My bitcoin node validates every transaction that has ever taken place automatically. If I need to make a bitcoin transaction, it is as simple as clicking send and scanning a QR code. I don't need to do any manual effort or "programming" to conduct a bitcoin transaction because the applications I interface with do that for you. It is no different for any other type of smart contract. Validation takes place automatically via the applications we're using. Just as you don't need to understand how a clearinghouse works when you make a bank transfer, you don't need to understand how a bitcoin transaction is validated by a bitcoin node to simply send a transaction. This is no different for NFTs. I am not sure why you're suggesting otherwise and it certainly wasn't anything I claimed or insinuated.

You're saying that 'the market will decide' somehow.  How exactly will the market decide which is the real NFT when multiples arise?  How will you prevent people from being burned by fakes and just saying 'fuck this' to the whole NFT thing?  What you're describing here sounds to me like it will require human intervention for sure, or will be so filled with grifters and theives that it will be nigh impossible for an honest person to get the NFT that they apparently want for some reason.

If someone is selling the same NFT on a different blockchain, the value of that completely different blockchain has already been determined by the market. For example, back in 2017, Bitcoin Cash forked off from Bitcoin and became its own separate blockchain. But the history of each chain was identical and, because it was a chain split fork, I owned identical bitcoin on the Bitcoin blockchain as I did the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. The keys I held would functionally be able to spend tokens on both chains. So did I double my money? No! The market valued the Bitcoin Cash blockchain as a lesser blockchain (rightfully so) compared to actual Bitcoin. While the tokens were functionally identical, the markets don't treat them that way and I exchanged my Bitcoin Cash tokens for actual real Bitcoins because the Bitcoin Cash tokens weren't valuable to me (or the market). You can fork off the bitcoin blockchain all you want, that doesn't mean you double your money each time you do. That's not how markets work.

This is analogous to a scenario where some one creates an NFT for the same artwork on a different blockchain. It won't have the same market value on a different blockchain because markets value each blockchain differently. Someone randomly minting an NFT for the same artwork on a completely different blockchain isn't going to infer the same market value as the NFT that was originally created on the blockchain that the market says is where the legitimate NFT market exists. But as I mentioned, you wouldn't/shouldn't be able to double-mint an NFT on the same blockchain as that would go against the validation being performed by validating/participating nodes. It would have to be a separate blockchain which are all valued differently by the market.

[GuitarStv]

I don't think this is very clear to most people though.

People are already confused by copyright law and how it applies. I don't think people being confused about how copyright law applies to NFTs is actually a critique against NFTs and simply a critique on copyright law itself. My point still stands though, there is nothing preventing the transfer of copyright via an NFT should the copyright holder wish to do so. But saying this as a criticism against NFT I don't think is a valid argument. There are plenty of arguments to be had against them, this ain't one. People being idiots is a criticism toward people.

There is something preventing the transfer of copyright via NFT - the law.  To the best of my knowledge, copyright is not legally transferrable by NFT anywhere in the world.  When this changes, you might have an argument here . . . but until then it should be made clear than NFTs cannot transfer copyright or denote ownership or any other rights related to the art associated with the NFT.  This (of course) makes perfect sense as anyone can make an NFT for anything on any blockchain.

Now I may just be a simple country-luddite talking here . . . but now in addition to coming up with my own way to create and sell NFTs to avoid centralized repositories, you're saying I need to learn how to program, validate, and use smart contracts in order to ensure that the NFTs I create are being used properly and that all the nefarious actors out there faking my NFTs don't encroach on my rights?  Jesus.

Where are you getting any of this? You're very clearly twisting my words around. I didn't ever say that you had to program or be an expert in anything. Applications and programs do all of this automatically. My bitcoin node validates every transaction that has ever taken place automatically. If I need to make a bitcoin transaction, it is as simple as clicking send and scanning a QR code. I don't need to do any manual effort or "programming" to conduct a bitcoin transaction because the applications I interface with do that for you. It is no different for any other type of smart contract. Validation takes place automatically via the applications we're using. Just as you don't need to understand how a clearinghouse works when you make a bank transfer, you don't need to understand how a bitcoin transaction is validated by a bitcoin node to simply send a transaction. This is no different for NFTs. I am not sure why you're suggesting otherwise and it certainly wasn't anything I claimed or insinuated.

You suggested smart contracts as a solution to double minting.  Smart contracts are code, written into blockchain.  Either you need to know how to code (and be proficient enough to recognize any nefarious code written into the smart contract, you have to hire someone who does, or you just hope for the best when signing one.  You seem to be suggesting that the first option is unnecessary, so which of the remaining two do you suggest a user subscribes to?

You're saying that 'the market will decide' somehow.  How exactly will the market decide which is the real NFT when multiples arise?  How will you prevent people from being burned by fakes and just saying 'fuck this' to the whole NFT thing?  What you're describing here sounds to me like it will require human intervention for sure, or will be so filled with grifters and theives that it will be nigh impossible for an honest person to get the NFT that they apparently want for some reason.

If someone is selling the same NFT on a different blockchain, the value of that completely different blockchain has already been determined by the market. For example, back in 2017, Bitcoin Cash forked off from Bitcoin and became its own separate blockchain. But the history of each chain was identical and, because it was a chain split fork, I owned identical bitcoin on the Bitcoin blockchain as I did the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. The keys I held would functionally be able to spend tokens on both chains. So did I double my money? No! The market valued the Bitcoin Cash blockchain as a lesser blockchain (rightfully so) compared to actual Bitcoin. While the tokens were functionally identical, the markets don't treat them that way and I exchanged my Bitcoin Cash tokens for actual real Bitcoins because the Bitcoin Cash tokens weren't valuable to me (or the market). You can fork off the bitcoin blockchain all you want, that doesn't mean you double your money each time you do. That's not how markets work.

This is analogous to a scenario where some one creates an NFT for the same artwork on a different blockchain. It won't have the same market value on a different blockchain because markets value each blockchain differently. Someone randomly minting an NFT for the same artwork on a completely different blockchain isn't going to infer the same market value as the NFT that was originally created on the blockchain that the market says is where the legitimate NFT market exists. But as I mentioned, you wouldn't/shouldn't be able to double-mint an NFT on the same blockchain as that would go against the validation being performed by validating/participating nodes. It would have to be a separate blockchain which are all valued differently by the market.

Right.  Each NFT is unique, but you can have an infinite number of NFTs minted for any digital art.  Just like leaves in the forest.  So why should any of them be valued as anything?  Honestly don't see a reason.

[lifeanon269]

There is something preventing the transfer of copyright via NFT - the law.  To the best of my knowledge, copyright is not legally transferrable by NFT anywhere in the world.  When this changes, you might have an argument here . . . but until then it should be made clear than NFTs cannot transfer copyright or denote ownership or any other rights related to the art associated with the NFT.  This (of course) makes perfect sense as anyone can make an NFT for anything on any blockchain.

That's not true at all.

https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1786&context=law_facpub

You suggested smart contracts as a solution to double minting.  Smart contracts are code, written into blockchain.  Either you need to know how to code (and be proficient enough to recognize any nefarious code written into the smart contract, you have to hire someone who does, or you just hope for the best when signing one.  You seem to be suggesting that the first option is unnecessary, so which of the remaining two do you suggest a user subscribes to?

And yet somehow you are here posting on the internet and conducting all manners of daily life on the internet without learning how to write an ounce of code. I'm actually flabbergasted at your response here and it is an indication to me that there really is no more need to discuss or debate this with you since it's become apparent the intellectual level of the conversation has sunk below that which I deem it worth my time.

Best to you.

[Telecaster]

There is something preventing the transfer of copyright via NFT - the law.  To the best of my knowledge, copyright is not legally transferrable by NFT anywhere in the world.  When this changes, you might have an argument here . . . but until then it should be made clear than NFTs cannot transfer copyright or denote ownership or any other rights related to the art associated with the NFT.  This (of course) makes perfect sense as anyone can make an NFT for anything on any blockchain.

That's not true at all.

https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1786&context=law_facpub

That was an interesting article. The author lists five ways copyright rights could be transferred with the sale of an NFT.    Of those five, four occur entirely off the blockchain.   The last method includes smart contracts, which the author recommends combining with one or more of the other methods.   

But it does raise the question:  Why buy the NFT at all?  Why not just buy the copyright itself? 

I think @GuitarStv has a legit point about interpreting smart contacts.  If someone handed me say, a rental agree for an apartment, I feel I could read through it and understand it.   But I don't know anything about reentrancy, integer overflow/underflow, or improper access controls.   So I wouldn't use a smart contract for anything important because I'm not qualified to interpret them. 

But it is a moot point because I can't think of a single thing I need a smart contract for.  Maybe I'm not not imaginative enough.   

[Juan Ponce de León]

Another year gone.  Back by nothing, tulips and beanie babies etc.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Back already?  I think you may have confused weeks with years.

Like talking to brick walls so I will check back in another year or two.

[joemandadman189]

I think what Juan is illustrating is that regardless of a person's opinion of Bitcoin and crypto in general, it, being crypto, is an option to increase your net worth with 10 plus years of data. Bitcoin has outperformed the market by 9x (147/16.2) from 2011 to 2024.

[Glenstache]

And BTC remains a speculative and highly volatile investment option. It looks very good in hindsight and many of those down years didn't look so good at the time. I'm still not convinced that those returns are sustainable and won't end up with a lot of lost wealth due to changes in a fickle market, tech advance, or regulatory change. As an asset, it still does not meet what I'm looking for in *my personal* investment strategy. For those that do invest in it, I wish you well.

[seattlecyclone]

"Past performance is no indication of future results." Yes, a 147% annual growth rate happened over the preceding time period. If that trend continues for even several years more, the value of all the world's BTC will be higher than the value of every other asset in the world combined. Surely everyone can agree this would be a nonsensical result, and that nobody should make investment decisions assuming that will happen, correct?

[waltworks]

Hypothetically, since prices are set at the margins, you could have the paper (erm, electron?) value of Bitcoin far exceed all the other assets on Earth, actually. If Musk and Bezos and Putin are desperately bidding for the last final Bitcoin and they spend $250 billion for it, then all the other bitcoin is theoretically worth 21 million times $250 billion. So $500,000,000,000,000,000. $500 Quintillion, I think. I might have missed a zero.

Anyway way more than the value of everything on Earth right now.

I agree that would be illogical but the current situation isn't really logical either.

-W

[seattlecyclone]

If enough people were determined enough to bid up the available supply of Bitcoins the price could get that high, agreed. I'll repeat my assertion that nobody should invest with an expectation that will happen because there's absolutely no good reason for Bitcoins to be that valuable.

[LateStarter]

"Past performance is no indication of future results." Yes, a 147% annual growth rate happened over the preceding time period. If that trend continues for even several years more, the value of all the world's BTC will be higher than the value of every other asset in the world combined. Surely everyone can agree this would be a nonsensical result, and that nobody should make investment decisions assuming that will happen, correct?

If enough people were determined enough to bid up the available supply of Bitcoins the price could get that high, agreed. I'll repeat my assertion that nobody should invest with an expectation that will happen because there's absolutely no good reason for Bitcoins to be that valuable.

So, your assertion is that Bitcoin market cap could but probably won't exceed global wealth. Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

Regardless, we shouldn’t stress over the limited scope for further growth just yet:

[seattlecyclone]

I personally believe Bitcoin is already worth more than it has any good reason to be worth based on its current and near future utility, but there's obvious disagreement on that point. I was hoping we could at least all agree that Bitcoin should never be worth more than everything else in the world combined. Given a current BTC market cap of nearly $2 trillion, another seven years of 147% annualized growth would push Bitcoin past that $900 trillion mark.

So when someone posts a backward-looking graphic showing this 147% growth rate, clearly outpacing all other asset classes, let's be clear about what exactly that means. It means someone who bet heavily on Bitcoin a decade ago would be very rich now. It does not mean, and should not be assumed to mean, that this growth rate is sustainable even in the medium term. I want to caution folks most strongly against assuming that will be the case.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Notice nobody includes 2009-2010 performance, when Bitcoin's value rose from zero, and had infinite performance.  It's an example of why the start date of Bitcoin's performance is arbitrary.  I prefer to start in Sept 2013, when Bitcoin Greyscale Trust ($GBTC) was launched, sending Bitcoin up 10x in a couple months.  (But if you bought at the peak, you didn't break even for 4 years)

The key question isn't what other people earned in the past, but what an investor right now can earn going forward.  Bitcoin's rise was fueled by more people buying it with more money.  The "more people" part of that equation may be saturated, as "40% of American adults now own crypto" (*).  Where will the future demand come from, to drive the price upwards?

(*) see "Key Findings" of this Sept 2024 report.
https://www.security.org/digital-security/cryptocurrency-annual-consumer-report/

[41_swish]

As it currently stands, I just think there is no life changing upside in crypto like there was 10 years ago. I am sure there will be a new thing like there here soon, but we are too late on crypto and NFTs to make life changing money on them.

[lifeanon269]

Hypothetically, since prices are set at the margins, you could have the paper (erm, electron?) value of Bitcoin far exceed all the other assets on Earth, actually. If Musk and Bezos and Putin are desperately bidding for the last final Bitcoin and they spend $250 billion for it, then all the other bitcoin is theoretically worth 21 million times $250 billion. So $500,000,000,000,000,000. $500 Quintillion, I think. I might have missed a zero.

Anyway way more than the value of everything on Earth right now.

I agree that would be illogical but the current situation isn't really logical either.

-W

This doesn't really make sense at all. Yes, price is determined by supply and demand. The "last final bitcoin" makes an assumption that all currency (bitcoin in this case) brought to a currency exchange market is currency that was just produced (or mined wrt to bitcoin). But reality is that bitcoin is and can be brought to market from all market participants. Even if Putin, Bezos, and Musk were bidding up the price of bitcoin, you're making the assumption that these are the only two market buyer participants. All sellers and buyers in the market determine where price equilibrium meets.

But price is just a denomination of one currency's value in another. Not its relative value to other goods and assets in the real world. Obviously it would make no sense for bitcoin to be more valuable that all goods and assets in the world and I don't think anyone is saying that. But that's not what the price of bitcoin (in USD for example) represents. The price of bitcoin is bitcoin's value represented in dollars, but that tells you nothing of its relative value compared to other goods and assets.

Since the US dollar's value can be debased, inflationary periods could yield outsized gains if people utilized bitcoin as a store of value and inflationary hedge. This would mean its exchange rate could hit higher annualized "returns", but likely so would all other scarce assets and commodities when priced in dollars. Therefore the size of the bitcoin market wouldn't be worth more than everything else in the world. Sure, it could certainly make gains against other assets in the world and this is a very likely possibility. But market cap extrapolations and making claims that bitcoin achieving 100% annualized gains would result in it being worth more than all assets in the world fails to consider the likelihood in that scenario that other scarce assets would also see large gains when denominated in US dollars.

In other words, there could be large gains in the price of bitcoin relative to any fiat currency without bitcoin being worth more than all other scarce assets and commodities because those scarce assets are also denominated in largely in fiat currencies at the moment. Volatility in bitcoin and its price in fiat terms is largely a result of fiat monetary flows being a far larger market and its associated monetary policies. If fiat currencies can and do fail, then there really isn't a price ceiling for bitcoin and the same can be said for all scarce assets in the world.

I certainly expect to see tempered price increases with bitcoin as its market matures. But fiat fiscal policy is in an extremely tight spot right now and so I don't see a way out of their debt burden without the money printer inflating some of that debt away. This goes for all fiat currencies around the world. So I do see bitcoin making large gains against the US dollar and because of this, increased inflows of US dollars into bitcoin which would result in real returns above the inflation rate of the US dollars and beating many other scarce assets and commodities in real returns because of bitcoin's unique properties.

[Glenstache]

Honest question for the BTC advocates. What is the scenario where the dollar increases against BTC? It seems most of the arguments are that increased dollar supply will increase the value of BTC? (it is not clear to me how those predictions are adjusted for actual purchasing power relative to anything but a person just holding dollars under the mattress). Is the devalued BTC scenario just that it falls out of vogue relative to a competitor store of value?

[LateStarter]

Honest question for the BTC advocates. What is the scenario where the dollar increases against BTC? It seems most of the arguments are that increased dollar supply will increase the value of BTC? (it is not clear to me how those predictions are adjusted for actual purchasing power relative to anything but a person just holding dollars under the mattress). Is the devalued BTC scenario just that it falls out of vogue relative to a competitor store of value?

Why is BTC-USD increasing ?

BTC-USD increases as USD supply increases just as everything-USD increases - it's just simple inflation/dilution/debasement.
And let's not forget that many are more concerned about BTC-VEB or BTC-TRY, etc. They're buying too.

More and more parties are getting to understand this, and so more and more parties are wanting more and more Bitcoin.
Increasing demand vs finite supply drives BTC-USD way higher than just the above USD debasement%. That's where the increase in purchasing power is coming from. BTC-everything increases.


Why would BTC-USD decrease ?
The opposite of the above.

Reduced USD supply via reduced US Gov spend, austerity, etc. etc.
Reduced general fiat currency supply via other Gov spend, austerity, etc. etc.

Reduced enthusiasm for Bitcoin via tech failure or hack or boredom or something way better showing up, etc. etc.

[41_swish]

Crypto is still complete nonsense and should be treated as such. I can understand buying Bitcoin and Eth, but if you are out here buying meme coins, I am curious how you even ended up on this forum.

[LateStarter]

Crypto is still complete nonsense and should be treated as such. I can understand buying Bitcoin and Eth, but if you are out here buying meme coins, I am curious how you even ended up on this forum.

I don't think anyone has posted anything positive about anything other than Bitcoin here for quite some time. You are the crazy crypto-fringe on this forum . . . ETH ??!!   pah !!      :-)

[GuitarStv]

Crypto is still complete nonsense and should be treated as such. I can understand buying Bitcoin and Eth, but if you are out here buying meme coins, I am curious how you even ended up on this forum.

What makes bitcoin different from any of the meme coins that are backed by exactly the same technology?  Is it's primary value just name recognition at this point?

[ChpBstrd]

Crypto is still complete nonsense and should be treated as such. I can understand buying Bitcoin and Eth, but if you are out here buying meme coins, I am curious how you even ended up on this forum.

What is the fundamental justification for this distinction between legitimate and illegitimate crypto projects? Is there anything fundamentally different between the design of bitcoin and, say, the design of "Baby Doge Coin" for example?

[41_swish]

It is all nonsense, you two are right. I was just scared someone was going to come after me for saying buttcoin is a sham. I need to say it with my chest next time.

[GuitarStv]

It is all nonsense, you two are right. I was just scared someone was going to come after me for saying buttcoin is a sham. I need to say it with my chest next time.

Hey, don't disrespect it.  If you got in on buttcoin at the ground floor on Jan 4th you have experienced a 68% gain in your money:  https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/buttcoin.  Pretty clear indication of strong fundamentals there.  You can expect more than a 2200% increase by the end of the month based on past performance.

[41_swish]

Okay, this is just nonsense. I am tired of trying to act like this isn't just astrology for autistic men.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Crypto is still complete nonsense and should be treated as such. I can understand buying Bitcoin and Eth, but if you are out here buying meme coins, I am curious how you even ended up on this forum.

What is the fundamental justification for this distinction between legitimate and illegitimate crypto projects? Is there anything fundamentally different between the design of bitcoin and, say, the design of "Baby Doge Coin" for example?

Today I learned "Baby Doge Coin" is ranked #163 on coinmarketcap.com ...

Sham or not, many ETFs track Bitcoin and Ethereum.  None track "Baby Doge Coin".
https://etfdb.com/themes/bitcoin-etfs/
https://etfdb.com/themes/ethereum-etfs/

[lifeanon269]

What makes bitcoin different from any of the meme coins that are backed by exactly the same technology?  Is it's primary value just name recognition at this point?

There is quite a bit difference in bitcoin and the rest.

For one, there is a huge difference in how bitcoin was bootstrapped versus how most alt-coins are bootstrapped today. Firstly, Satoshi put a message in the first block that was mined. This message was the newspaper headline for The Times on January 3rd 2009 when the block was first mined. This was Satoshi's way of showing that there was no pre-mine to bootstrap the network. A lot of alt-coins these days are pre-mined by the developers/creators to "kickstart" the network, but all this really does is create a way for the creators to dump on investors post-launch. There is a lack of fairness in how many of these alt-coins come into existence.

Bitcoin also had a benefit that other alt-coins don't have today and that's the fact that bitcoin didn't really even have a price for well over a year into its existence. Because it was the first truly decentralized cryptocurrency, it was often distributed freely and fairly to anyone. There were bitcoin faucets or websites that you could go to and click a button and receive free bitcoin. This free and fair distribution is unique to bitcoin compared to many others today. Now that the "cat is out of the bag", you can't have a free and fair distribution of digital currency in today's world that will immediately price those tokens in the market before they're even distributed. This is why there are so many pump and dump schemes and so many victims of fraud in alt-coins.

Even prior to bitcoin's bootstrap was the fact that Satoshi released the original whitepaper 3 months prior to the first block. And the coins mined in that first block were sent to an unspendable address.

Finally, Satoshi understood that to be a truly decentralized currency, there must be no single owner of it. So he vanished and remains anonymous to this day. In contrast to other alt-coins where you have organizations funding and pushing development roadmaps or have individuals and figureheads behind their creation (looking at you Buterin, Hoskinson and Garlinghouse). How decentralized is Ethereum really when you have such a prominent figurehead like Buterin driving its development roadmap or with such outsized influence? Can you imagine the price of Ethereum if Buterin were assassinated? Or the price of Ripple/XRP if Brad Garlinghouse died? Or the price of Cardano if Charles Hoskinson goes manic? If you want a truly global decentralized currency to thrive in an adversarial environment, you can't have institutions or individuals behind them. The currency must be owned by the people if it is to be for the people. If a cryptocurrency can be sued or be held legally liable, are you really decentralized (looking at your Garlinghouse)? If MIT creates their own cryptocurrency, do you really think China or Russia would ever consider using such a currency with its origins in the USA?

Then there is the scale of adoption and development with bitcoin and its approach to security. Bitcoin's development is security above all because everyone deeply involved with it understands that you can't move fast and break things when there are trillions of dollars at stake. Ethereum is basically a glorified testnet. In the end, if there is a really great revolutionary idea that comes along, there isn't much stopping that idea from making its way to bitcoin and functioning as a second layer on bitcoin and thus being secured by the most secure blockchain in the world.

And that comes to my final point. Bitcoin is the most secure blockchain in the world with its proof of work (which is critical and unmatched). It is similar to the idea of the internet. Sure, you could create your own intranet that people could use and operate on, but why would anyone want to use and operate your miniscule intranet when they could just use the internet that is already open to all? If there is another blockchain, proof of work or otherwise, why use that when you could just use bitcoin? Open networks tend to consolidate. We saw it with the internet in the early days when there were numerous competing intranets and we finally consolidated to an open internet simply because markets demand interoperability. Bitcoin is and will be the native currency of the internet simply because it is the most secure and open monetary protocol we have and it simply can't be duplicated.

[LateStarter]

What makes bitcoin different from any of the meme coins that are backed by exactly the same technology?  Is it's primary value just name recognition at this point?

What is the fundamental justification for this distinction between legitimate and illegitimate crypto projects? Is there anything fundamentally different between the design of bitcoin and, say, the design of "Baby Doge Coin" for example?

What's the difference between the US Dollar and the Venezuelan Bolivar ?

[GuitarStv]

What makes bitcoin different from any of the meme coins that are backed by exactly the same technology?  Is it's primary value just name recognition at this point?

There is quite a bit difference in bitcoin and the rest.

For one, there is a huge difference in how bitcoin was bootstrapped versus how most alt-coins are bootstrapped today. Firstly, Satoshi put a message in the first block that was mined. This message was the newspaper headline for The Times on January 3rd 2009 when the block was first mined. This was Satoshi's way of showing that there was no pre-mine to bootstrap the network. A lot of alt-coins these days are pre-mined by the developers/creators to "kickstart" the network, but all this really does is create a way for the creators to dump on investors post-launch. There is a lack of fairness in how many of these alt-coins come into existence.

I mean . . . I agree with you that pre-mining and dumping is a common scam in the crypto world, but what Satoshi did with bitcoin is no different than the evolution of this - ninja-mining.  He got in before anyone knew what was going on and mined large quantities of bitcoin.  That's exactly the same lack of fairness you're complaining about, just in a different form.  So I'm not really seeing any difference here.

Bitcoin also had a benefit that other alt-coins don't have today and that's the fact that bitcoin didn't really even have a price for well over a year into its existence. Because it was the first truly decentralized cryptocurrency, it was often distributed freely and fairly to anyone. There were bitcoin faucets or websites that you could go to and click a button and receive free bitcoin. This free and fair distribution is unique to bitcoin compared to many others today. Now that the "cat is out of the bag", you can't have a free and fair distribution of digital currency in today's world that will immediately price those tokens in the market before they're even distributed. This is why there are so many pump and dump schemes and so many victims of fraud in alt-coins.

Even prior to bitcoin's bootstrap was the fact that Satoshi released the original whitepaper 3 months prior to the first block. And the coins mined in that first block were sent to an unspendable address.

Umm . . . yeah, this is exactly what I was talking about earlier.  Satoshi ninja-mined so many (at the time) worthless bitcoins that he was happy to just throw a bunch at people for free to try to get the idiots into it.  And it worked.  I honestly don't see why this is supposed to be superior to any other crypto coin though.  Mostly it happened because bitcoin was the first . . . which is sort of the original question I was asking.  Is bitcoin better just because it was the first?

FWIW - I'd argue that litecoin had a more fair launch than bitcoin - no ninja mining or pre-mining.  (It's also much better in use as an actual currency.)

Finally, Satoshi understood that to be a truly decentralized currency, there must be no single owner of it. So he vanished and remains anonymous to this day. In contrast to other alt-coins where you have organizations funding and pushing development roadmaps or have individuals and figureheads behind their creation (looking at you Buterin, Hoskinson and Garlinghouse). How decentralized is Ethereum really when you have such a prominent figurehead like Buterin driving its development roadmap or with such outsized influence? Can you imagine the price of Ethereum if Buterin were assassinated? Or the price of Ripple/XRP if Brad Garlinghouse died? Or the price of Cardano if Charles Hoskinson goes manic? If you want a truly global decentralized currency to thrive in an adversarial environment, you can't have institutions or individuals behind them. The currency must be owned by the people if it is to be for the people. If a cryptocurrency can be sued or be held legally liable, are you really decentralized (looking at your Garlinghouse)? If MIT creates their own cryptocurrency, do you really think China or Russia would ever consider using such a currency with its origins in the USA?

I think this is probably your strongest point.  Satoshi is the world's largest individual owner of bitcoin, he got out early and fucked off rather than care about trying to control it.  Most bitcoin clones are run by people still trying to make money.

Then there is the scale of adoption and development with bitcoin and its approach to security. Bitcoin's development is security above all because everyone deeply involved with it understands that you can't move fast and break things when there are trillions of dollars at stake. Ethereum is basically a glorified testnet. In the end, if there is a really great revolutionary idea that comes along, there isn't much stopping that idea from making its way to bitcoin and functioning as a second layer on bitcoin and thus being secured by the most secure blockchain in the world.

Again, the adoption/development for bitcoin was solely because it was first.  Not because it was better than anything.  I think the argument could maybe be made that Ethereum was adopted because it was better (at least different) than bitcoin in several aspects.

And that comes to my final point. Bitcoin is the most secure blockchain in the world with its proof of work (which is critical and unmatched). It is similar to the idea of the internet. Sure, you could create your own intranet that people could use and operate on, but why would anyone want to use and operate your miniscule intranet when they could just use the internet that is already open to all? If there is another blockchain, proof of work or otherwise, why use that when you could just use bitcoin? Open networks tend to consolidate. We saw it with the internet in the early days when there were numerous competing intranets and we finally consolidated to an open internet simply because markets demand interoperability. Bitcoin is and will be the native currency of the internet simply because it is the most secure and open monetary protocol we have and it simply can't be duplicated.

How exactly is bitcoin more secure than the hundreds of identical shitcoins out there using exactly the same proof of work concept and technology?

The comparison to the internet just doesn't work here.  There aren't (and have never been) dozens of identical internets with exactly the same technology competing for my attention.  There are identical crypto coins with exactly the same technology all competing for my attention right now.

What makes bitcoin different from any of the meme coins that are backed by exactly the same technology?  Is it's primary value just name recognition at this point?

What is the fundamental justification for this distinction between legitimate and illegitimate crypto projects? Is there anything fundamentally different between the design of bitcoin and, say, the design of "Baby Doge Coin" for example?

What's the difference between the US Dollar and the Venezuelan Bolivar ?

The government backing the fiat currency is the most important part of a fiat currency.  That makes these two fiat currencies radically different.  Such a difference does not exist between bitcoin and buttcoin.

[Scandium]

I was just curious;
There are 180 (fiat) currencies in the world
According to coinmarketcap, there are 2,030 cryptocurrencies with a market cap above $1M (they list 10,575 total!).

(I also learned of such quality coins as "Lets Fucking Go" with a market cap of $1.01M, and a "value" of 1/10 of a penny each. It peaked at 3c, before the dump happened. That people fall for this will never not be funny)

[lifeanon269]

I mean . . . I agree with you that pre-mining and dumping is a common scam in the crypto world, but what Satoshi did with bitcoin is no different than the evolution of this - ninja-mining.  He got in before anyone knew what was going on and mined large quantities of bitcoin.  That's exactly the same lack of fairness you're complaining about, just in a different form.  So I'm not really seeing any difference here.

I think you're misunderstanding what pre-mining really is and how the bootstrapping of bitcoin occurred and differed. Pre-mining is when a small group or individual is mining and operating the cryptocurrency implementation and producing blocks for the blockchain in private without the software implementation being available to the public. Then, when the cryptocurrency is announced and made available to the public, the developers already have a stockpile in hand.

This is not what took place with bitcoin. Satoshi mined the first block on January 3rd, 2009. The first software version for running it was freely available on January 8th for anyone to download. Satoshi didn't mine another block for another 6 days.



Hal Finney was running this first iteration of bitcoin on January 11th, 2009 and received bitcoin just days later. There was nothing stopping anyone from downloading bitcoin, running it and mining it or accepting it. This is the key difference that you're not understanding. A pre-mine is gated and closed off from the public entirely. Bitcoin was not pre-mined and just because you weren't aware of it at the time, doesn't make it any less fair and open.

FWIW - I'd argue that litecoin had a more fair launch than bitcoin - no ninja mining or pre-mining.  (It's also much better in use as an actual currency.)

This tells me you often speak beyond your understanding of the subject matter. I would love for you to expand upon this so I could rebuttal more, but I fail to understand why you think it is of much better use as a currency. What reasoning do you have for this? (Please for the love of god don't say its blockspeed of 2.5 minutes).

How exactly is bitcoin more secure than the hundreds of identical shitcoins out there using exactly the same proof of work concept and technology?

The comparison to the internet just doesn't work here.  There aren't (and have never been) dozens of identical internets with exactly the same technology competing for my attention.  There are identical crypto coins with exactly the same technology all competing for my attention right now.

Bitcoin is more secure because there is more proof-of-work behind it, especially against other currencies using the same PoW algorithm. Even the next closest SHA-256 based PoW blockchain, Bitcoin Cash, is only 0.5% of bitcoin's hashrate today. This means it would only take a small percentage of bitcoin miners to attack Bitcoin Cash. Attacking Bitcoin with a 51% style attack would take immense amounts of power, more than any single country would be able to acquire. It would also require an immense amount of ASICs that are beyond a single nation-state's capability to acquire. You're just not going to be able to have any single entity or nation in this world with the capability of acquiring this amount of chipsets and electricity to be able to attack bitcoin, let alone do it discretely. Beyond that it comes down to game theory. Since miners are thus operating in their own self-interest and the market values bitcoin for its security, miners moving to another network isn't in their best interest. You would need an entity larger than any nation-state to operate outside of the own financial interest and acquire more electricity than most nation states and more chipsets than any single manufacturer can supply and do this without anyone knowing until you're ready to begin your 51% attack. All this just to have the measly capability of a double-spending or potential hard-fork which could then all be unravelled with a software hard-fork rendering all that physical hardwork meaningless.

You should probably read a little more on the history of the internet and its protocols. It is a pretty apt comparison, IMO, and my point about the many closed networks in the early days giving way in favor of a more open internet operating over TCP/IP still stands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

[LateStarter]

What makes bitcoin different from any of the meme coins that are backed by exactly the same technology?  Is it's primary value just name recognition at this point?

What is the fundamental justification for this distinction between legitimate and illegitimate crypto projects? Is there anything fundamentally different between the design of bitcoin and, say, the design of "Baby Doge Coin" for example?

What's the difference between the US Dollar and the Venezuelan Bolivar ?

The government backing the fiat currency is the most important part of a fiat currency.  That makes these two fiat currencies radically different.  Such a difference does not exist between bitcoin and buttcoin.

So, the fact that USD and VEB are based on the same ‘fiat’ technology is irrelevant. That's the case for Bitcoin and altcoins too.

As for ‘backing’:

Bitcoin: has many serious people investing serious amounts of time, energy and money – from the Core developers, $multiMillion miners, thousands of independent nodes, corporations, the biggest financial institutions, several nation states - including the US, and millions of Bitcoin holders.

Buttcoin: is a self-declared joke shitcoin that squats on the Solana network.

USD has WAAAY more in common with VEB than Bitcoin does with Buttcoin.

[ChpBstrd]

What makes bitcoin different from any of the meme coins that are backed by exactly the same technology?  Is it's primary value just name recognition at this point?

What is the fundamental justification for this distinction between legitimate and illegitimate crypto projects? Is there anything fundamentally different between the design of bitcoin and, say, the design of "Baby Doge Coin" for example?

What's the difference between the US Dollar and the Venezuelan Bolivar ?

One is a stable currency that is useful for trade because it is backed by laws, regulations, and enforcement, and is issued by one of the lower-corruption providers of currency in the world which produces an enormous amount of output that can be bought with the currency.

The other currency represents an anarchistic wasteland of corruption where the currency issuer is trying to rip off working people by creating value out of nothing.

Are you thinking one of these resembles crypto?

[LateStarter]

What makes bitcoin different from any of the meme coins that are backed by exactly the same technology?  Is it's primary value just name recognition at this point?

What is the fundamental justification for this distinction between legitimate and illegitimate crypto projects? Is there anything fundamentally different between the design of bitcoin and, say, the design of "Baby Doge Coin" for example?

What's the difference between the US Dollar and the Venezuelan Bolivar ?

One is a stable currency that is useful for trade because it is backed by laws, regulations, and enforcement, and is issued by one of the lower-corruption providers of currency in the world which produces an enormous amount of output that can be bought with the currency.

The other currency represents an anarchistic wasteland of corruption where the currency issuer is trying to rip off working people by creating value out of nothing.

Are you thinking one of these resembles crypto?

That's not what I was thinking but, sure . . . some cryptos, most cryptos even, seem to have a lot in common with VEB.

My point was that USD uses the same 'design' (your word) as VEB. They are not 'fundamentally different'.

[GuitarStv]

I mean . . . I agree with you that pre-mining and dumping is a common scam in the crypto world, but what Satoshi did with bitcoin is no different than the evolution of this - ninja-mining.  He got in before anyone knew what was going on and mined large quantities of bitcoin.  That's exactly the same lack of fairness you're complaining about, just in a different form.  So I'm not really seeing any difference here.

I think you're misunderstanding what pre-mining really is and how the bootstrapping of bitcoin occurred and differed. Pre-mining is when a small group or individual is mining and operating the cryptocurrency implementation and producing blocks for the blockchain in private without the software implementation being available to the public. Then, when the cryptocurrency is announced and made available to the public, the developers already have a stockpile in hand.

This is not what took place with bitcoin. Satoshi mined the first block on January 3rd, 2009. The first software version for running it was freely available on January 8th for anyone to download. Satoshi didn't mine another block for another 6 days.



Hal Finney was running this first iteration of bitcoin on January 11th, 2009 and received bitcoin just days later. There was nothing stopping anyone from downloading bitcoin, running it and mining it or accepting it. This is the key difference that you're not understanding. A pre-mine is gated and closed off from the public entirely. Bitcoin was not pre-mined and just because you weren't aware of it at the time, doesn't make it any less fair and open.

Pre-mining is pretty simple to understand.  It's allows an individual or group of users to amass a quantity of crypto before it's publicly available.  Identical in effect (though different in execution) to ninja-mining.  Taking advantage of a low network hash early on (as Satoishi and his buddies did) to amass a large amount of a cryptocurrency without doing much work creates identical results to pre-mining.  If you're against one, I don't understand why you would be OK with the other.  Both create exactly the same type of unfairness that you indicated you were against.

FWIW - I'd argue that litecoin had a more fair launch than bitcoin - no ninja mining or pre-mining.  (It's also much better in use as an actual currency.)

This tells me you often speak beyond your understanding of the subject matter. I would love for you to expand upon this so I could rebuttal more, but I fail to understand why you think it is of much better use as a currency. What reasoning do you have for this? (Please for the love of god don't say its blockspeed of 2.5 minutes).

All else being equal, litecoin should operate faster than bitcoin to write blocks due to the hashing differences between the two.  If used as a currency, I'd say that this makes it more suitable.  You're free to argue otherwise of course.

How exactly is bitcoin more secure than the hundreds of identical shitcoins out there using exactly the same proof of work concept and technology?

The comparison to the internet just doesn't work here.  There aren't (and have never been) dozens of identical internets with exactly the same technology competing for my attention.  There are identical crypto coins with exactly the same technology all competing for my attention right now.

Bitcoin is more secure because there is more proof-of-work behind it, especially against other currencies using the same PoW algorithm. Even the next closest SHA-256 based PoW blockchain, Bitcoin Cash, is only 0.5% of bitcoin's hashrate today. This means it would only take a small percentage of bitcoin miners to attack Bitcoin Cash. Attacking Bitcoin with a 51% style attack would take immense amounts of power, more than any single country would be able to acquire. It would also require an immense amount of ASICs that are beyond a single nation-state's capability to acquire. You're just not going to be able to have any single entity or nation in this world with the capability of acquiring this amount of chipsets and electricity to be able to attack bitcoin, let alone do it discretely. Beyond that it comes down to game theory. Since miners are thus operating in their own self-interest and the market values bitcoin for its security, miners moving to another network isn't in their best interest. You would need an entity larger than any nation-state to operate outside of the own financial interest and acquire more electricity than most nation states and more chipsets than any single manufacturer can supply and do this without anyone knowing until you're ready to begin your 51% attack. All this just to have the measly capability of a double-spending or potential hard-fork which could then all be unravelled with a software hard-fork rendering all that physical hardwork meaningless.

This answer explains that Bitcoin is better because it has a larger user base . . . and it has that user base because it was first.  So it seems like you're agreeing that the main benefit of bitcoin is simply being first on the scene.  Which is more or less what I've been assuming was the case.

You should probably read a little more on the history of the internet and its protocols. It is a pretty apt comparison, IMO, and my point about the many closed networks in the early days giving way in favor of a more open internet operating over TCP/IP still stands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

I strongly recommend that you study the link you posted.  Doing so would clarify that multiple different solutions to the problem of computer networking (differing in protocol, method of communication, security, handshaking, etc.) are in no way comparable to the multiple identical forms of crypto that exist today (exactly the same in implementation and differing only in the number of users and who created them).

[GuitarStv]

What makes bitcoin different from any of the meme coins that are backed by exactly the same technology?  Is it's primary value just name recognition at this point?

What is the fundamental justification for this distinction between legitimate and illegitimate crypto projects? Is there anything fundamentally different between the design of bitcoin and, say, the design of "Baby Doge Coin" for example?

What's the difference between the US Dollar and the Venezuelan Bolivar ?

One is a stable currency that is useful for trade because it is backed by laws, regulations, and enforcement, and is issued by one of the lower-corruption providers of currency in the world which produces an enormous amount of output that can be bought with the currency.

The other currency represents an anarchistic wasteland of corruption where the currency issuer is trying to rip off working people by creating value out of nothing.

Are you thinking one of these resembles crypto?

That's not what I was thinking but, sure . . . some cryptos, most cryptos even, seem to have a lot in common with VEB.

My point was that USD uses the same 'design' (your word) as VEB. They are not 'fundamentally different'.

The technology of a currency IS the law, regulation, and enforcement that backs it.  Without that it's just bits of paper with some printing on it.

[LateStarter]

What makes bitcoin different from any of the meme coins that are backed by exactly the same technology?  Is it's primary value just name recognition at this point?

What is the fundamental justification for this distinction between legitimate and illegitimate crypto projects? Is there anything fundamentally different between the design of bitcoin and, say, the design of "Baby Doge Coin" for example?

What's the difference between the US Dollar and the Venezuelan Bolivar ?

One is a stable currency that is useful for trade because it is backed by laws, regulations, and enforcement, and is issued by one of the lower-corruption providers of currency in the world which produces an enormous amount of output that can be bought with the currency.

The other currency represents an anarchistic wasteland of corruption where the currency issuer is trying to rip off working people by creating value out of nothing.

Are you thinking one of these resembles crypto?

That's not what I was thinking but, sure . . . some cryptos, most cryptos even, seem to have a lot in common with VEB.

My point was that USD uses the same 'design' (your word) as VEB. They are not 'fundamentally different'.

The technology of a currency IS the law, regulation, and enforcement that backs it.  Without that it's just bits of paper with some printing on it.

That's debatable, but even so . . . the laws, regulations, and enforcements backing VEB are almost certainly very similar to those for USD. Maybe less effective, but not fundamentally different.

[lifeanon269]

Pre-mining is pretty simple to understand.  It's allows an individual or group of users to amass a quantity of crypto before it's publicly available.  Identical in effect (though different in execution) to ninja-mining.  Taking advantage of a low network hash early on (as Satoishi and his buddies did) to amass a large amount of a cryptocurrency without doing much work creates identical results to pre-mining.  If you're against one, I don't understand why you would be OK with the other.  Both create exactly the same type of unfairness that you indicated you were against.

I think you're misunderstanding what unfairness is. If something is publicly available and free to anyone and you yourself had the opportunity to take part, but you didn't. That's fair. If something was closed and hidden from the open public and mined in secret, that's unfair. Regardless of whether you want to attribute a made up term for it (ninja-mining) and call it unfair doesn't change that it was open to anyone.

All else being equal, litecoin should operate faster than bitcoin to write blocks due to the hashing differences between the two.  If used as a currency, I'd say that this makes it more suitable.  You're free to argue otherwise of course.

What does Litecoin's use of scrypt hashing and Bitcoin's use of SHA-256 have anything to do with transaction speed? Please elaborate.

I strongly recommend that you study the link you posted.  Doing so would clarify that multiple different solutions to the problem of computer networking (differing in protocol, method of communication, security, handshaking, etc.) are in no way comparable to the multiple identical forms of crypto that exist today (exactly the same in implementation and differing only in the number of users and who created them).

I don't need to read it. I speak of and stick to my area of expertise, which is something I can clearly tell is something you should do judging by your use of tech terminology in many of your posts.

You're moving the goalposts here. I was speaking to the fact that there were many competing networks built upon different technologies and ultimately the open protocol won and we consolidated on that for our open internet we have today. But now you're speaking to technologies that are the same, but have differing userbases. To that I say, go fork off bitcoin with your own implementation and get people to use it. It is the same technology, but I think you'll find that because it has differing security (less hashrate) and different userbases (not accepted or used by anyone), you'll have a hard time convincing people to use yours over bitcoin. This is akin to someone creating a LAN based upon the same TCP/IP protocol in use on the internet today and convincing other people to use your LAN as a replacement for the internet. You're not going to convince anyone simply because there isn't any incentive for anyone to use your LAN which lacks all the things that come along with the widespread use and industry built upon the internet today.

This was the point I was making about game theory earlier. Either you need to differentiate yourself from bitcoin enough to make a compelling argument that you're different and better than bitcoin to carve away users from it (before bitcoin simply adopts that technology for itself) or you're too similar to it for anyone to care.

[seattlecyclone]

Pre-mining is pretty simple to understand.  It's allows an individual or group of users to amass a quantity of crypto before it's publicly available.  Identical in effect (though different in execution) to ninja-mining.  Taking advantage of a low network hash early on (as Satoishi and his buddies did) to amass a large amount of a cryptocurrency without doing much work creates identical results to pre-mining.  If you're against one, I don't understand why you would be OK with the other.  Both create exactly the same type of unfairness that you indicated you were against.

I think you're misunderstanding what unfairness is. If something is publicly available and free to anyone and you yourself had the opportunity to take part, but you didn't. That's fair. If something was closed and hidden from the open public and mined in secret, that's unfair. Regardless of whether you want to attribute a made up term for it (ninja-mining) and call it unfair doesn't change that it was open to anyone.

You seem to place great importance on whether or not any mining occurred prior to the time a given blockchain's existence was written about in a place where anyone (with an internet connection) could see it if only they knew where to look.

Suppose I forked the Bitcoin source code into a new blockchain, called it Mustachecoin, and announced it here on page 47 of this publicly-viewable MMM forum thread. Perhaps a hundred people would read about it anytime soon, many fewer with any ability or intention to point a mining rig at my new blockchain. I start mining right after hitting the "post" button, maybe a couple others start later that day, but the reality is I (and anyone else who happened to be reading the right post at the right time) will have the opportunity to mine a significant number of blocks with a very low hash rate before the knowledge of the coin's existence has any real chance of spreading around to the wider world.

Somehow posting about a new crypto in a public but rather obscure corner of the web and then mining a bunch of blocks for nearly free is perfectly fair and legitimate, but mining a bunch of blocks for nearly free before the announcement is patently unfair? Color me unconvinced. The end result is the same.

[lifeanon269]

You seem to place great importance on whether or not any mining occurred prior to the time a given blockchain's existence was written about in a place where anyone (with an internet connection) could see it if only they knew where to look.

Suppose I forked the Bitcoin source code into a new blockchain, called it Mustachecoin, and announced it here on page 47 of this publicly-viewable MMM forum thread. Perhaps a hundred people would read about it anytime soon, many fewer with any ability or intention to point a mining rig at my new blockchain. I start mining right after hitting the "post" button, maybe a couple others start later that day, but the reality is I (and anyone else who happened to be reading the right post at the right time) will have the opportunity to mine a significant number of blocks with a very low hash rate before the knowledge of the coin's existence has any real chance of spreading around to the wider world.

Somehow posting about a new crypto in a public but rather obscure corner of the web and then mining a bunch of blocks for nearly free is perfectly fair and legitimate, but mining a bunch of blocks for nearly free before the announcement is patently unfair? Color me unconvinced. The end result is the same.

It wasn't just randomly posted in a random corner of the web. It was posted in the corner of the web that is actively interested and pursuing interests in cryptography and cypherpunk related subjects. He also didn't just start mining immediately after posting it. The second block wasn't mined for another 6 days. He also posted the whitepaper several months before the first version of it was released. The reality is that access to bitcoin and its code is just as open today as it was on the first day it was mined. The key word is access. It is and was open and accessible to anyone from day one to now.

And let's not forget that the tokens being mined were at the time valueless as I mentioned before. The idea that they would someday be worth $100k was really pretty unimaginable at the time. Pre-mined crypto-currencies today don't benefit from the concept of being valueless now that the concept of cryptocurrencies is out there. Any token announcement immediately has some type of value and speculation attributed to it which immediately makes all that private pre-mining "valuable" according to the naive market about to be dump on.

It is like the difference between an IPO or private seed capital investing of startups. The former is accessible to the general public while the latter is general only accessible to a closed private group of individual venture capitalists. While you might now be aware of any given IPO and thus "miss out" on that initial investment, that makes it no less fair. That's in stark contrast to a lot of venture capitalism that takes place out there behind closed doors.

At the end of the day, bitcoin was just as accessible on day one as it is today. The people crying that it isn't fair are simply people that are angry they missed out. They were crying about "unfairness" at $2k and they'll be crying about "unfairness" at $200k. It is just peoples' emotional regret being expressed in anger. Fair is fair though.