Shelling Out: The Origins of Money (2002)
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Shelling Out: The Origins of Money (2002)
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Re: Shelling Out: The Origins of Money (2002)
#2The Origins of Cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin or Ethereum in particular are really important for people to be aware of.
These "coins" were produced simply by running some software. If you look at the math under the hood, you'll notice the algorithm distributed most of the coins essentially for free to a very very small group of people.
Best estimates are that there are about one million
holders of Bitcoin; 47 individuals hold about 30 percent,
another 900 hold a further 20 percent, the next 10,000
about 25% and another million about 20%, with 5% being
lost. So 1/10th of one percent represent about half the
holdings of Bitcoin and 1 percent close to 80 percent
(http://www.businessinsider.com/927-people-own-half-
of-the-bitcoins-2013-12). The concentration of Litecoin
ownership is similar
(http://litecoin-rich-list.blogspot.com).
Most of the big wallets have been in place from early on,
so sitting back and watching your capital grow has been a
very successful strategy.
The distribution of Bitcoin holdings looks much like the
distribution of wealth in North Korea and makes the
China’s and even the US’ wealth distribution look like
that of a workers’ paradise
It's essentially a penny stock deception, where the early users who generated the coins for low cost, or free, control the majority of the supply to manipulate the market spot price and than launch marketing campaigns and propaganda in an attempt to convince the uninformed public to buy their software coins.
While there may be issues with fiat systems, it's far better than purchasing any of these crypto beanie baby schemes.
Re: Shelling Out: The Origins of Money (2002)
#3The Origins of Cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin or Ethereum in particular are really important for people to be aware of. These "coins" were produced simply by running some software. If you look at the math under the hood, you'll notice the algorithm distributed most of the coins essentially for free to a very very small group of people. Best estimates are that there are about one million holders of Bitcoin; 47 individ…
Case study in cryptocoin market manipulation:
Re: Shelling Out: The Origins of Money (2002)
#4I highly recommend that people read "Debt: The First 5,000 years" by David Graeber which is a fascinating and erudite exploration of the development of money.
Re: Shelling Out: The Origins of Money (2002)
#5The author of the main article is Nick Szabo, who some theorize as the most likely candidate for being Satoshi Nakamoto. Szabo developed an early cryptocurrency called Bit Gold, which was never implemented, but has been called "a direct precursor to the Bitcoin architecture.".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Szabo
Was there a reason this comment was flagged? It seemed very relevant given the topic and recent trends in cryptocurrencies.
Please discuss if there's critique; the comment:
The Origins of Cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin or Ethereum in particular are really important for people to be aware of.
These "coins" were produced simply by running some software. If you look at the math under the hood, you'll notice the algorithm distributed most of the coins essentially for free to a very very small group of people.
Best estimates are that there are about one million
holders of Bitcoin; 47 individuals hold about 30 percent,
another 900 hold a further 20 percent, the next 10,000
about 25% and another million about 20%, with 5% being
lost. So 1/10th of one percent represent about half the
holdings of Bitcoin and 1 percent close to 80 percent
(http://www.businessinsider.com/927-people-own-half-
of-the-bitcoins-2013-12). The concentration of Litecoin
ownership is similar
(http://litecoin-rich-list.blogspot.com).
Most of the big wallets have been in place from early on,
so sitting back and watching your capital grow has been a
very successful strategy.
The distribution of Bitcoin holdings looks much like the
distribution of wealth in North Korea and makes the
China’s and even the US’ wealth distribution look like
that of a workers’ paradise
It's essentially a penny stock deception, where the early users who generated the coins for low cost, or free, control the majority of the supply to manipulate the market spot price and than launch marketing campaigns and propaganda in an attempt to convince the uninformed public to buy their software coins.
While there may be issues with fiat systems, it's far better than purchasing any of these crypto beanie baby schemes.
Case study in cryptocoin market manipulation:
Re: Shelling Out: The Origins of Money (2002)
#6Obligatory reminder that money != coinage != barter != banking
Re: Shelling Out: The Origins of Money (2002)
#7I'm still curious about what are alternatives to using money. Surely there might be politics and some philosophy involved about how you manage and organize society. Aren't local currencies a part of the solution?
Money is great because it lets individuals manage their own selves, but I'm still a little worried about how fraud, abuse and mismanagement can wreak havoc in society when money is abused.
Regulating money and everything involved around money seems to be a hard thing, and at some point moving away from money or finding other ways to do things could make sense... Although I'm curious.
Don't economists write some philosophy about those things?
Re: Shelling Out: The Origins of Money (2002)
#8[deleted]
Re: Shelling Out: The Origins of Money (2002)
#9I'm still curious about what are alternatives to using money. Surely there might be politics and some philosophy involved about how you manage and organize society. Aren't local currencies a part of the solution? Money is great because it lets individuals manage their own selves, but I'm still a little worried about how fraud, abuse and mismanagement can wreak havoc in society when money is abused. Regulating money a…
The same problem exists, regardless if its a fiat central bank or open source decentralized software token system: how is the money distributed and created?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat_banking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_currency
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Reserve
Even given the Cryptocurrency ecosystem, there's threats of fraud like Tether (theory: https://hackernoon.com/the-curious-tale-of-tethers-6b0031eea...), or the inherent history and math behind Bitcoin and many proof of work cryptocurrencies distributing the supply to only a small group of users and cutting off the ease of producing more coins as easily to later users who use the software.
Deflationary systems (or systems which skew how labor is rewarded, i.e. PoW with changing rewards for work) run the risk of creating a class of slaves from new generations, or users who simply arrive days too late:
Best estimates are that there are about one million
holders of Bitcoin; 47 individuals hold about 30 percent,
another 900 hold a further 20 percent, the next 10,000
about 25% and another million about 20%, with 5% being
lost. So 1/10th of one percent represent about half the
holdings of Bitcoin and 1 percent close to 80 percent
(http://www.businessinsider.com/927-people-own-half-
of-the-bitcoins-2013-12). The concentration of Litecoin
ownership is similar
(http://litecoin-rich-list.blogspot.com).
Most of the big wallets have been in place from early on,
so sitting back and watching your capital grow has been a
very successful strategy.Re: Shelling Out: The Origins of Money (2002)
#10I highly recommend that people read "Debt: The First 5,000 years" by David Graeber which is a fascinating and erudite exploration of the development of money.
I've made that recommendation, with mixed results. I think it has less impact unless you studied/read a little classic economics.
Most economics "schools" start from a standard Smithian narrative for the invention of money. Spot traded goods, durable goods as values stores and eventually some sort of money.
The money supply narrative is completely separate. It's explained via the "money multiplier" effect, which turns 1X amount of money into nX via lending. Generally, it's taught via the lens of central bank policies, monetarism and macroeconomics.
Graeber merges these narratives. Debt predates money, and is the primordial money. All through history nearly all money has been debt and actual money (eg gold) just got used to quantify debt. Gold rarely exchanged hands or even made it to the hands of most people.
Once you start with debt instead of money, the picture changes. Familial, religious or cultural obligations form the basis of well obligations, debt. That's the origin of money.
Graeber is also politically eccentric and that appeals to people with sympathies to his views, but for an average reader... It's not revolutionary unless you already know/care about the mainstream ideas.