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Ask HN: Do you consider people buying into Bitcoin today as 'early adopters'?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you consider people buying into Bitcoin today as 'early adopters'?

#21

Post by bitcoin-truth »

michaelochurch wrote: post #8

People won't remember Snapchat's fall from grace or Groupon's mediocre twilight. They'll be talking about Bitcoin (and however it busts) in 2050, 2100 even. Not because it will be worth a damn. It won't go to zero. It will be a neat novelty "good" that is fully electronic. It will hold some value, just like Black Lotuses would still be a part of gaming history if no one played Magic anymore. Still, I expect it to tan…

> Why? Because the forced deflation is a Dick Move of epic proportions: favoring early adopters for no good reason.

No good reason? Does there have to be one?

If the protocol succeeds despite your assertion that there is no good reason to favor early adopters, will you change your mind that the reason was immaterial?

http://paste.lisp.org/+307S

Re: Ask HN: Do you consider people buying into Bitcoin today as 'early adopters'?

#22

Post by mike_esspe »

adventured wrote: post #15
mike_esspe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silver was historically verified too. But it lost it's value in the 20th century, when people stopped using it as a money.

Silver took a sizable hit, but it has retained value. It still has two aspects to it that are very valuable: industrial and jewelry / fashion. Those are likely to remain for a very long time, providing silver with a value base.

It's gold ratio fell from 16:1 in 19th century to 100:1 in 1930s.

Getting only 15% of your savings is not a good result :)

Re: Ask HN: Do you consider people buying into Bitcoin today as 'early adopters'?

#23

Post by pyalot2 »

mike_esspe wrote: post #22
adventured wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silver took a sizable hit, but it has retained value. It still has two aspects to it that are very valuable: industrial and jewelry / fashion. Those are likely to remain for a very long time, providing silver with a value base.

It's gold ratio fell from 16:1 in 19th century to 100:1 in 1930s. Getting only 15% of your savings is not a good result :)

It's not so bad either, imagine you held the continental dollar or the zimbabwe dollar, or even just the USD since 1975. They did worse than silver.

Re: Ask HN: Do you consider people buying into Bitcoin today as 'early adopters'?

#25

Post by sireat »

johndevor wrote: post #17
michaelochurch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold and BitCoin don't compare well. Here's why. Sure, gold is "useless", except for the fact that its value is historically verified (over centuries) and culture-independent. If nothing else, it's used in jewelry (and drugs, and electronics). There aren't many elements on the periodic table, and even fewer are viable as metallic currencies: rare enough to have value in small weight, not so rare as to be foreign (his…

If it hadn't favored early adopters... there wouldn't have been early adopters.

Well, it has favored the early adopters a few magnitudes too much. I am not comfortable with someone holding 10% of currency.

If Satoshi came out of the high tower and announced plans for his stash, I would feel a little bit better. When/if BTC hits 1m/BTC his stash would be worth 2T and that is a lot of claim checks on society.

Re: Ask HN: Do you consider people buying into Bitcoin today as 'early adopters'?

#27

Post by LearnAndBurn »

kitcar wrote: post #7

Most would likely fall into a "speculator" definition, as they don't actually use bitcoins for transactions - therefore they aren't really "adopting" bitcoin, but rather are just stock piling something in hopes it goes up in value in the future. I.e. if I buy 20 new xboxes but leave them sealed for resale before Christmas, I'm not really an early adopter, instead i'm just a speculating opportunist, even though I did…

I appreciated your comment. It's easy to overlook definitions and categorically group things based on simple criteria checking. People who are currently buying BTC is a shared characteristic of (1) speculators, (2) early adopters, and (3) probably other actors.

Regardless if they are speculators, does their initial reason for adoption matter to the definition of an early adopter? Speculators may at any time become users, and normal users may at any time start speculating.

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