On 12/11/12 12:38, Heiki "Repentinus" Ojasild wrote: > Hey, > > Personally I am of the opinion that FSFE should support an open > crypto-currency. However, I am also of the opinion that BitCoin is not > suitable as the early adopters would benefit rather handsomely at the > expense of everyone else if BitCoin were universally adopted, and that > seems contradictory to the idea of Free Software, of emancipating > users.
I agree that is one aspect of Bitcoin that needs to be thoroughly compared to the alternatives. One alternative that was mentioned is to distribute coins through a random lottery system rather than `mining' with a GPU. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=55184.0 However, it could also be argued that these people took a big risk and invested to bring about some kind of technology revolution, and the `profit' they make from appreciation is rewarding them. Even so, the profit they make in absolute terms is insignificant when compared to the profits that banks make from the `fractional reserve' mechanism. > P.S. If you pay 6% or 7% for foreign currency payments to your bank, > get a new one. Seriously. They are robbing you. My estimate of 6-7% also includes the fees incurred by the merchant, which are hidden from you at the point of sale. E.g. exchange commission = 1% foreign transaction fee = 2-3% cost to merchant (included in prices) = 2-3% total = 5-7% _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list [email protected] https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
