On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 09:46:40 +1100 ianG wrote: > These sound rather like political statements, not economic statements.
How money works is a political matter. If one can get a bigger share of monetary creation than other people, one gets power. It's also an "economic" matter, because badly designed systems cause crises. > It's fine to have these opinions such as X is fair and Y is unfair, but > it's not a particularly good basis for building a money system. People eventually figure out when a system isn't fair, and it falls, because money is nothing without a community to use it. So yes, being fair is an important quality for the long term. > Sure it can! Don't get swayed by central bankers who prefer inflation > over deflation, and scare the bejeezus out of the population with > stories of economic collapse in order to keep their little money machine > ticking over. Sure, anybody who doesn't agree with you has to be influenced by the evil central bankers, right ? > Whenever we build a new money system, typically we have to seed the base > in some sense or other - what you might refer to as unfair. > > E.g, The temporal asymmetry for Bitcoin certainly worked in its favour. > IOW, because it was to be worth more in the future, early people did > invest in it, on that risky expectation. And got rewarded. Which > created the virtuous circle of bringing new investors/money users in. > > I wonder if there is a 'law' here? Someone or some many have to make > out like bandits to bootstrap a new money? > > So, if it isn't an effect of appreciation, making early holders the > winners, what is it? As the name suggests, temporal symmetry is about the long term. Of course asymmetry gives a short term boost, the first users are getting money almost for free and can use it later to gain wealth. In addition, Bitcoin benefits from the fact that making a symmetrical currency is much harder and therefore hasn't been done yet. Spatial symmetry requires a Web of Trust while anyone can start using Bitcoin immediately. _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list [email protected] http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers
