Dear Bitcoin Maximalists
Listening this week to @TuurDemeester on Peter McCormack’s What Bitcoin Did podcast triggered some questions I have about Bitcoin that I hope some Maximalists will be able to answer.
PoW vs PoS
Tuur stated that #ProofofWork is better than #ProofofStake because whoever does more work, gets more voting and that there’s no way to cheat that. My issue with that logic is it’s coming from a pre-industrial mindset where physical labor was treated the same across the board, now computers do all the “work”. But even before that we had the same issues with the rich and powerful exploiting labor and never having to do the work themselves, simply paying others to do it for them and then reaping the benefits of the labor of others. If Bitcoin is simply going to recycle the current status quo that the proletariat have struggled against for thousands of years, then why should average people use Bitcoin when it’s only able to be mined by the rich who can afford the more expensive miners, once again, using their wealth to exploit the laborers (in this case the poor in developing nations who are building the miners but will never be able to afford to buy one themselves)?
I had an idea for PoTW (Proof of Timed Work), where the block rewards were disbursed based on the amount of time your machine dedicated to that specific block, thus leveling the playing field, allowing people from developing nations who could only contribute with a smartphone to also reap some of the rewards. The current system of PoW simply regurgitates the system of oppressive capitalism Americans are finally coming to see is unsustainable. I’m not sure if PoTW is feasible, maybe a coder could give their opinion?
Decimals and Inflation
One of Bitcoins main selling points is the fact that there will only ever be 21 million mined and that it can be broken down to one satoshi (8 decimals). If current projection models are correct, there will be roughly 185,000 satoshis for every living person on the planet in the year 2100. That’s not taking into account Satoshi’s wallet of Bitcoins or the mass amounts already accrued by early adopters. When I’ve pointed out to others that soon one satoshi might be too expensive for a person living in a developing nation to obtain, Bitcoin Maximalists have told me that Bitcoin could adopt an increase in the amount of decimals. If that’s the case, who decides when this happens and how many to create? Coders tend not to be the best at Economics. How are those decisions not open to being manipulated by the rich and elite (and government assassins) as most current monetary decisions are? How is that not the exact same thing as an inflationary coin? With an inflationary coin, the inflation is fixed for everyone to see and be able to plan accordingly for years and decades to come. My other issue with Bitcoin is if it doesn’t create new decimals, then why would anyone use it knowing it would gain substantial value over the long haul? I don’t know of a single person who uses stocks to pay their bills or buy gas. They use fiat, which is inflationary because they know their dollars will be worth less over time and not more, while their portfolios will hopefully gain value over time. Gold was used worldwide as a currency because there wasn’t a deflationary currency to use instead. So while Bitcoin, long term, is a great world wide store of value, it seems we need currencies that take inflation into account that can be tracked off of Bitcoin. #Doge is a perfect example that comes to mind.
If my idea for PoTW were possible, I’d want to include a similar inflationary system in the algo that Doge did for it to be a true currency instead of a store of value. I will agree with Tuur’s point that no one would want to “invest” in an ICO or startup looking to create an inflationary coin that developing nation citizens could earn at the same rate as the wealthy elite. Which brings me to…
ICO’s
ICO’s ARE science experiments and those who buy the tokens ARE philanthropists. Granted, last year was a serious hijacking of the ICO vision of changing the way we fund startups and projects and was simply copied into being IPO’s that poor people could participate in. But just like Bitcoin’s persona has changed over time from being a currency to a store of value by most people who spend time thinking about it, ICO’s may have to as well if people continue to misuse them to more or less steal money from investors. We need to get back to figuring out ways to fund/grant/whatever new and exciting ideas that governments won’t fund for lack of vision. We can’t simply hope that the next great idea will be thought up by a person with the skillset or money to make that vision a reality. The purpose, to me, of blockchain is to open up more avenues for change for people of all classes, not simply perpetuate the current failed Capitalistic system our planet is destroying itself with.
Any thoughts, Maximalists?
— Michael