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0 pointstimbowhite9y ago0 comments

> a system that would immensely benefit whoever came up with that particular currency

In Bitcoin's case, Satoshi created the world's first trustless, global digital payment system and distributed it as open source.

Maybe it's just me, but that seems like a pretty big deal. Especially when the software was not patented, and free for anyone to use and build with.

Could Satoshi hold a bunch of BTC worth over a billion USD? Yup, and I hope he/they do. IMHO the creator(s) deserves all that wealth.

> whoever invested early if it ever took off.

Is that not the nature of anything that is capable of being an investment?

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cookiecaper9y ago· 2 in thread

Bitcoin began as a whitepaper because it's a runaway thought experiment. I'm sure Satoshi would've done things a little differently if he truly expected to become a billionaire from it.

There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a little excessive to assign such heady altruistic qualities to Satoshi as if he/she/they knew ahead of time what bitcoin would become. The infamous "$15k pizza" clearly demonstrates that bitcoin began as a toy and people got a kick out of it when people started treating it as real currency.

I really respect bitcoin's implementation as a thought experiment/"let's try this crazy thing" project. I think its use as a permanent basis for a real-world currency and/or a storage/execution platform for programs is misguided.

It'd be a shame if we elevated the experimentation of one intelligent person to be elevated into religion and never their mistakes, instead of respecting their intent and leadership and developing improvements that reference the work without memorializing it.

timbowhiteOP9y ago

> it's a little excessive to assign such heady altruistic qualities to Satoshi as if he/she/they knew ahead of time what bitcoin would become.

> It'd be a shame if we elevated the experimentation of one intelligent person to be elevated into religion...

Just giving credit where credit is due. If you invented a new open source technology that yielded a market that went from $0 ---> $19B+ in 8 years, then I'd think you'd deserve to be financially rewarded for it, and I may even have some nice things to say about you too.

> I really respect bitcoin's implementation as a thought experiment

Cool. But Bitcoin would still be a BFD even if no one used it. It's an elegant technological implementation of a decentralized immutable ledger and currency system that doesn't require you to trust someone else with your money when you want to spend it. It still puzzles me how many posters on HN (a forum of creators, engineers, and inventors) disregard its technological achievement. Perhaps the idea that "real money" doesn't have to come from some authority figure is simply too offensive?

> I think its use as a permanent basis for a real-world currency and/or a storage/execution platform for programs is misguided.

And therein lies one of its best advantages over traditional currency: it's opt-in only, so you don't have to use it if you prefer not to.

cookiecaper9y ago

>It still puzzles me how many posters on HN (a forum of creators, engineers, and inventors) disregard its technological achievement. Perhaps the idea that "real money" doesn't have to come from some authority figure is simply too offensive?

It's not a novel concept. Bitcoin is a linear web of trust, applied to transactions instead of identities. Webs of trust are as old as PGP. Block C is valid against Block B is valid against Block A, which we both trust.

Bitcoin is respectable primarily for its ambition, the way it applied existing technology to accomplish a goal that its creators cared about and which many people would've thought was too daunting to undertake.

Believing that people only criticize bitcoin because their minds are too small to accept the concept of decentralized money is blatantly closed-minded.

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