HN Gopher Feed (2017-07-13) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
Bitcoin study: Period of exclusivity encourages early adopters
65 points by InInteraction
http://news.mit.edu/2017/bitcoin-study-period-exclusivity-encour...ty-encourages-early-adopters-0713
___________________________________________________________________
basseq - 1 hours ago
I'm struggling with the findings here. From the article: all late
adopters ("NLAs") and non-delayed early adopters ("NEAs") had a
cash out (or abandonment) rate of ~10%. (Ironically, higher for
NEAs at 11%, but likely not statistically significant.) But delayed
NEAs cashed out at 18%, and at even more significant rates where
social ties were stronger (e.g., dorms). And these delayed NEAs can
affect NLA adoption in the long term.Separately, we could say that
general exclusivity schemes (e.g., gmail, facebook) can accelerate
broader market demand. But, of course, it's not causation: plenty
of "exclusive" products never gain traction.So this suggests
there's a certain class of people who care deeply, potentially more
about "status" of being an early adopter than the underlying tech,
and will be toxic if they don't get what they want. So... identify
these people carefully?
nebabyte - 1 hours ago
Also known as the late gmail study
wyldfire - 3 hours ago
Paper from Science [1] (registration or scihub required). Not
clear to me whether "cash out" means that they sent funds from a
MIT-controlled wallet into any other wallet or if they took it to
addresses known to be exchanges. If the former then another
explanation is that they were just being prudent to truly control
the money.[1] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6347/135
module0000 - 2 hours ago
wyldfire: Justin M?
sputknick - 3 hours ago
My first thought as well. These NEAs probably already had a
mechanism for managing their coin, and so wanted to consolidate,
rather than have a separate "MIT wallet"
wyldfire - 3 hours ago
If a prerequisite for getting the funds from MIT was
establishing your own wallet somewhere and providing a deposit
addr, then perhaps they could designate "cash out" to mean
"move from that initial deposit address to anywhere else".
Aside from some bias caused by sweeping, it's a more reasonable
way to draw these conclusions.
antix17 - 3 hours ago
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/suppl/2017/07/12/3...
module0000 - 2 hours ago
Bitcoin has come a long way... 7 years ago I was writing perl
scripts to cobble together a depth-of-market program that operated
on the mtgox API. I would get excited scalping coins from $17-19
USD back then. No SEC/CFTC, no regulation, no anything, just good
old fashioned auction market theory - combined with a sucker being
born every moment and winding up on the other end of a mtgox trade.
The sky was the limit, it was an exciting time if you were an
oddball breed of programmer crossed with day trader.Fast
forward.... WTF is going on now? Regulated exchanges for bitcoin,
dozens of btc clones, new exchanges being birthed/destroyed each
month, and the dinosaurs of finance adopting it 10 years too late.
It's a crazy mixed up world.
surrey-fringe - 2 hours ago
> Regulated exchanges for bitcoinWorking on it. See: Bitshares,
or any other decentralized excange
nebabyte - 1 hours ago
He was answering his own question
adventured - 23 minutes ago
> the dinosaurs of finance adopting it 10 years too lateThe
monoliths of finance will set the legislation that will determine
everything about crypto-currencies in all major economies. And if
their extreme political power isn't enough, they already by far
own the most patents relating to blockchain tech.Bitcoin +
Ethereum = $58 billion.JP Morgan = $330 billion. That's one
"dinosaur" with $25 billion per year in net income.The notion
that they're dinosaurs and they're ten years late, is laughable.
Along with all the other banks and central banks, they'll dictate
the terms by which crypto-currencies will exist (the only
alternative to being controlled by the banksters that control
everything related to finance, is to remain a niche that never
goes big / mainstream).
ghostbrainalpha - 49 minutes ago
Are you comfortable saying how much you made with your program on
mtgox?
gtirloni - 1 hours ago
I have a hard time reconciling the social justice goals of some
cryptocurrencies with this initial period where people are
basically creating wealth out of thin air by doing useless
computations at the cost of enormous electricity.How are we any
better for it? A select group gets rich, there is rampant
speculation and fraud... but we're fighting "the man" so it's all
good?I can't see how society is better for this (or ever will
be).I've mined some BTC and ETH while thinking about these issues
and I can't see a future where anything is different so I've
stopped. It seems we'll replace bankers and oil millionaires with
miners and early adopters... and the average Joe is where it was
always.Sorry for thinking out loud all these disconnected thoughts.
I really want to believe but I'm having a hard time.Meanwhile, it
seems I'm doing better for society if I donate my spare resources
to some distributed computing project to research cancer, AIDS,
etc.Where do you see the future in 50-100 years if cryptocurrencies
take off for good?
jstanley - 1 hours ago
> doing useless computations at the cost of enormous
electricity.The "cost of enormous electricity" is important -
this is proportional to the amount it will cost to reverse
transactions or double spend.> It seems we'll replace bankers and
oil millionaires with miners and early adopters... and the
average Joe is where it was always.Miners and early adopters
don't get to create coins out of thin air. That's the key
difference.EDIT: And furthermore, there's absolutely nothing
stopping the "Average Joe" from becoming an early adopter.
Bitcoin is open to everyone.
tboyd47 - 1 hours ago
Or, technically, they do, but only according to a predetermined
schedule.
jstanley - 1 hours ago
Sure, but not for free :). Having social status as a "miner"
doesn't grant you any privileges.Expending time, effort, and
money on mining gives you a chance of mining blocks.
DINKDINK - 31 minutes ago
>where people are basically creating wealth out of thin air by
doing useless computations at the cost of enormous electricityThe
only way this statement is different than how the Federal Reserve
works is that Bitcoin is voluntary (You only join the economic
model that you desire to participate in) / non privileged (you
don't have to be born into certain groups to participate in how
the system works), the system parameters (inflation, etc) are not
coercible (The US President can't nominate a Federal Reserve
Chairperson to bitcoin to favor policy that favors one special
interest group).>creating wealth out of thin airThe Federal
Reserve literally creates money out of nothing for the Treasury
Department. Due to seigniorage, Fed banks make money on the
inflated currency before the last man on the street can.>doing
useless computations at the cost of enormous electricityThe
thousands of servers that run FedWire, ACH, VISA, MasterCard
Paypal, Venmo, ApplePay and the Cash-transport Trucks, Physical
banks, all waste energy preventing people from trying to steal
money too.How is the current monetary policy better?Relevant
reading: Nothing is Cheaper than Proof of Work 04 Aug 2015
http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/
rb808 - 51 minutes ago
BTC is great, you can't say there is no social value. Not only
are people getting rich like you say but its also useful for
stuff like buying drugs online and to get around pesky government
money laundering regulations.
AndrewBissell - 8 minutes ago
Or donating to organizations to which your government has
severed other payment channels because they find them
inconvenient. Or escaping bail-ins and bank holidays. Or
skipping out on central bank attempts to force consumption and
punish savings with negative interest rates and cash bans.
DiNovi - 2 hours ago
like facebook only accepting university email addresses.