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From: Kelly John Rose <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 8:00 AM
Subject: Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
On 11/25/2013 4:26 AM, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:
>> Why suddenly all this attention for yet another assassination market?
>> Because it's more "hit them and earn the bounty", like at a fair, style?
>I wonder what would happen if multiple people claimed the same date for
>the death of a celebrity.
I haven't read enough of the 'AM' system to know what that system would do, but
it seems to me that a logical outcome would be to split the reward based on the
size of the contribution included with each prediction. For instance, if
Person A correctly predicted with 1 BTC, and Person B correctly predicted with
9 BTC, Person 1 should get 10% of the reward, while Person B should get 90%.
Incidentally, one problem I see with Sanjuro's 'AM' (Assassination Market)
system (at least, so far) is the setting of a minimum bet at 1.0 BTC, which is
about $800 when I checked a few seconds ago. In writing my AP essay, I
anticipated that very small bets (say, 10 cents US) would be allowed. Except
in unusual situations, few people would want to donate $800 (USD) to see
somebody dead; Far more would be willing to donate $1 (USD) for that.
I don't know if the current minimum bid in 'AM' has something to do with the
granularity of 1.0 BTC, but the existence of digits to the right of the decimal
point in the prediction totalizations suggests that this is not the case. If
the problem is that the prediction totalization is currently being done
manually, rather than automatically, that is a limitation that I think must be
fixed in order for 'AM' to operate well. And with a minimum bet of 1.0 BTC, it
might be portrayed as if 'AM' is a tool of the wealthy, rather than that of the
average person.
To the extent that this is a problem now, it will be worse as Bitcoin continues
to deflate (increase in value) as it was no doubt intended to do. What happens
when 1 BTC = $10,000? I consider that one of the few disadvantages or
problems with Bitcoin is its hyper-deflationary nature: How can a currency
function as a currency, if it is 'scheduled' (by algorithm) to appreciate in
value far faster than any commodity? Another related problem is that Bitcoin
is effectively programmed to excessively reward early-adopters. While I feel
that the inventor of Bitcoin should be richly rewarded for doing the work
necessary to give us such a beneficial addition to society, the limit of my
generosity is about $1 billion (USD). Ultimately, I think that a replacement
for Bitcoin ("Bitcoin 2.0"?) is necessary, one that won't appreciate in value
more than, say, 5% per year.
Jim Bell
Disclaimer: I am not associated with Sanjuro's 'Assassination Market' in any
way.
