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Understanding the motivations for the 21 million BC limit and halving reward rate, I still think it dis-proportionally rewards early adopters. My ideal system would be one where the mining reward is a factor of the work done which would mean as the system increases in popularity (i.e more miners) the corresponding mining reward would increase. This would have a stabilising effect on the price and provide people a reason to spend coins rather than hoard them. Anyone who has tried to work or sell goods in BC's would see the problems it is facing as a currency rather than a commodity. Does anyone know of a Bitcoin alternative with these properties?
don't mind downvotes but would also like a productive discussion to go with it. – q99ujacw – 2013-04-04T06:42:40.363
1If such a coin caught on, more and more resources would go to mining, which seems kind of inefficient. One can argue that the Bitcoin reward actually doesn't drop off fast enough. – David Schwartz – 2013-04-04T09:51:26.687
1You are getting downvotes because you want a discussion. This is a Q&A site, if you want to discuss you should go to a forum instead. – o0'. – 2013-04-04T10:37:33.533
@DavidSchwartz this is true but as the whole system is secured by proof of work encouraging mining increases the security of the whole system. – q99ujacw – 2013-04-06T05:49:20.627
@Lohoris not really - the question can be answered pretty simply and was done so. Maybe substitute 'rationale' for 'discussion' on my above comment but thanks for your input. – q99ujacw – 2013-04-06T05:51:12.133
If you want mining reward to increase as popularity increases, then transaction fees are probably the way to go... – Highly Irregular – 2013-04-06T06:09:18.797
@HighlyIrregular thanks for the suggestion but transaction fees only happen with transactions. If you view bitcoin as deflationary then the incentive to spend is reducing so transactions will eventually drop away. (People won't buy things in a currency thats doubling month on month) – q99ujacw – 2013-04-06T21:03:47.870
That would be true if Bitcoin was just another physical currency. It is however also a payment method, and a very good one at that. I believe that this will be enough to keep it going, though belief obviously isn't enough by itself; time will tell! – Highly Irregular – 2013-04-06T21:13:28.400
@HighlyIrregular - the problem is it's behaving (and being used) more like a commodity with some currency properties at the moment. Like you say, time will tell. – q99ujacw – 2013-04-07T01:40:58.330