
Dawn of Autonomous Corporations Powered by Bitcoin: Part-2 - sidko
http://btcgeek.com/dawn-of-autonomous-corporations-2/
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jerf
I've complained before about the problem of BitCoin not having any backing
[1]. Creating backing by making BitCoin (or $CRYPTOCURRENCY) a percentage
ownership of some company is an interesting possibility, though one wonders
how to distribute dividends properly. The implications stagger the mind,
honestly. Not necessarily all in a good way, but it's the best idea for a
BitCoin/$CRYPTOCURRENCY backing I've heard yet.

[1]: "But neither does the US Dollar!" Yes, it does; the US government
acccepts taxes only in the form of dollars, and has the authority to force
many other entities to render unto it taxes. Upon this basis is the value of
government fiat currencies built, and it's why currencies follow the fate of
their issuing government quite precisely. (The "it has no backing" model would
predict that the currency could float on regardless, which they
observationally do not do.)

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dllthomas
Bitcoin is backed by the bitcoin network, as the means of paying transaction
fees.

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oleganza
Network can work pretty well at $10/BTC and at $10000/BTC. Bitcoin is "backed"
in the same sense as gold: it's just unforgeable, divisible scarce asset which
makes it a good collectible. If it has any value at all (in the eyes of some
collectors), it can be used as a medium of exchange and can potentially
acquire many more collectors willing to hold it in expectation that they can
sell it any time for something else valuable.

USD is a collectible too, without any "backing". Some time ago USD was gold
backed, meaning it was a promise to give you a certain amount of metal from
the bank. Since 1972 (actually, for average Joe it all started even earlier,
at Bretton Woods agreement) USD is officially not backed by gold. It's a pure
collectible protected from forgery by law enforcement (both paper bills and
banking transactions) and also protected from competing collectibles by
various regulations and controls. As long as govt does not print dollars too
quickly, it remains being a scarce asset which can be used as a collectible.
Enforced requirement to pay taxes only works as long as dollars are demanded
on the open market as a scarce collectible. If dollars are only needed as
tokens to be purchased from govt with real goods (or bitcoins) to be paid back
to it, then they have no meaning as money and it's going to be just a fancy
way to pay taxes in something else.

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dllthomas
Sure, I was speaking directly to the parent comment. If you're comfortable
using the term "backed" about USD because taxes, you should be comfortable
using the term "backed" about bitcoin because transaction fees. If you're not
comfortable using it in either case, I won't argue.

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melloclello
I imagine a future dominated by the latter kind of corporation - once someone
builds the first profitable self-owning entity (I dunno, maybe it engages in
high-frequency trading or direct marketing all day long) that can rent its own
server space _and_ reproduce itself, it will spawn out of control.

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belltownMMC
Very interesting. I got very excited about MemoryCoin Autonomous Corporation.
Machine hires humans!

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melarina
Unfortunately, it's really FreeTrade who hires you. He has more than 9% of all
the coins in existence and as a result plays kingmaker when it comes to voting
and who is hired. At one point he abused the system, using ~47,000 coins
donated to charity to give himself even greater control over elections. To his
credit, he stopped once others discovered what he was doing.

... of course as a former Memeorycoin (MMC) officer/candidate, you already
know all of this. You're just here hoping to do a little astroturfing.

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awky
I thought he had less than 100K MMC. Once all coins are mined he will only
have 1% of all coins, if that. Besides he can be outplaced as a CEO via
voting. I looked at all coins, and I really like the setup for this one. I
don't understand all the drama and politics around the pre-mine however. So
while I'm diversified, I decided to dedicate some resources to MMC mining for
fun. Am I missing something here? Is this really as big of a concern as you
describe it? I've seen FreeTrade reward devs with 5000MMC here and there (that
was equivalent to about $2K at the time). I haven't heard of the voting
manipulation with the charity money, can you provide more info or links to the
data in the block chain? I'd be curious to see that.

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whyenot
You might want to check out the Memory Coin forum at bitsharestalk.org

After pressure from many people, Freetrade finally disclosed his holding in
the locked sticky "interview" thread. Check out several of the other threads
for more information. There's also a lot of drama.

I thought MMC had a lot of potential, it really is an interesting idea. But
based on some of Freetrades actions (the premine, his voting with charity
money, the ridiculously biased "investment guide" he's been spamming all over
the place, etc.) the whole thing comes across as kind of scammy and dishonest.

Sorry Freetrade, I know you're reading this. Heck, maybe awky is you.

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awky
I'm just a miner who likes the premise of MMC a lot. I am definitely not
FreeTrade, I find this thought disturbing. In fact I don't fully agree with
his direction and may consider running for CEO at some point. But as of now I
don't know a better fit (disclosure: I haven't voted for CEO yet, only
submitted vote for the CMO guy). If you have better ideas and think you can
take this coin in a better direction, I would love to see your nomination for
CEO. It sounds like you are like me and liked the idea, so why not fix it,
instead of just blame it? Is there a way to address the pre-mine concerns if
there is a new CEO in place?

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memorycoinmmc
Excellent article, as always! Great explanation about the power of
incentivized human maintenance.

