Wealth concentration of Ethereum?

I am concerned that Ethereum will concentrate wealth like other cryptocurrencies launched in this way. Early adopters and founders snatch up and horde a large percentage of the currency and hold onto, cashing out later for possibly billions USD. Please let me know if the following math is incorrect in any way.

It is written in the white paper, "0.225X ether will be allocated to the fiduciary members and early contributors who substantially participated in the project before the start of the fundraiser."

Since the volume of ether only increases 0.4X each year of the initial year, it will take 22.5 years for the volume of ether to 10 times, right? If so, and the early contributors hold 22.5% of the initial volume of ether, if they hold on to their ether they will own 2.25% even in 22.5 years--in 2037, no? If Ethereum is widely adopted globally that could represent many billions of dollars. Is Etherieum not intended to be that big? And if it is, how can billions of wealth concentration be justified? I heard news of an NGO, or an endowment. What is that about? I believe in this technology and appreciate the good work you all are doing--its so important, but I am trying to understand if it holds up to my moral scrutiny. Again, thanks, Ethereum is brilliant.

Comments

  • spencerspencer Member Posts: 2
    edited February 2014
    I am also very concerned about this. I think power is too concentrated . . . and that we shouldn't be trying to concentrate it further.
  • creatinglakecreatinglake Member Posts: 8
    I can imagines its difficult to find a model that both attracts investors and is egalitarian. I really like how Auroracoin is approaching launch--they are dispersing the coin to nearly every Icelandic citizen. I know this would be a pretty impossible approach for Canada and the US. Perhaps you can predict the interest and adoption of Ethereum and have the volume of currency expand quite a bit from say year three to year 10 and then slow down, or something like that, so initial holders "shares" are diluted quite a bit. For the most part ownership of Ether seems like it should be based on actual work--proof of work. I respect the work developers have put in so far and the genius behind Ethereum, but I think this type of project requires some serious altruism for it to achieve its potential for social change. Throw the ring into the fire! ;)
  • creatinglakecreatinglake Member Posts: 8
    is there a way to link the volume of currency to something else, like the actual level of use of the currency or some other metric that is more proportional to the adoption and use of Ethereum? Or is there a way to get rid of the currency as a foundational piece altogether and have a requirement that users provide as much proof of work as work requested? This is the proposal by bitcloud, I think. This way, new users can join at anytime as long as they are willing to provide processing power to the network, or pay someone to provide that processing power, without being at any disadvantage to early adopters? This sounds truly egalitarian if doable, no?
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