The bitcoins that I had set aside for a Cryonics contest two years ago (and were unredeemed) are suddenly worth a lot more.
Details: I had added 10 bitcoins to get things started, and there were 4.75 worth of additional donations. These were partially lost when the hosted online wallet that I was using (MyBitcoin) was hacked, but 49% was recovered. As of today, after refunding part of the donated money, it is now worth 5.2675. I will be adding from my personal store to bring it up to an even 5.5. At $140 per coin, the new total is $770.
I've decided to follow the buy-and-hold strategy for at least another year, since it worked so well. I don't have exact details on what I'll do with it, but it will not be converted or spent for at least one year, and will eventually be used for promoting cryonics in some way.
Some things I have in mind if it gets big include:
- subsidizing cryonics dues for low-income people
- covering funding shortfalls for those unable to obtain life insurance due medical problems
- cryonics scholarships to support the development of expertise in neural cryobiology, the dying process, and other neglected areas of concern to cryonics
- hiring a public relations team professionally to repair the image of cryonics
- research to improve viability and reduce dehydration
- empirical validation through scanning the connectome
Contributions can be made to:
1Jdn36JUwvJdr3Qiie4aAseFdcoTsND9Qo
(Updated, since the previous address was attached to my personal wallet on an outdated client, which was causing money to be moved out of it by accident. The above is a brainwallet with a reasonably secure passphrase, generated using Blockchain.info.)
Time for me to do an expected value calculation. Is it worth becoming an expert on bitcoin? Not at all implausible. Apart from the intrinsic value of personal interest there seem to be things that the world needs that bitcoin could help with (an actual prediction market that doesn't suck for example). Some things that the world needs it is possible to create ways to be paid for doing. It aligns well with my aptitudes.
A very tempting rabbit hole to jump down.
a distributed prediction market and distributed exchange with built in escrow would do wonders for making bitcoin an attractive financial instrument.