Is there a cryptocurrency out there that doesn't hand outsize rewards to early adopters? I feel like I could get much more excited about something like that.
So let's say initially 1 million "coins" are created and people put $1 million in total in them, so each are worth $1. To keep that $1 price, you'd have to increase the amount of coins each time more people want to buy more such coins.
So if new people put another $1 million into the cryptocurrency, you'd have to automatically generate another 1 million coins. So you'd maintain, roughly, that $1 per coin value.
Otherwise, with any relatively finite amount of coins in a cryptocurrency, you're going to see an exponential rise in their values, as more people get interested in that cryptocurrency.
It doesn't matter if you create 1 million or 1 trillion coins initially. If the inflation rate is "only" say 10% per year, but millions of dollars, and then tens of millions of dollars, and then billions of dollars are put into that cryptocurrency within a relatively short amount of time, its value is going to explode.
Price doesn't depend purely on number of available units.
In case you are serious about this you might want to check Peercoin. While it doesn't have the skew you want, the supply is designed to attain an annual inflation of 1% instead of deflation in bitcoin.
Don't think that the lack of discussion about this means it isn't an issue. It is a massive, massive showstopper to Bitcoin adoption. The reason you don't see more people talking about this is because Bitcoin is absolutely nowhere near becoming the default currency used by anybody. Much easier to beat up on all the other massive technical flaws in Bitcoin...
That said, if it were to happen, I don’t think you will have to buy bitcoin from a handful of early adopters. It is more likely that your employer would start paying you in Bitcoin when it becomes inevitable. Those same early adopters who hold a lot of the wealth will likely use their wealth to invest in startups/charities/companies/etc. the same way as entrepreneurs and rich people do today.
For existing companies, they would need to purchase, but if a significant portion of US dollars moves into bitcoin then it is likely every company would start having to hold a portion of their cash in bitcoin as a hedge long before it actually overtakes the dollar.
Capital tends towards centralization, not equitable distribution.
* the 'founders share' is ridiculously high, 10% in some cases
* in many different coins, you see that these shares aren't used to catalyze the market, but as a hoarding in the event of lift-off. Hoarded coins don't make a crypto currency survive.
I'm not sure but I think that already has a wealth inequality problem.
Unfortunately, I don't know much more about that project at this point.
The issue is why use them? The bootstrap problem.