asciilifeform: jborkl: true, just as there is no semiconductor plant owner with the good sense to drop some of his pocket change on building a million ASIC miners and running them in his own mansion.

asciilifeform: jborkl: no, not a random arse, someone with a good reputation, hypothetically

asciilifeform: what I'm rather hazy on is how well MPEx would hold up against a "good enough" clone that meets the basic criterion of "not being an outright scam" (AFAIK none of the MPEx competitors have met this standard) ☟︎

asciilifeform: ok, someone else with a bag full of BTC and a resonably good meatspace reputation, then.

asciilifeform: Ok, let's see if I understand: the 30 BTC is for keeping MPEx a market full of people who measure 1000 times "before cutting once." No trendoids, etc. Now let's say Warren Buffet (or somesuch) opens WBEx, charging 1 BTC.

asciilifeform: ezdiy: I'm not clamouring to buy an MPEx account for a penny, just objecting to the notion that the fee is somehow different from taxi medallions

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: I imagine you could buy a medallion and sell it the next day, if you wanted to

asciilifeform: benkay: the bureaucrats (in practice) own NYC, and charge whatever the hell they want for taxi licenses. a bar can charge for entrance. nothing wrong with that. what I'm unclear on is why the MP fee is a different kind of animal.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: that's like saying that "eTrade" with its $x/trade fees is a perfectly good alternative to a seat on the NYSE

asciilifeform: MP has said, in essence, that he doesn't want MPEx to become a Shanghai crawling with the equivalent of rickshaws.

asciilifeform: IMHO taxi medallions are a fair comparison. They, just as the MPEx fee, exist to keep the riffraff out.

asciilifeform: benkay: may as well ask how the cost of a NYC taxi medallion relates to the cost of the bureaucrat's pen that signs the paperwork.