>>It's essentially a penny stock deception, where the early users who generated the coins for low cost, or free, control the majority of the supply to manipulate the market spot price and than launch marketing campaigns and propaganda in an attempt to convince the uninformed public to buy their software coins.

While I welcome a debate on the public welfare effects of cryptocurrencies vs fiat, and disagree with your broad brushing of it as a "deception", this is really off-topic.

The distribution of cryptocurrency and unfair access to minting and production of what's claimed and marketed as currency is completely relevant given the subject of the paper.

The math behind Bitcoin or altcoins reveals a system that grants production of the supply to a minority which worsens with time. New users aware of the game theory behind the math know it's not worth buying or mining. Of course, one can gamble on an irrational market or the other users who lack understanding of the mechanics.

I don't see how cryptocurrency and the issue of whether its mining is fair (I would argue its the fairest method of distribution ever devised, given in the case of every major cryptocurrency, 1. information about it was published before mining on it began, even if only a small number of nerds had the foresight to immediately take advantage of that information, and 2. its mining method makes for a totally competitive market that is blind to any factor except time and capital expended, but I digress) is relevant to a paper on the origins of money.

If the OP has an axe to grind against it and those with the foresight to start mining early, maybe they can wait for a more relevant story to emerge. As it is, the comment is guaranteed to rapidly divert attention away from the main topic of the submission into yet another debate over cryptocurrency.

The question purposed is "are cryptocurrencies a worthy alternative to existing mediums of exchange".

While future iterations may change, we can examine existing implementations.

Upon investigation of the math/economics/game theory behind Bitcoin and most other existing altcoins it becomes evident that the longer a cryptocurrency has existed, incentive to opt in decreases due to the work economics baked into the code.

Old users expend low capital costs to produce a product (in this case an alternative money token), and then the rules change for new users who exert the same work energy to receive less payment. (early users were paid in larger block rewards for less effort, i.e. a user with a CPU on day 5 will be paid signifigantly more than a user with the exact same CPU on day 500, and by day 5000 the same work is worthless)

An economic model that pays some people more for the exact same work is exploitative.

If all users are paid a consistent amount for the same work, this particular disincentive for new users would not be a problem.

>>The question purposed is "are cryptocurrencies a worthy alternative to existing mediums of exchange".

The question was never posed by the story submitted. It was asked as a segue into a missive against cryptocurrencies and the alleged unfairness of those with foresight to mine early getting rich as a result of the market value of what they mined rising.

>>and then the rules change for new users who exert the same work energy to receive less payment.

Like I said, not only is this inaccurate (e.g. the rules never change in mining), this is a major diversion from the topic of the story, and is going to turn this into another cryptocurrency debate, which you seem intent on having.

  Like I said, not only is this inaccurate (e.g. the rules 
  never change in mining)

You are incorrect.

https://blockchain.info/charts/difficulty?timespan=all

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/40411/can-a-smar...

The topic of the story covers the history of money.

The comment merely informs the history of crypto currencies like Bitcoin which is marketed as an alternative money ( "Bitcoin, an Electronic Cash System" ). The minting, economics, and game theory of said crypto currencies is the highlight of the comment in regards to money/value/exchange systems.

The author of the paper, Nick Szabo, is a direct contributor to the concepts behind the current trend of crypto exchange systems.

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_of_exchange

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_currency

The difficulty changes don't involve a rule change. The difficulty is always determined by the same set of rules.

>>The author of the paper, Nick Szabo, is a direct contributor to the concepts behind the current trend of crypto exchange systems.

That only tangentially connects this to cryptocurrency. The topic of the paper is the origins of money, with a heavy emphasis on early human prehistory. Like I said, if you have an axe to grind against cryptocurrency and those who had the foresight to mine it early, save it for another thread and don't turn this one into yet another debate about it.