Investing in the stock market isn't a zero-sum game. If that was true there would never be a bear market and bull markets would be unlikely too. You would only see market increases when new shares were sold. Clearly it isn't a zero sum game. Vast amounts of wealth are created and sometimes destroyed by the stock market. Option contacts are closer to a zero-sum game, but the not stock. Stock value depends on how much profit a company makes.
You could say each transaction is a wash of value, not completely true but it is very close to true. Fees and spread means there is always a slight loss of value unless the all the parties in the transaction are considered.
Ok, maybe I was being too simplistic, but at it's very simple terms, someone has a stock worth X dollars. Why is it worth X dollars? Because someone said so. (sounds like BTC) Then this someone sells it to a sucker for X+/-Y... if it was X+Y, has it gained any value? No. Has the company done anything different? No. None of this matters, it's simply buying and selling "something". The only thing that happens is that money exchanges hands.
No wealth is created except in the illusion that this stock is worth more than X. That is taking advantage of people... and I'm not against it... but it's still a zero sum game. No fiat was "created" in the sale of the stock.
@puwaha:
I must politely disagree:
If it was sold at x+y and someone else decides that since it sold for x+y they'll sell for x+y, does mean that the perceived value has increased. Lesser things have caused increase or decrease in value, and it does not mean that somewhere else in the market value is lost to compensate. The fact that trading means that one person buying = one person selling does not preclude that the market as a whole is zero sum.
If the stock is perceived to be worth more, zero sum would imply something else is worth less, but that isn't the case. Value is fickle like that.
@others in this thread
That being said, I think that the real reasoning behind much of Josh's antics are exactly as he says
if he is dealing with large corporations (which with my small investment, I do hope). Were I a large corporation investing in the ICO, I would prefer things to be hush hush, and it appears that Josh just can't keep his can shut well enough ... but however arrogant he may be aside ( I won't dispute that, despite my position in his company I hate his antics myself) if the coin doesn't release as planned, alas, I'll have made a bad bet and hopefully dump it on the hype spike before it dies, but I do think that GAW's actions are largely legitimate.
The white paper tends to read as though the large investors will have a good holding in the stake of the coin, and GAW will compete for this holding themselves. A lot about the coin does NOT appeal to miners, despite them being such a miner centric company, but I feel the underlying reason is that he is targeting merchants more than miners, because mass adoption requires so much effort in negotiating with large companies that are usually fairly immobile in their stance on trade, and like the relative immutability of fiat.
I like the idea, and I think it is a step forward, so I tossed a few coin at it. After going through the end of the last thread and all the pages here, I'd like to pitch into the discussion if I may, and I'm certainly not leaning as eagerly toward GAW as I did before, but objectively, my opinion is that this thing will probably be around for a while, and be (relatively) successful. I don't think it will be worth more than bitcoin like some at HT say ... not by a long shot, but I think it is a bold approach to getting a not so new concept to actually be accepted by larger numbers of people who don't really know about mining.
