Bitcoin Forum

Vote honestly. If you change your mind, change your vote!

Feel free to debate your side in the comments below.

Godspeed.

if there were no inequality and everyone was an early adopters, can someone really think that there would have been more buyers? or just plain more manipulators?

i'm prone to think the latter, would have been more true

As a middle class, I have a good life, a decent income, making nice profits with trading, etc. I'm not sure if my life would be the same if wealth was equally spreaded.

Bitcoin wealth, as all the other things with value are in the hands of a very small group of people. It has always been like this and will never change.

Even if you took 21 million bitcoins and gave them to 21 million people there are huge chances that in the future nearly all of the bitcoins would end up in the hands of the minority. The Pareto principle in works, the 80-20 rule. It's just how it is throughout the humanity.

Also, if you gave all of the coins to 21 million people, what about the rest of the people in this world? Huge inequality again! This means that we are all still the early adopters, us about the million at the moment that use the crypto.

Quite obviously, I do approve the current inequality!

If the bitcoins are earned honestly it is more than right that everyone have all its bitcoins and enjoy those whatever it can be the number. Inequality exist in every field of life and every human being. Why can be wrong in this field? There are not two people equal in most of the things, beginning from their genes. Its natural that be diversity in every other existing thing.

The amount of inequality which exists in the Bitcoin sector is smaller when compared to that with the fiat currency segment. At least we don't have big corporations and banks deciding the volumes and prices. I am OK with the current status. And regarding inequality, it will gradually vanish as the large holders dump their coins, when the price increases.

Man, I would have expected a few posts on disapprove. I agree with inequality. Of course, it's up to every single individual on what they want to do with their cash (or bitcoin), whether distribute it to the least fortunate or keep it. There is a wall between the people in poorer places (I remember reading someone in Alabama frustrated about the lack of local options for buying bitcoin) and the wonderful new technology that is bitcoin. It's really easy for a newyorker to walk to their closest bitcoin ATM and buy some, but what can someone from [insert third world country here] going to do? Even if they have the disposable income to buy bitcoin, it's going to be a huge pain in the ass to buy bitcoin. I tried buying bitcoin in a place where there are no exchanges set up, I couldn't, not without paying 48% over the market price. That's something I think we should be working on that, as a community.

Wealth inequality exists in the real world as well. Wealth equality is a pipe dream that will never exist.

if we all think like that, it will never change. bitcoin is still fairly new. i think it is still possible to spread the coins more equally at some point in the future. but that will only happen if we stand up and start doing something about it.

I know these thoughts are well intentioned but people will want to compete irregardless of what the system is. It is just human nature.

Well there would always be someone who missed the boat otherwise we'd all have dust and  would have forgotten  about it!

Randy, what are the virtues about wealth equality?  What are the downsides?

I only see downsides:

• Lack of motivation, since I'll always get a piece of my hardworking neighbor's reward
• No reward for work or innovation, which will stagnate growth

Narrowing the gap of wealth inequality is one thing, fighting for complete wealth equality is very different.

I'm curious about what the phrase "Bitcoin wealth inequality" means. I assume it mean that some people own a lot of bitcoins and a lot of people own none.

Well, (assuming my description is correct) then I see no problem for these reasons:

• Only a few people own Albanian leks, but nobody seems to care. Why is Bitcoin different?
• A person that wants to be in the top 10% of bitcoin owners, a "whale", can simply buy 1 bitcoin. That's right. You can be one of the Bitcoin elite for only $240.

Ok, let's suppose that bitcoins are distributed equally to each of the 7 billion people on the planet. That means that each person receives 0.003 BTC, currently worth about $0.72. What good will that do? $0.72 is a tiny amount of money to even the poorest people in the world.

If in case it is spread among 7B people, the price would also change and would certainly not stay at $240 range. Even though wealth is evenly distributed, there will come a time that the equilibrium would be disturbed, and thus resulting to inequality. There had never been a time that wealth was distributed evenly; inequality exists even before books were invented lol.

Seriously if we compare the level of inequality right now that exists in the fiat system, it's even far worse compared to what you can see right now with bitcoin. The rich getting richer because of how the loopholes are exploited and it just goes up further creating a big margin of divide between the rich and the poor. At least with bitcoin, it is not that bad.

bitcoin will never get adopted by the entire world population. beside that, by equality i don't mean that every person gets the exact same amount. currently 1% of the world controls all the wealth. if we can get that number closer to 10-20% it can already be considered a huge improvement.

If you want equality, then every person has to get the same amount. If different people get different amounts, then that can't be considered equal.

A person's wealth is not equal to the number of bitcoins they own. In fact the wealthiest 1% in the world probably own very few bitcoins. So, that raises the question, how can an equal distribution of bitcoins affect equality?

Voted I do approve.
No more Communism! It's not that I'm against it in theory, but in practice this proved to be impossible, so no more of that nonsense. If you want have more BTC - mine it, earn it, but don't expect that it will be given to you for free.

How can 1 bitcoin put any of us in the top 10% of bitcoin owners? There's 15 Million bitcoins in "circulation"!?

I don't think you're lying, i just want to see the numbers.

This is an interesting point, maybe inequality of bitcoin wealth distribution makes overall wealth distribution more equal (if those that are wealthy with fiat have very few or no bitcoin wealth, and vice versa for those with bitcoin wealth.)

 I have (or will have mining by the end of this year...ie probably ..... about 111 btc or equiv in LTC and BTC (trying to figure out when to move the LTC to BTC
currently sideways since halving at 0.01250 or so ltc to btc so..no drama..so no real push to move the LTC (or some) yet :)

 
in equip and/or $$$ to get the btc you have (ie have 111 btc say but say instead I spent 2x the usd price at current btc price to get such and in the hole) where
would that put me in all this?

me I'm ahead 25% on the 111 btc  (held all coin) (or will be) not counting elec ...if you add elec more or less by end of equip life then it is down to ahead about 16% on the $$$ to btc investment

anyway..if it is just having 111 btc then hey I'm in the whale camp...if it is any of the above it is more complex where you are in all this crypto speculation imho :) and
still a minnow :)



 

I'm glad you questioned my numbers. It looks like I am out of date and new information shows that the distribution is not as skewed as previously thought.

According to these estimates, as of April 2014, the distribution looked like this:

So, you must have 10 BTC to be in the top 10% of bitcoin owners. That's still not as unreachable as people might imagine. Anyway, if you have any bitcoins, you have more bitcoins than 99.99% of the people in the world.

those numbers are unquestionable, if someone cant see that bitcoin distribution is by far more fair than any curerncy on the world, then someone is blind...

so about the main question i can ask you it: has Bitcoin wealth inequality? really?

and no, im not an earlier adopter...  as i always said, you guys will tell stories to your grandchildren about that you won lot of money by doing faucets on 2015 just by doing captchas...