Bitcoin Forum

What happens when *WE* are the wealthy elite?

"WE" being the early early bitcoin adopters. The pioneers. Back when this forum was full of hackers, libertarians and anarcho-capitalists. What happens when bitcoin wins, and the wealthy elite hold very anti-establishment, anti-state points of view?

Something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Tc_o56rvpEg

Won't change a whole lot, but things will change.

First off, people that come into money don't usually end up keeping it.

Second, look at the Republican party right now. Continually at odds about what political stances are important, so the only "power" they've been able to muster is the power to stop some things (and even there they couldn't stop ObamaCare even though they all agreed on it). And then look at our bitcoin forums where all of these "early adopters" hang out. Do you see a lot of consensus?

How many posts are there for making mining "fare" for the little guys, basically saying they don't REALLY want a free market. Or blaming Coinbase for the loss of coins when someone compromised the victims computer. They're basically saying they want FDIC insurance.

As Ron Paul says, (paraphrased) "We won't get rid of big government overnight, but we might be able to shrink it a little bit at a time." That's what I hope for. First step, un-fund the warmongering!

The world will become awesome that's what
A bunch of rich anarchists leading the world towards a libertarian free state with strong innovation and minimum government and strong internet freedom ^_^.
Basically the same cryto anarchists that created Bitcoin building more stuff in reality.

For a minute there I thought you were serious

I was kidding ^_^ but yah it did sound a bit serious not really sure what a bunch of rich anarchists would do
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-anarchism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalist

Wiki says this though
In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, and all other security services would be operated by privately funded competitors rather than centrally through compulsory taxation. Money, along with all other goods and services, would be privately and competitively provided in an open market. Therefore, personal and economic activities under anarcho-capitalism would be regulated by victim-based dispute resolution organizations under tort and contract law, rather than by statute through centrally determined punishment under political monopolies.

The central banks will be destroyed, all the 1% will be humiliated for the whole world to see.
After that we will fix the whole world so that everyone will be equal, and we use all the ex-rich bastards to do all the nasty work!

The younger generations will be bitching about how they hate everything we do.

Well  at least 'we' won't be able to print an endless supply of it, so it's still more fair than the current situation.

Riiight.   So who enforces these contracts if there is no govt and police are private?   

There would be minimum government didn't say no government there is a difference
Police would still be under the Civil service  the government would still have a legal system just less red tape in the process.
The wikipedia did define it interestingly though but there is a whole army of divergent views there.



The younger generations came to Bitcoin to defeat the old fiat system :)

Maybe we will be clinging on to Bitcoin like tptb are clinging on to the dollar, and the younger generation will be trying to introduce the Bitcoin of their era.

It's the Circle of Life (Inserts the Lion King)
It's possible when were old and control the financial system with Bitcoins the younger generation will create something new that becomes the basis for a whole new monetary system.
Imagines Sword Art Online or MMORPG type currencies and financial systems inside of a virtual system that people use
Old people we like reality and our Bits.
The young generation would be like the innovations in the virtual world allow us to go further and innovate far more than ever before and we will make a superior currency in there :).
That said if the future is Virtual mining for coins inside your head to earn currency that would bring the biggest smile to my face ^_^.

Using our brain power to mine for coins :O I'm gonna go mine for some knowledge right now.

Well as the saying goes we know that Knowledge is Power
But who knew it could be implemented as a currency system ha-ha.

That always happens throughout history, but envy or better said, evolution, always make us old generations stay still, stronger, inmortal...

Probably, but I don't mind if they can create something even cooler. ;)

We haven't invented immorality yet I'm sure their is a large demand for it especially among the wealthy elite
Maybe that is what the early adopters will create to mess with the new generation and become the immortal wealthy elite...
Yah that would be a bit weird.

Ask yourself, what happens if a bunch of uneducated and inexperienced gamblers would suddenly become the leaders of world finance and the economy?

More of the same says with a sarcastic snide look

To be honest it would probably be a bit better than you presume these early adopters are closer to technocrats than inexperienced gamblers
One they would need to have a high level understanding of crytography and computer science to be early miners in Bitcoin and second they hold strong political views on how to develop society so it might even be an improvement.

If we look at our current financial system we can easily point out to bailouts of companies in the United States deemed to big to fail and increasing cronyism in politics with retired politicians getting cushy paying jobs as CEO's of large companies when they leave, but if a rich individual who was not raised in that type of culture was to rise to power and finance the worlds economy we might get a substantially different type of system and outcome out of it.

Thinking more along the lines of people like Hal Finney running the government the cypherpunk generation.

From the OP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgFUAhz7h2U&feature=youtu.be

I wouldn't have anything against technocrats, but most of the technocrats in the bitcoin community aren't holding the majority of bitcoins. They prefer to concentrate on the technical development, not on earning with speculating the unit price.
Most of the bitcoins are held by gamblers, whose only interest is to buy low and sell high. These are the people who see bitcoin as an easy fix to become rich.
Technocrats are about fair wealth distribution, so that there wouldn't be a new elite class, who actually don't contribute anything important to the society. The gamblers are different kind of people who don't dream of improving the world by upgrading finance. Only thing they wish to do, is to trade places with the present elite leeches.

We are starting to see the diffusion of Bitcoins into the mass populace but a large amount are still either in the hands of technocrats or innovators.
From a 100% concentration when Satoshi first held them to a more diverse set of users.

What we do know is that there are a certain fixed number of Bitcoins and 13 million are presently in existence with 21 million total.
There are still a lot of coins to be generated, so bitcoin can be acquired by gamblers and investors and ends with the people who can afford them getting these new coins. The part about gamblers holding a lot of coins therefore is partially true depending on how you view it.

But the gamblers are weaker than the technocrats and the ones who want to innovate Bitcoin.
The Winklevoss Twins holds a large amount of Bitcoins, the FBI assuming they have access to Ross and his coins from the Silk Road hold a large percentage, Tim Draper recently can be added to this list with his intentions to build up more Bitcoin based technologies and finally we can't forget Satoshi whoever they are who has around 1 million of the 21 million coins.

I don't think there is a comprehensive list but a lot of groups and large organizations that store and hold bitcoins are not speculators, such as VC companies etc but ones that want to develop the infrastructure.

From this we can see that they may be gamblers among them but at the same time they are trying to ensure that Bitcoin will continue to grow and remain reasonably stable because they want to follow supply and demand and move from 1000's to tens to hundreds of thousands of transactions in the future as their value goes up, it is an experiment in progress and we will need to see how this evolves into the future.

http://bitcoinrichlist.com/top100
http://bitcoinrichlist.com/top500
From the top 100 we know that they presently hold 5% of all coins in circulation
From the top 500 it is  32.77%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgFUAhz7h2U&feature=youtu.be

Yet that diffusion is still occurring even now so it will be interesting to see how it turns out as an economic experiment into the development of digital currencies.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/as-big-investors-emerge-bitcoin-gets-ready-for-its-close-up/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Could you please name those technocrats who have publicly claimed their bitcoin holdings?

I agree that the gamblers are weaker and slower, and they won't be able to run along with the development.
But the technocrats aren't obsessed about Bitcoin, that is a specific product represented by a specific brand name, and that has a specific unit value. Bitcoin is not important, what is important is the idea and the technology that bitcoin brought forward. Bitcoin is like the first popular Apple's personal computer model, it had it's importance in history, but the entire idea brought forward a new wave of improvements in the form of new and improved examples. Cryptocurrencies in general is the future of this idea. A world where the dominant coin will be decided by it's technical qualities and by fair competition.
The bitcoin fanatics are mostly dreaming that the world would be stagnant and the field wouldn't evolve past bitcoin. They do that because they are afraid that they can't keep up with the changes, so no easy riches for them. True technocrats aren't these kinds of fanatics.





These lists don't show anything when a person can have unlimited amount of different addresses. As far as we know, the majority of top500 addresses could belong to only one person, right?

I would love to but that is what pseudo anonymity is we can't really know who they are and they won't reveal themselves publically since that is what a crypto anarchist is :)

That said we do have a rough idea of it
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321265.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321265.msg3440829#msg3440829
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=316297.0

Chart note 2013* could have changed
http://www.businessinsider.com/927-people-own-half-of-the-bitcoins-2013-12

The list is dynamic and it does change hands now and then example Karpeles and Tim Draper are examples of this but there are still a fair amount in the hands of these technocrats if you look at the names on the list.



That and the fact that the gamblers will likely speculate and sell their fortunes before they become significantly large impacts this metric as well
Consider the movement from 90 to 250 if the speculators sold at 250 and re-bought at 90 they would have made a profit and nearly tripled there coins. However on the inverse the ones who bought at the previous peak likely sold their coins at a loss and took a burn for it only to have those coins rebought again by new speculators.

The same can be said of those who bought bitcoins over 1000 dollars and still have not broken even yet if you don't have a large capital base to rely upon it still is possible to burn yourself at the same time if you go on a buying spree the market will also push the price up unless you buy at a steady rate so it does impact the power of speculators. Without a contract for difference or an efficient shorting mechanism its harder to leverage without owning any coins unless your willing to take a large spread.

As for Bitcoin being the first of many I agree it could become napster but it likely has a good 10 to 20 years before it gets superseeded by another technology or it could be longer if the developer team is still strong and able to keep Bitcoin up to date with competing ideas and currencies that said the idea of a digital payment system is here to stay and we need one to succeed before we can build up others. That is why Bitcoin will likely still be around for at least the medium term to prove to the world that a digital payment system based on cryptography is useful convenient and an alternative payment system that people can use.


Not true one technology can connect to another those same cryto anarchists are not known to leave projects alone they tend to develop other things example some are looking at Ethereum or Darkcoin and Bitcoin 2.0 protocols its just a movement forward.

One can look back at Hal Finneys development of PGP which helped lead to Adam Backs hashcash then see that it was that idea of a payment system that uses proof of work that leads to Bitcoin which added cryptography and a ledger to it, the future is full of connections to the past its just how we make them that matters.

As long as it develops privacy and open new usages for technology people will move to develop it and it is the policy of the cypherpunks.

Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn't want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.



It is possible there are large holders we do not know of that keep small balances in multiple wallets but in answer to your question if they all belong to one person, we can say no to that since we at least know there are 50 unique users with balances and those balances are not connected to other large accounts.

Re this one
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321265.msg3440829#msg3440829

Well there is a lot of people having bitcoins so there is no centralised power, which is good, but keep in mind that there is a long way to achieve that and gov can anytime put bitcoin users on the blacklist, you are not as anonymous as you think you are.

@ Define Blacklist
Coins can be confiscated but they can't be blacklisted per-se as that affects fungibility.
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-fungibility-essential/ and the update
http://www.coindesk.com/government-sale-bitcoin-establishes-fungibility-precedent/

Simply put A bitcoin is a bitcoin

To me personally, that list of people aren't the ones who I would trust. I still see a lot more gamblers then technocrats.


The thing is that an quality currency has to have an unit value, that isn't attractive as an speculative investment. A stable currency is unattractive as an investment, but stability is the most important quality of an currency. And stability won't be achieved here with wider use. Wider use would only invite stronger players. Even if BTC costs 100k or more per coin, then the manipulation would be done by large corporations or governments to hit their opponents.
Only thing that would bring proper stability would be an dynamic coin supply system. Static coin supply is currently only used because an autonomous dynamic supply system would be a lot more complex to create. But I'm pretty sure that this complexity is the future.
This field would suffer from extreme stagnation if it would take 20 years for bitcoin to be replaced. Remember, that bitcoin code isn't especially complex. The main value was the innovation and the idea that were unprecedented, not the complexity of the code.


I agree that bitcoin has contributed a lot to the scene, but I think that now it's development is stagnant, because further devolopment is needed in the core parts that are considered as unchangeable with bitcoin. Static coin supply is the best example for this.

Privacy could only be innocent in individual few hands. In the larger business, privacy is only used for one thing and that is corruption. Do you think that Swiss banking privacy was used to evade prosecution of financial crimes, or were everyone just innocently shy? I still believe that the future of finance isn't in increased privacy, but in increased transparency. Criminals have most to gain with increased privacy and most to lose with increased transparency.

I have to point out that I haven't met an bitcoin enthusiast for a long time, that can be calm and constructive, when expressing their point of view. It's not like that with you, so thank you for a pleasant read.

Rich people not being politicians or cronies? Not lacking empathy, not killing everybody around, what the current elites expect others to do if they can? Respecting other peoples rights?

[sarcasm] Sounds creepy.

To become the true elite, someone probably need to raise an army using their newly found wealthy to fight the existing power.

What happened when ideological youth become rich and powerful? 

Steve Jobs was a hippie
The Clintons were hippies

Id say you elite gentlemen would become part of the part of the status quo you bitch about so much

This is a peaceful revolution. We don't need bullets, we just need to opt out of their system and it will collapse on it's own.

Not yet, but it's in the works ....  ;)
http://sens.org/ (http://sens.org/)

I didn't get what you wanted to say, sorry.

When you say "WE" do you think we are still in an early adoption phase? I mean how early in the game are we still?

doom

You won't. You spend the money on a Lambo and your wife runs off with half eventually.
Not my fault thats what willl happen.... to everyone :(

Oh simply Bitcoins can't be blacklisted
The people can be caught but a Bitcoin is the same whether used to buy a TV or Drugs but a blacklist of users would not work in practice unless they monitored everyones IP addresses etc.

"The new elites" will not need to shed their humanity, respect for all beings, their non-violent attitude. This is among the advantages of the new economy we envision.

If being elite means someone which is different, with the special privilege to extract wealth from others using force: We are not going to be elites, the topic is wrong.

Being an idealist is good. If history is any guide, revolution doesn't happen without violent. And the new group of elite will not be any different than the current group of elite as time passes on.

after we become wealthy elite

I will buy a Lamborghini and you buy a ferari...then we will spend lavishly thus stimulating the economy...then we shall invest the remaining into global problem solutions like alternate energy, cancer research etc.

Will work only if you buy it with BTC, or we'll get back to start ;)

Maybe, but change can happen without violence. In this case, violence is not guaranteed.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

(Should not be taken as an endorsement of the man.)

If and when it happens I don't really intend to be engaged in the world. A beach house, a few friends, and a tropical drink will pretty much constitute my world.   

... he said, thinking that enclosing his words with braces give them more weight.

This only happen in certain culture.

Some cultures have been suppress for so long that revolution is no longer a possibility.

So early that right now at least 50 countries around the globe doesn't even can pronounce "Bitcoin" word...

Only works for countries that have not had their right to bear arms take away.

Kudo to founding fathers who have foreseen everything.

Not everything... and not by a long shot. Regardless, they saw more than most. It was a government built by those who distrusted governments, but watered down by those who wanted a central power for themselves. The articles of confederation was a better arrangement.

First of all only a very tiny fraction of today's bitcoiners will become part of a future "wealthy elite". The reason is that the majority will spend or otherwise loose their wealth long before they are rich enough to be truly "elite".

During this process, natural selection will occur: Only people with certain personality traits will keep and increase their wealth. You may speculate on what these traits are...

In the end the new wealthy bitcoin elite - although their political tendencies will differ - will appear to the non-elite mass to be as awful as the current one. Of course I hope that i'm wrong, but history tends to repeat itself (with slight variations on the theme).

Did you read George Orwell's Animal Farm ("all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others")? ;)

Depending on the words they choose to say.

Edit:

Did you just actually place the commercial in the post, pretending to be a signature?  ???

Didn't quite understand what you meant to say by "depending on the words they choose to say". Care to explain?

all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others
Depending on the words they choose to say.

Are two lines from an Emery song :)

Anyway, I asked because I've never seen anyone do that and I don't think it's allowed (hence it's blocked for people with low activity). Because you're circumventing this you might get in trouble. Just a friendly heads-up :)

There is a difference - the new "elite" or whatever can not feed off the public like parasites through the destruction of the money system like now.

Who are the pioneers? Now it is also not particularly cryptocurrency entered our lives. Learned about Bitcoin where in October 2013, many developers forks too. They are also pioneers in comparison with the huge number of people who will benefit from these technologies in 2-3 years

We don't yet fully understand what the future has prepared for us in respect to Bitcoin and the new "elites". Could anyone, say, in the 18th century ever think or foresee what powers a fiat currency would provide a state with?

I'm hoping the Bitcoin elite will use their power and influcence to better themselves and the society.  Staying away from the ways of the current banking model and overall pyramid scheme like economic model we have had and do currently have.

To think that we will have a utopia of some sort all because of Bitcoin is a bit naive.  The world is still going to be filled with control hungry selfish people with strong ideologies and there will be wars and "rumors of wars" until the end.

But that said, the power might shift into the hands of a few new people thanks to BTC.

I hope they develop science and technology to new forefronts and make space travel and subliminal communication a reality
Perhaps too much to ask in a century but society has come pretty far in the last 100 years.

That wouldn't be such a bad either haha.  I'm all about that as long as these technological advancements are beneficial to the masses.  As for subliminal communication that is a very interesting prospect I too would appreciate seeing that developed but seems a little science fiction like at the moment sadly.  But you know what they say reality is stranger than fiction.

Actually right now we are already working on luminal communication the field of Silicion Photonics is moving ahead pretty rapidly.
Got some neat projects like Li-Fi technologies and replacing Silicon chips with Light communications in our computers so it might be attainable in the 100 year era.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li-Fi
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/420082/computing-at-the-speed-of-light/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_photonics

Last week, Paniccia’s team demonstrated the first complete photonic communications system made from components fully integrated into silicon chips. Electronic data piped into one chip is converted into laser light that travels down an optical fiber and is transferred back into electrical signals a few fractions of a second later. The system can carry data at a rate of 50 gigabits per second, enough to transfer a full-length HD movie in less than a second.

The silicon photonic chips could replace the electronic connections between a computer’s key components, such as its processors and memory. Copper wiring used today can carry data signals at little more than 10 gigabits per second. That means critical components like the central processing unit and the memory in a server cannot be too far apart, which restricts how computers can be built.

The new Intel setup has four lasers built into its transmitter chip that shine data into a single optical fiber at slightly different wavelengths, or “colors.” Chips with even more lasers should make it possible to communicate at 1,000 gigabits per second.

“Having a chip the size of your fingernail that can deliver a terabit per second changes the way you can think about design,” says Paniccia. Such chips could make a big difference inside the sprawling data centers operated at great expense by Web giants like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. “Data centers today are big piles of copper–that imposes the limits on how you arrange components inside a server,” Paniccia says.

So yep reality is moving that way at the moment where science fiction will become reality
Also be ready to meet HAL XD

* Assumes Bitcoin elites would be more benevolent,

* meanwhile there are threads about what you would do if you got rich and most of the answers are "hookers, yachts and blow".

That would be after you satisfy the basic needs in Maslows Hierarchy and feel like moving up to the last stage of it  :D
Wealthy enough to invest after having all the fun lol.

What do you have against yachts?

Maybe hes afraid of running into a Nice Boat *Whistles*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIUQ7nwCl1o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtuAOT_c2EA
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/niceboat.jpg

Human nature won't change with Bitcoin. So it is pretty sure that the new Bitcoin elite will use their power and influence to serve themselves in the first place. On the other hand, it is exactly an individual egoism that made progress possible and our lives better overall. This may seem paradoxical and counter-intuitive at first glance, but nevertheless it is so.