The ultimate bitcoin taboo topic

[Wary]

I still shiver at the idea that most people don't give a damn if somebody will have a nearly unprecedented level of power

Don't shiver. Money is not power. Weapon is. With money you can't buy if the seller not willing to sell. While with weapon you can just take whatever you want, no money required.

And what percentage of world's military power are currently in hands of one person? Most of it! One silnge person (his name starts from "O") controls an army that is stronger than all other armies in the world, combined. Not 2%, but over 50%. And not buyin "power", but direct military force.

It's bad, IMO, but still no Armageddon have happened. So why are you expecting it to happen from mere 2% of non-military power?

IMO, existence of BTC-trillionaires would improve current situation. Early bitcoin adapters are mainly from libertarian circles, so they will likely use their money to fund projects that will reduce power of states over people. In fact, bitcoin is one of such projects. I want more of it!

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[DeathAndTaxes]

I think it is quite possible that bitcoin value will be diluted. The network is controlled by majority of nodes. If majority decides to change something, e. g. to confiscate money from the rich, they can do so. But it would be a shift in a social paradigm.  E. g. if world communistic revolution happens, then it doesn't really matter which currency would be mainstream, it will be either abandoned or adjusted to the new social formation.

Nope.  This is a common misconception.  You can't change Bitcoin because you can't stop the existing network from running.  All you can do to is create a fork.  I find it hard to believe the masses would choose the "inflat-a-coin" fork over the tried and true real Bitcoin.  Of course those with massive wealth would pound down the value on the new fork by selling into any rallies and dumping massive quantity at market.  Still given the overall chaos and loss of confidence by there being two supported but incompatible networks called "Bitcoin" it is highly unlikely no controversial fork will ever be successful.  Then again we never know for sure.

[Xiaoma]

I still shiver at the idea that most people don't give a damn if somebody will have a nearly unprecedented level of power, as long as they can have a little slice of the riches. That let me think to those disgusting orks doing all they can to let lord Sauron have the world, as long as they are in the winning side. No matter if the world is going to hell.

Cool down. If you have a coin or more, in a few years you might be on the other side of this envy divide.

This is exactly what I'm saying. I do have some coins, and I will be in the elite if it gets "to da moon". But unlike most people around here, I would not let money buy my dignity and beliefs. Is not envy. It is genuine concern about the future of democracy.

[Xiaoma]

IMO, existence of BTC-trillionaires would improve current situation. Early bitcoin adapters are mainly from libertarian circles, so they will likely use their money to fund projects that will reduce power of states over people. In fact, bitcoin is one of such projects. I want more of it!

How do you know the people with most coins are "from libertarian circles"? There are lots of hints pointing to the opposite, and until we know the truth I rather assume the worst case.

[Wary]

But unlike most people around here, I would not let money buy my dignity and beliefs. Is not envy. It is genuine concern about the future of democracy.

Wow! A noble person come in our stinking bitcoin den!

[xxjs]

I still shiver at the idea that most people don't give a damn if somebody will have a nearly unprecedented level of power, as long as they can have a little slice of the riches. That let me think to those disgusting orks doing all they can to let lord Sauron have the world, as long as they are in the winning side. No matter if the world is going to hell.

Cool down. If you have a coin or more, in a few years you might be on the other side of this envy divide.

This is exactly what I'm saying. I do have some coins, and I will be in the elite if it gets "to da moon". But unlike most people around here, I would not let money buy my dignity and beliefs. Is not envy. It is genuine concern about the future of democracy.

Great, some ethics. Others may have also.

[Wary]

How do you know the people with most coins are "from libertarian circles"?

Nakamoto is. DPR is. Peter Tiel is. Heaps of early adapters are.

There are lots of hints pointing to the opposite, and until we know the truth I rather assume the worst case.

And even this imaginary worst case is much better than our current case. The democracy you support gives most of world's power to one single person. BTW, this person is considering new invasion right now. Would starting a war become easier for him if % of libertarians in US Senate changes from current state to, say, % of libertarians in this forum?

[squidface]

How do you know the people with most coins are "from libertarian circles"?

Nakamoto is. DPR is. Peter Tiel is. Heaps of early adapters are.

There are lots of hints pointing to the opposite, and until we know the truth I rather assume the worst case.

And even this imaginary worst case is much better than our current case. The democracy you support gives most of world's power to one single person. BTW, this person is considering new invasion right now. Would starting a war become easier for him if % of libertarians in US Senate changes from current state to, say, % of libertarians in this forum?

How long do you think that one person would continue to have that power if he went against the interests of his wealthy and powerful backers? About 5 seconds. He is a puppet, albeit a willing and enthusiastic one.

No, money isn't power. But it helps.

I have a lot of agreement with libertarian ideals, but the individualism and love of guns that seems to often come with it seem a bit weird to me, and may not mix well with huge wealth. I wouldn't count on the politics of those holding power to prevent its abuse. Usually, the people that are the surest of the goodness of their own intentions cause the most trouble for everyone else.

But yeah, agreed that basically, whatever. Its not like a high price would last all that long if all of a sudden kazillions of sleeping bitcoins started moving. The point at which it would (ie. the bitcoin economy is MUCH bigger than now) is a long long way off, and may never be reached. A lot can happen between now and then, and I think, all said, this is one of the less urgent threats to freedom facing most people right now.

I think Nakamoto's point about bitcoin being a way to "gain a new territory of freedom for several years" is a good one to remember. Power will always fuck people over when it gets established. The point is to keep knocking it down before it does. Right now, bitcoin might be part of the way to do that. At some point, just maybe, if it works out, it could itself be a problem. Whatever. We'll just have to work it out.

[johnyj]

Fact 2: The largest "traditional" holder of assets of any form holds at most about 0.1% of the entire world's money supply.
    
Note: chosing M2 as the base is a comparably small estimate, as it doesn't include stocks, gold, etc., so in effect the percentage of wealth held by a single person is probably even lower. Bitcoin on the other hand is something of a hybrid -- liquid enough for transactions, commodity & store of value by design, so it could act as both.
        

Where do you get this fact? The largest traditional holder of assets of any form holds 100% of the entire world's money supply, that is FED. Every dollar ever created belongs to FED, which consists of a bunch of private reserve banks

[Xiaoma]

Fact 2: The largest "traditional" holder of assets of any form holds at most about 0.1% of the entire world's money supply.
    
Note: chosing M2 as the base is a comparably small estimate, as it doesn't include stocks, gold, etc., so in effect the percentage of wealth held by a single person is probably even lower. Bitcoin on the other hand is something of a hybrid -- liquid enough for transactions, commodity & store of value by design, so it could act as both.
        

Where do you get this fact? The largest traditional holder of assets of any form holds 100% of the entire world's money supply, that is FED. Every dollar ever created belongs to FED, which consists of a bunch of private reserve banks

america != world

[SuperP]

Why isn't Satoshi Nakamoto protecting his investment?

Satoshi owns approximately 1 million bitcoins, or about $100,000,000 worth.  He could use a fraction of his wealth to invest in bitcoin companies and projects and give bitcoin an even greater push forward.  To my knowledge, he has never moved any of the coins that he is suspected to have mined.  Why would he do this?

1. He is dead and the private keys of his bitcoins died with him.

2. He is saving them for an emergency.  If an attacker was 51% attacking bitcoin, it's likely that the attacker would only attack with just enough hashing power (or a little bit more) to minimize their costs.  If Satoshi wanted to, he could increase the mining reward back to 50 bitcoins per block or even higher by including huge fees in his transactions.  Could this encourage a lot more people to get back into mining and overpower the attacker at least for a little while?  With 1 million bitcoins, he could return the reward to 50 bitcoins every block for about 9 months.

3. He is a malicious actor.  Because we don't know who Satoshi is, we don't know his current motives.  There has been speculation that Satoshi is Jed McCaleb, creator of the Ripple system.  Or he could be a creator of another altcoin. If he had a higher percentage of his new coin than bitcoin, once his new coin is in a good position, he could slowly (or quickly) tranfer his bitcoin wealth to the new coin.  Creating a seemingly perpetual bitcoin bear market and a perpetual altcoin bull market.

4. He has faith that bitcoin will succeed on its own power.

5. He is already wealthy independent of bitcoin and using the currency he already has to do this investing instead of selling his bitcoins.

[Xiaoma]

sarchasm apart, my point was, how in hell can you guys be so sure Nakamoto is an actual person, and libertarian as opposed to a NSA puppet. I would be the first person to be happy if we had a "libertarian billionaire", but lots of stuff makes me feel not that confident. Last thing I want is a new fascist regime with total control over our finance.

Still, it is nice to see so many optimistic people, but doesn't make me feel any safer.

[NewLiberty]

Why isn't Satoshi Nakamoto protecting his investment?

4. He has faith that bitcoin will succeed on its own power.

QFT

[Wary]

how in hell can you guys be so sure Nakamoto is an actual person, and libertarian as opposed to a NSA puppet.

My signature expains it

To sum up, I think that power that rich bitcoiners may get over us is orders of magnitude less than power than current states already has. Don't be afraid of Satoshi, be afraid of street cop.

[niko]

Communist hat? I think not.

OK, that part was just meant to provoke a response from those who define communism in different terms from mine. Having lived under a communist party rule, and having never been involved with the communist party in any way, I like my definition better.  But we stray from the topic.
Again, as others have pointed out, with fiat we have practically infinite, monopolized supply of money. With Bitcoin, we have a fixed, democratic, consensual, and mathematically exact supply. Distribution of wealth in these two scenarios has a different meaning, and straight-forward comparison is meaningless.
I fail to see a problem. Bitcoin works and allows me to represent, store, and exchange value in ways never before possible. Alice, Bob, Satoshi, and Mugabe can do with their coins as they please, and Gaddafi may have taken half a million brain-walleted coins with him into the grave. Seriousy. It's not like you'd have a clue. Some people do have lots of coins, some people did have lots of coins, and yet here we are, and world hasn't ended.

[johnyj]

Fact 2: The largest "traditional" holder of assets of any form holds at most about 0.1% of the entire world's money supply.
    
Note: chosing M2 as the base is a comparably small estimate, as it doesn't include stocks, gold, etc., so in effect the percentage of wealth held by a single person is probably even lower. Bitcoin on the other hand is something of a hybrid -- liquid enough for transactions, commodity & store of value by design, so it could act as both.
        

Where do you get this fact? The largest traditional holder of assets of any form holds 100% of the entire world's money supply, that is FED. Every dollar ever created belongs to FED, which consists of a bunch of private reserve banks

america != world

Maybe not 100%, but a large part of it. After world war II, most of the gold were put into US and US issue dollar based on gold, and all the other countries issue fiat money based on their USD holding (they first exchange for USD with their gold). Although gold standard has been abolished, this traditional still holds at some degree

Take china for example, chinese central bank issue RMB when they receive USD, the amount of RMB backed by USD is more than half of the country's money supply

[NewLiberty]

Maybe not 100%, but a large part of it. After world war II, most of the gold were put into US and US issue dollar based on gold, and all the other countries issue fiat money based on their USD holding (they first exchange for USD with their gold). Although gold standard has been abolished, this traditional still holds at some degree

Take china for example, chinese central bank issue RMB when they receive USD, the amount of RMB backed by USD is more than half of the country's money supply

You are right when you say not 100% at least.  US is less than 25%.  There is about 6 trillion US$ worth of fiat currencies floating around, Issued by more than 150 central banks, about 1.2 trillion of that is US$.

[afbitcoins]

Rothschilds own just about all the worlds central banks, control gold market from London, net worth is about 50% of world wealth. I think they are the ones to worry about

[ElectricMucus]

Rothschilds own just about all the worlds central banks, control gold market from London, net worth is about 50% of world wealth. I think they are the ones to worry about

Care to quote any source on that which isn't a Conspiracy Theory Website?

[DeathAndTaxes]

ITT I see people confused wealth with money supply.  Nobody rich has any significant portion of their wealth in currency, they have their wealth in appreciating assets (companies, bonds, equities, commodities, royalty contracts, precious metals, etc).   Even if Bitcoin replaced all forms of currency on the planet it would still be a small % of the wealth in the world.  The Bitcoin "rich" would diversify into other assets and the distribution of the money supply would become more diverse.

The total global wealth is ~$233T.
The total global currency (M0) is ~$5T.

Say Bitcoin replaces all other forms of currency (a pipe dream) and the value of all Bitcoins is is someday worth ~$5T.  Lets also assume the richest Bitcoiner alive has 10% of that or ~$0.5T worth.  Yes $500B is a large amount, but it is <0.2% of the world's wealth.  That would also assume the "Bitcoin rich" never exchange Bitcoins for goods/service or other fiat currency along the way.   I think it is hillariously funny to imagine some fiat broke, Bitcoin rich guy living in his mom's basement refusing to liquidate 10% of his coins because they are "only" worth a million USD "but mom someday I could be a trillionaire, how stupid would it be to sell now for mere millions".