Bitcoin, Crypto, and the Power of the Few

[MaltMilchek]

I'm not sure if this topic has been raised here, but I wanted to discuss the landscape that we are in within the crypto world.

The way I understand it, part of the goal of crypto-currency is to give some power back to the people, power that banks and large financial institutions have wielded over the common folk for a long time. And make no mistake, this is a corrupt system we're talking about, as has been well documented over the years.

One of the larger complaints that we regularly hear about is the 1% or even the 0.1% - these are the powerful people that own the majority of the wealth in the world, and who are mostly vilified and abhorred by the less fortunate.

It's my understanding, that many crypto evangelists want to move away from this kind of world, but how is that shaping up so far?

From what I can see, the majority of BTC wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, the same goes for many altcoins. The other day I saw a post that one person owns all the GVT in circulation.

So let's hypothetically say that crypto is a success, and we start to move away from fiat and eventually use cryptocurrency, that's great in the sense that power from banks has been removed (to some degree), but what about the problem of disproportionate wealth distribution? Aren't we just moving from one system of masters and serfs to the next?

Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree, maybe that isn't a goal or ideal of crypto to strive for, but I have seen people like Brock Pierce talking about creating a crypto utopia in Puerto Rico and it also makes me think - what kind of utopia are they thinking of? Because sure, it's utopia for them, but I don't know if the people who will be living there and serving them will think the same.

Part of the reason this comes to mind now is because of the blatant manipulation that I've seen in the markets and exchanges.

The last few days of charts for BTC look like an alt-coin pump-n-dump, and this has been going on for a while. So what is the end game? Suck in newbies, get them to spend some money, shake them out with a crash, shake them out with erratic pump-and-dump manipulation so that the few can continue to amass BTC - to what end?

Where will they be when they are the only ones holding crypto and everyone else either a) has been burned and won't touch crypto again or b) doesn't care to join in the dance?

What's the point?

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[nitrousteam]

That is actually the interesting thought. The possibility of the FIAT replacement with the cryptocurrencies will never happen because of the governments that are supporting their centralized assets. Crypto cannot replace something that has been built for the ages and that is the paper money, better said physical money.
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Many of the whales are supporting the progress of the cryptos towards the future implementations within the system of the certain countries. These whales are currently holding a vast amount of the coins( especially Bitcoin) and it is in their interest for Bitcoin to become supported by all. Other wealthy people that gain their wealth through other means will never allow the implementation and that is the fact. Their hard-earned corrupted money has come to them too hard for it to be replaced by other corrupted decentralized assets owned by other corrupted investors in the eyes of the crypto nonsupporters.

[Palmerson]

Cryptocurrency can not have the functions of the main currency of the state. Greater volatility of bitcoin can never make such an economy predictable. Moreover, the economy of the state requires the constant intervention of the government and the support of some sectors that have been in poor condition. How can this be done in a decentralized environment? Lol. States will never give up Fiat.

[jimbo2000]

The manipulation you speak of is no secret and I struggle to see how it is any different to the current market. I think the harsh reality of it is that in any system where the rich, educated and experienced can take advantage of the poor, less educated and less experienced for their own personal gain - then that will happen. Hopefully in time the market will grow to such a size where manipulation is much more difficult. One disadvantage crypto has over forex, stocks etc is that due to its decentralized nature it is near impossible to regulate manipulation and stop collusion.

[FrueGreads]

Look if you read the bitcoin whitepaper you will not find any mentions to give money back to the people, or distributing wealth in a more fair manner, or anything like that. Bitcoin is not really a social project, and if bitcoin gets adopted, rich people have more money, so they can buy more. The distribution will remain the same, that will not change.

Bitcoin sets itself as a new payment system. It's as simple as that!
This new system is better than the traditional one, because it removes the middle man, it has a limit cap supply, and it's decentralized. This alone, makes it more efficient than the current one, and stops banking for having the control over your finances through debt.

Bitcoin was not made for the poor to get rich, and the rich to lose their money. Bitcoin was created so that a better payment system exists in our world.

[BrewMaster]

From what I can see, the majority of BTC wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, the same goes for many altcoins. The other day I saw a post that one person owns all the GVT in circulation.

regarding bitcoin this is only true if proven with facts not guesses. and so far people love making guesses when it comes to bitcoin and who owns what.
additionally it is not about how much some people own it is about how they own that much. there are two different things here:
1. the premine that altcoins use (i am guessing GVT is one of them) where the developer simply starts the project with all the tokens or a great deal of them belonging to him.
2. the distribution model of bitcoin where if you invest your computing power in finding blocks you will get the block reward and that has been true from the very first block that was found and the very first block reward that was created.

you can not compare these two together. the first one is obviously is a big no no! so lets focus on the first one and on bitcoin.

when bitcoin came out nobody was preventing YOU from mining it with your PC's CPU. some people did take advantage, spend their time, electricity, and computing power and were rewarded for it.
when bitcoin came out (after a while anyways) you could buy it when it gained a value. you could for example pay $10 and own a very large amount of bitcoin (for example 1000BTC) and nobody was preventing YOU from doing it. some people did that and are now rewarded for it.

you can not blame others for believing in bitcoin and taking the risk and investing their time and money while YOU did not.

you are not the first one to bring this up either. every couple of months someone raises the same thing and they miss the fact that in near future they will also look back at people buying today and think it is unfair that they bought at $1000 but now they have to buy at $100000

all that aside, bitcoin's purpose was not distribution of wealth.
bitcoin's purpose was to have a system of payment, a currency, which would be decentralized so nobody can control it or censor it.

[pereira4]

How could you "distribute the wealth" without having a censorship-centralized party that "distributes the wealth?" As you see, you are asking for communism, and last time I checked, Bitcoin never promised communism, but a set of solid rules, in which people, rich or not, must follow.

Just because you got a ton of BTC, doesn't mean you can raise the total coin supply for instance, but in the fiat world they can do that. The rich don't follow rules, in Bitcoin, the rich follow rules, same as the poor.

If you want more BTC, then go and get it.

And as far the price against fiat goes... it's irrelevant, long term, the supply is limited, fundamentals are strong, fiat not so much.

[redhondaxrm125]

Man, that thought sure is deep. Just reading your post or what you have said really made me think back a little and more seriously. Now, all I have in my mind are big questions like yours because clearly, your thoughts really made sense and is something no one should ignore or take for granted. But even so, I think what we can do for now is just to take advantage of the fact that we are here earlier than others that are still about to come. Because even when we find the answers for this questions, I think it will probably be still out of our hands. I think that the best we should do is focus more on things we can control rather than stress ourselves out with these kind of thoughts. - my opinion.

[JC btc]

Man, that thought sure is deep. Just reading your post or what you have said really made me think back a little and more seriously. Now, all I have in my mind are big questions like yours because clearly, your thoughts really made sense and is something no one should ignore or take for granted. But even so, I think what we can do for now is just to take advantage of the fact that we are here earlier than others that are still about to come. Because even when we find the answers for this questions, I think it will probably be still out of our hands. I think that the best we should do is focus more on things we can control rather than stress ourselves out with these kind of thoughts. - my opinion.

Exactly! We really don't know what could  happen later, tomorrow or the next coming months, but why thinking seriously about the negative or the worst to happened right? If  we can just enjoy what we are doing here right now then let us not stress out ourselves, just continue to contribute for the success of this.

[Fazlurkhan.kz]

 BTC being concentrated in just a few people might seem like an issue, but it also backs up the volatile price of it by keeping a specific amount in circulation and prevent a severe drop from dumps. The fiat system with banks definitely needed to be updated or completely changed the control over own wealth wasn't possible through it.
There is a disproportionate distribution of wealth in fiat system and as well as in btc but at least we have control on our own wealth here.

[justin86]

Power is not how many btc you hold. Power is that you can control it and send to other people withouth bank etc. This is free market. Bitcoin is not about philanthropy

[South Park]

Bitcoin will create a fairer system but make no mistake the system will never be fair what it is going to happen is that those that are at the top are the ones that are going to deserve it, right now banks do not deserve to spot they do not really give any service to the people anymore, and governments are the same as they are stealing the wealth of their citizens by inflating the currency, bitcoin will protect you from that so no one can touch your wealth.

[BillCoin]

The main idea is to bring the power to people as you said, before bitcoin, people's only choice was what brand of a bank shall they use, currently with bitcoin, people all around can choose what kind of bank they want to use.
Not to mention that a lot of people from 3rd world countries can't even afford open a bank as they don't have any nearby/ don't have the option to open a bank.
Bitcoin is the only solution for them to transfer funds abroad.
The security of a bitcoin transactions can beat any federal bank across the globes, it's something that wasn't offered before bitcoin came out.

[thefaucetrunner]

Bitcoin will create a fairer system but make no mistake the system will never be fair what it is going to happen is that those that are at the top are the ones that are going to deserve it, right now banks do not deserve to spot they do not really give any service to the people anymore, and governments are the same as they are stealing the wealth of their citizens by inflating the currency, bitcoin will protect you from that so no one can touch your wealth.

Bitcoin does solve some problems like you said but OP's concern is spot on. Do we need new cryptocurrency that will be less centralized than bitcoin, which has the problem that less than 1% of people own more than 50% of bitcoins (estimates of course). I think such new more fair cryptocurrency will need to be launched but the world is not ready for it because people are not educated enough yet so such experiment would fail.

[audaciousbeing]

I'm not sure if this topic has been raised here, but I wanted to discuss the landscape that we are in within the crypto world.

The way I understand it, part of the goal of crypto-currency is to give some power back to the people, power that banks and large financial institutions have wielded over the common folk for a long time. And make no mistake, this is a corrupt system we're talking about, as has been well documented over the years.

One of the larger complaints that we regularly hear about is the 1% or even the 0.1% - these are the powerful people that own the majority of the wealth in the world, and who are mostly vilified and abhorred by the less fortunate.

It's my understanding, that many crypto evangelists want to move away from this kind of world, but how is that shaping up so far?

From what I can see, the majority of BTC wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, the same goes for many altcoins. The other day I saw a post that one person owns all the GVT in circulation.

So let's hypothetically say that crypto is a success, and we start to move away from fiat and eventually use cryptocurrency, that's great in the sense that power from banks has been removed (to some degree), but what about the problem of disproportionate wealth distribution? Aren't we just moving from one system of masters and serfs to the next?

Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree, maybe that isn't a goal or ideal of crypto to strive for, but I have seen people like Brock Pierce talking about creating a crypto utopia in Puerto Rico and it also makes me think - what kind of utopia are they thinking of? Because sure, it's utopia for them, but I don't know if the people who will be living there and serving them will think the same.

Part of the reason this comes to mind now is because of the blatant manipulation that I've seen in the markets and exchanges.

The last few days of charts for BTC look like an alt-coin pump-n-dump, and this has been going on for a while. So what is the end game? Suck in newbies, get them to spend some money, shake them out with a crash, shake them out with erratic pump-and-dump manipulation so that the few can continue to amass BTC - to what end?

Where will they be when they are the only ones holding crypto and everyone else either a) has been burned and won't touch crypto again or b) doesn't care to join in the dance?

What's the point?

You surely raise a valid point there which should be a thought for quite a number of people. Even though this topic have been discussed before, its still a matter evergreen as discussions about this will continue to haunt us whether we choose to accept it or not especially this time when influence in bitcoin is growing and large corporation are coming in with huge funds to pilot the market to achieve their own selfish interest and the valid question remained, are we not leaving one bad scenario to another? Or even a worse one.

However, without ignoring all of the possibility of things not going according to what we are made to believe about how the redistribution of wealth is going to happen, it still give the hope that things might happen in that direction. In the world to day, unless you are a genius, an absolute risk taker which one manager to pay off, or you inherit wealth, the percentage of people living comfortable might not be attainable but with crypto, all you will need is a fraction of all of those, inheritance does not matter and one could leave that comfortable life. If you ask me, it worth a try than one with no hope.

[mrcash02]

I can only speak for myself, but I don't want the wealth of the powerful ones, what I want here is that they (the powerful ones) give me the chance to build my own wealth without bureaucracy, without unfair impositions, without having to build wealth for me and for them at same time, that is my point.

If we want to be prosperous we should start by stop glimpsing other's patrimony and focus in our own plans for the future.

About whales controlling the market, it can work on short/medium term, but once people see it became manipulated, the currency will lose its use and essence. Whales will be abandoned with a worthless currency...

Or they will turn it into a centralized market with majority's approval and will keep ruling everything as always, then decentralization fails.

[odolvlobo]

The way I understand it, part of the goal of crypto-currency is to give some power back to the people, power that banks and large financial institutions have wielded over the common folk for a long time. And make no mistake, this is a corrupt system we're talking about, as has been well documented over the years.
...
What's the point?

The point is that cryptocurrencies allow people to use their money free of control by others -- government, corporations, and the so-called "wealthy-elite". There are several important distinctions that need to be cleared up.

1. The wealthiest people hold very little money relative to their total assets. An equitable distribution of cryptocurrencies would not have any effect on the distribution of wealth.

2. Cryptocurrencies do help protect us from those that want to control us. In the fiat case, they use their wealth and influence to control how we hold and use or money. In the cryptocurrency case, they do not have that same ability, regardless of how much of a cryptocurrency they hold.

3. It is a mistake to believe that the end goal of cryptocurrencies is to be an investment. At some point in the future, adoption of cryptocurrencies will reach the saturation point and their values will no longer rise. Hopefully by that point, most people will realize that cryptocurrencies are intended to be currencies and not investments. ICO coins and other crypto-based assets are clearly misnamed when they are called cryptocurrencies because they are not really intended to be currencies.

4. The volatility in the prices of cryptocurrencies has more to do with speculation and mass hysteria than pump-and-dump. Contrary to the popular mythology, "whales" are not behind pump-and-dumps.

[totaleclipseofthebank]

I agree with your idea. I think that bitcoin is being controlled by a few wealthy people and they do know how to make bitcoin looks like a rollercoaster. The more you trade, the more you will know the existence of them. They can easily knock the wall which contains more than 1000 bitcoin in less than 30 seconds. Just look at how bitfinex daily volume and you will understand. God damn it. We are just a fish for them to eat

[dothebeats]

This is actually a post worth noting.

We may have found a new way to separate ourselves from the banks' control and oppression, but have we really found a way to at least bridge the gap in terms of wealth distribution? I've also wondered, yes, we are slowly inching away from a not-so-perfect system, but what we've thought as a "revolution" and "change" is just another sad story reaching the same destination of failure. The whitepaper seem to be righteous at first read, but after you've learned that there are still fiat-like manifestations retained even after we've created a completely different system, you still end up questioning why are we still running in the same circle?

Bitcoin's main goal is to give the people their power to be their own bank, but if these personal banks' assets can be controlled but a select few, then what's the point?

[MaltMilchek]

Bitcoin is not really a social project, and if bitcoin gets adopted, rich people have more money, so they can buy more. The distribution will remain the same, that will not change....

Bitcoin sets itself as a new payment system. It's as simple as that! ...

Bitcoin was not made for the poor to get rich, and the rich to lose their money. Bitcoin was created so that a better payment system exists in our world.

True, it was more an observation of some of the ideals the community have adopted - or at least the image is presented.

The white paper is, as you say, straightforward in that it's essentially about money over IP, nowhere in there is talk of revolution or overthrowing traditional financial institutions - that has been implied and appended by members of the community, who have taken to this more as evangelists on a mission.

The manipulation you speak of is no secret and I struggle to see how it is any different to the current market. I think the harsh reality of it is that in any system where the rich, educated and experienced can take advantage of the poor, less educated and less experienced for their own personal gain - then that will happen.

A shame that we cannot escape this part of the human condition - for the time being. It might be centuries before we move on from this antiquated way of thinking - don't take this the wrong way, I'm for open free markets and capitalism - but it's the human condition (irrationality, fear, greed) that basically spoil what could be an elegant system.

I understand that Bitcoin isn't here to solve these problems, but it doesn't help that the community seems to preach that it will. Plus, I assumed the 'new money' personalities that crypto minted would be of the ilk that might try to solve these problems, instead, all I see is the same manipulation, the same greed.

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There were a lot more replies here than I expected, so apologies I can't reply to everyone, but I've read through all of them - thanks for replying with your thoughts and balance to this discussion.

I agree that BTC is not about philanthropy (although there have been some fantastic examples) and that crypto isn't some global effort to re-distribute wealth proportionately, even though it is redistributing wealth to some degree. However, this is the 'image' that crypto portrays to a lot of people; that it isn't just tech solution, it's about a revolution in many ways.

To me, that revolution is nullified by the economic landscape that crypto has built, where it's basically the same as our current 1% system in many ways - which isn't the end of the world, it's just an observation of the difference in the image and the reality.

I suppose after some thought, my main concern right now is that larger players are hindering adoption through their manipulation and greed. Sure, we may never live in a 'fair' world, and that's fine, nature isn't fair, the universe isn't fair, perhaps it's a utopian pipe dream, and that's OK, but if the goal is to have BTC or crypto adopted globally, then how does that work with such blatant manipulation? As another user said:

Whales will be abandoned with a worthless currency...
Or they will turn it into a centralized market with majority's approval and will keep ruling everything as always, then decentralization fails.