Bitcoin, Crypto, and the Power of the Few

[gua86402]

Bitcoin is not equal. That's the rule. First come, first served.
Don't join if you don't like it. At least it's free, isn't it?
There's nothing to criticize. Bitcoin is designed to keep free people away from Banks.

[1713862036]

1713862036

[1713862036]

1713862036

[1713862036]

1713862036

[1713862036]

1713862036

[1713862036]

1713862036

[1713862036]

1713862036

[jtipt]

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.

Yes correct. Bitcoin has been used in the "wrong" way since the beginning, people treat it has an investment or as an asset but it was meant to be a payment system and a currency. A payment system cannot be responsible for dreaming the wealth gap, that's expecting something unreasonable from bitcoin.

[Digital_Lord]

Dude, if you’re going to dream you should at least stop dreaming dreams such as this. Bitcoin can never replace fiat. And as you said, most things are being controlled by the wealthy. And this same type of people you’re talking about are sneaking into Bitcoin and also ripping us off of the little we have.

They are the ones that invest heavy amount of money to drive up price and then steal away something huge at last. Criminals! I once read a story of two very rich twins, once claimed that Facebook is their idea, invested on Bitcoin and were the first to make billion from Bitcoin with just a little million they invested.

Pretty bad right? So you can never rub away from these people, they are everywhere. Bitcoin is not really giving you freedom, it’s just creating opportunities for those who will be lucky. ☹️😟

[pereira4]

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.

--

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.

Satoshi added the "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" thing in the genesis block for a reason (for these that don't know what this is, refer to:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block

Why did he add that paper here if he didn't want to point out at how the current system is failing therefore bitcoin is subervise of the legacy system attempting to overthrown it?

Im not sure to what extent he wanted to do that, but I think that was his ultimate fate for Bitcoin, to destroy all 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.

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.

It is, I do not think that it is something that we will ever escape and I have very mixed feelings about it, it is one of our biggest strength as a race and also one of our biggest weaknesses. We are now transitioning in to a world which could be plentiful enough for the many if we work together but we only got to where we are today by being driven by greed and selfishness. How can we expect people to go against that instinct that is so deep rooted in to their very selves?

[zenrol28]

I think Bitcoin was never intended to remove banks or any financial institutions. Just only to remove the need of a third-party / middle-man in online transactions. And also to prevent the double spending issue in online transactions. It is us people who gave bitcoin an unreasonable value to it.

[darkangel11]

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 need to put yourself in their shoes to understand the motives. Those guys who have a lot of coins, like 1000 or more, they are there to make money on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Most of them don't care about the coins they're holding, they want a monthly wage to appear on their bank account. So they will pump and dump with those thousands of coins and each move can make them 10k USD, sometimes 100k, a couple moves each month and the newbie sheep get fleeced and there's 100k back on the bank account and they still got the initial 1k coins on the exchange and another month begins. They've been doing it for years and the fact that they are owning a large percentage of money on a given exchange gives them advantage.

[pereira4]

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 need to put yourself in their shoes to understand the motives. Those guys who have a lot of coins, like 1000 or more, they are there to make money on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Most of them don't care about the coins they're holding, they want a monthly wage to appear on their bank account. So they will pump and dump with those thousands of coins and each move can make them 10k USD, sometimes 100k, a couple moves each month and the newbie sheep get fleeced and there's 100k back on the bank account and they still got the initial 1k coins on the exchange and another month begins. They've been doing it for years and the fact that they are owning a large percentage of money on a given exchange gives them advantage.

If I had 1000+ or more coins I would be worried about the MtGox trusteed crushing my portfolio.

We have a guy hired by a government loaded with 160,000 BTC that's constantly dumping on Kraken. Is nobody going to do anything about that?

And if I was holding 1000+ I wouldn't trade much, all I have to do is sit and relax, in 5 years I would be a billionaire++ by only selling a portion of my BTC.

If you want to make money in a bear market you have to short and that's too much risk, don't want to take such risks when you already made it at 1000+.

[Idrisu]

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?

There are many one has to learn concerning the human behavior that influenced how the elites are rule our financial system and gathering wealth for themselves and unborn generation. Bitcoin which has been seeing as a solution to this has also be affected by this some groups of greedy and corrupt politicians and elites. We are far from  a decentralized market and system if things continue in this ways.

[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.

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.

The problem with that is where do we stop if you create a new coin in order to make the distribution of wealth more fair what will happen when that fails, are you going to release another coin and then another oneuntil you get it right because the economy is not going to survive if you do that, there are always going to be differences in the amount of wealth and income that people have, some people are just more productive we need to accept that.

[GoodLuck2]

Bitcoin is not equal. That's the rule. First come, first served.
Don't join if you don't like it. At least it's free, isn't it?
There's nothing to criticize. Bitcoin is designed to keep free people away from Banks.

This is the main reason why people are after bitcoin because they feel relaxed and have been given for the very first time full control over their money. This was not the case with banks at all, there they grab money from you in the name of silly services. You need different signatures in order to withdraw your own amount. They even sometimes don’t let you withdraw complete amount. Bitcoin is definitely big rescue.