If the banksters and governments held 90% of the Bitcoin supply, what now?

[Tahsin Kabir Kollol]

It goes without saying that such incidents are unlikely to happen in the future. Because the demand for Bitcoin is increasing day by day all over the world and more and more people are getting involved in it which has caused Bitcoin to spread among people all over the world. In this case, if the government and banksters have 90 percent of bitcoin, the value of bitcoin will increase significantly. On the other hand, if the government and the banksters have 90 percent bitcoin, the demand for it from the general public will increase manifold.

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[CyberKuro]

Would it be fair enough to assume that the project has failed, or failing?

90% of Bitcoin being held by an oligarchy of the elite, a cartel of banks, and by governments working together might turn Bitcoin into their "playground".

Not to mention that Satoshi hold so many coins and governments always sell Bitcoin in the auction if they seize crypto from criminal activities. In this case, 90% still far away from reality, if they buy bitcoin, people will gain profits through the process but doesn't mean they will control it, supply and demand will play the role.

[franky1]

That's what we can observe now, I don't understand why there is so much excitement about getting instututional giants and bankers into bitcoin. Better adoption, more money from institutional investors flowing in etc.yes it's all happening now but is it really good?

Will everybody be happy to know that PayPal, Grayscale, Square, some Wall street banks and few greedy hedge funds control the rest of the supply and price?
Big question if the project failing or not, it's not clear yet but there are some worrysome signs.

I believe we should be worried more about a large percentage of the supply is controlled by custodians, or services like PayPal becoming THE custodians, removing the sovereign store of value feature, and majority of usage of Bitcoin, as a medium of exchange, would be through them.

banksters bitcoin game is to get people to lock bitcoin into bankster vaults. and then play with banksters tokens on other networks that are not bitcoin but just pretend to be.

thank you for suddenly waking up to the game.. only took you 4 years

1920's money was gold backed paper. where the gold was vaulted in custodians. and paper tokens(bank notes) were given to play with....... then THEY decided you cant swap it back for gold

those that then still wanted to invest in gold again in non bank note system.. evolved to 'online certificate' tokens. and has been a bankster latest gold game for decades. guess what will happen to that in future.
more recently:
LN 'millisat' tokens are the greyscale bitcoin game for the last 5 years. and like the 'gold standard' of the early half of the 1900's we will see how these 'watchtower''factories' will suddenly not be able to do bank runs if suddenly large amount of people want to exit LN

best advice:
feel free to day trade small 'disposable' amounts in their systems. but dont use them as your whole wealth asset management.
"if you cant afford to lose it, dont use it"
dont put your hoard into exchanges/LN

[Wind_FURY]

That's what we can observe now, I don't understand why there is so much excitement about getting instututional giants and bankers into bitcoin. Better adoption, more money from institutional investors flowing in etc.yes it's all happening now but is it really good?

Will everybody be happy to know that PayPal, Grayscale, Square, some Wall street banks and few greedy hedge funds control the rest of the supply and price?
Big question if the project failing or not, it's not clear yet but there are some worrysome signs.

I believe we should be worried more about a large percentage of the supply is controlled by custodians, or services like PayPal becoming THE custodians, removing the sovereign store of value feature, and majority of usage of Bitcoin, as a medium of exchange, would be through them.

banksters bitcoin game is to get people to lock bitcoin into bankster vaults. and then play with banksters tokens on other networks that are not bitcoin but just pretend to be.

thank you for suddenly waking up to the game.. only took you 4 years

Stop gaslighting.

I was never against the debate that centralized-3rd-party-custodians could spell trouble to Bitcoin's censorship-resistance.

1920's money was gold backed paper. where the gold was vaulted in custodians. and paper tokens(bank notes) were given to play with....... then THEY decided you cant swap it back for gold

those that then still wanted to invest in gold again in non bank note system.. evolved to 'online certificate' tokens. and has been a bankster latest gold game for decades. guess what will happen to that in future.
more recently:
LN 'millisat' tokens are the greyscale bitcoin game for the last 5 years. and like the 'gold standard' of the early half of the 1900's we will see how these 'watchtower''factories' will suddenly not be able to do bank runs if suddenly large amount of people want to exit LN

best advice:
feel free to day trade small 'disposable' amounts in their systems. but dont use them as your whole wealth asset management.
"if you cant afford to lose it, dont use it"
dont put your hoard into exchanges/LN

That only applies to custodial services for LN. A user has a choice to run his own Lightning node, so it's not a direct comparison to gold and bank vaults. Plus you always have uncensorable Bitcoin onchain transactions available.

[franky1]

Stop gaslighting.

That only applies to custodial services for LN. A user has a choice to run his own Lightning node, so it's not a direct comparison to gold and bank vaults. Plus you always have uncensorable Bitcoin onchain transactions available.

stop abusing the buzzword gaslighting until you learn the meaning
if your doubting your sanity. that on you.
but facts and numbers and quotes from devs showing they dont want people to use bitcoin as money exist.

but anyway if we forget the bitcoin as money element and instead leap forward to say bitcoin was always thought of as a reserve asset(gold)
did you know when gold left the money standard in the 1970's they too said 'people can choose to run their own gold vault plus you always have uncensored gold trades available' you not forced to use banknotes

but look how 'mainstream' gold is not. its no longer something every day people use everyday for barter
its not something people think about using daily.
yea it exists in financial industry amungst the big boys. but be honest when was the last time you used gold for daily use barter

plus to be a viable 'vault' in LN. requires you to have enough 'value' locked up to be collateral for tokens in each channel and have multiple channels to be able to be a service. otherwise you just end up having no path/route available or not enough funds to offer out as a route/path for others. and end up only becoming attached to the large services. to reduce your collateral outlay/risk of loss.

maybe try to run real life scenarios/feasibility studies/test runs. and see how realistic the 'freedoms' are that have been promoted to you.
yep run some scenarios and dont just avoid it by saying doing so is some psychological experiment to make you feel insane(gaslight). that rebuttal does not work.

[Wind_FURY]

Stop gaslighting.

That only applies to custodial services for LN. A user has a choice to run his own Lightning node, so it's not a direct comparison to gold and bank vaults. Plus you always have uncensorable Bitcoin onchain transactions available.

stop abusing the buzzword gaslighting until you learn the meaning
if your doubting your sanity. that on you.
but facts and numbers and quotes from devs showing they dont want people to use bitcoin as money exist.

It's not a debate. You have twisted the truth, and putting words in people's mouths many times in the forum. Stop gaslighting.

plus to be a viable 'vault' in LN. requires you to have enough 'value' locked up to be collateral for tokens in each channel and have multiple channels to be able to be a service. otherwise you just end up having no path/route available or not enough funds to offer out as a route/path for others. and end up only becoming attached to the large services. to reduce your collateral outlay/risk of loss.

There you go again with the Disinformation. There is no "value locked up" in Lightning as "collateral" for "tokens" to be issued. Those transactions are signed by the participants of the channel, that have not been broadcasted to the network.

[franky1]

a bitcoin is not the recipients property until its confirmed. thus the 'non broadcast' LN contracts are not verified/solid/confirmed/guaranteed. meaning its a promise not a settlement

secondly gas lighting is about doing things to make you feel insane. sorry but your not that important to the forum. me presenting facts about what a true bitcoin transaction is and what a flimsy promise is that doesnt even use the same units of account has nothing to do with your sanity. its about making people see a different picture to what empty promises and hopes the big banker group are promising by trying to say LN is the same as bitcoin in all things/ways.
same way banks made people falsely believe bank notes were as good as gold. which we now know they are not.

sorry but LN is not bitcoin... the easiest way to spot this, should you do your research. is LN uses tokens/values with more then 8 decimals.
if you cannot count. thats not my problem. but just dont pretend an LN millisat accounting of more then 8 decimals is the same as bitcoin of 8 decimals.
atleast learn what unit of account HTLC use. it will definitely surprise you
atleast learn that LN is not a service devoted to bitcoin. (atomic swaps) that will surprise you again.

its got nothing to do with a making you insane. its actually a reality check. not a scheme to send you to the loony bin. so drop throwing about the gaslight word as my comments on LN has nothing to do with trying you put you into a psych assessment/72hor hold. so get over yourself and wake up

but if you do want to keep promoting LN while not fully understanding it.. atleast dont try over promising LN features under the guise of the security of what bitcoins blockchain offer.
its not the same security model nor accounting model nor settlement model(factories settle offchain).
yep factory/watchtowers can aggregate the vaulted value on the blockchain. and then offer offchain promises(htlc's) where by the promises(htlc's) never settle onchain. they just separetly go back to the factory/watchtower that then re-issues new promises(htlc's) all offchain.

if your not upto date about what LN does. maybe try to use it if you actually want to promote it.. and run scenarios and realise the flaws/limitations. after all you seem to be a fan of it, so its strange you seem reluctant to then use it to learn how it works outside of the publicity literature given to you by others.

just stop acting like a publicity kiss ass and actually understand what your a fan of, thats all im saying

[mezzaluna]

Would it be fair enough to assume that the project has failed, or failing?

90% of Bitcoin being held by an oligarchy of the elite, a cartel of banks, and by governments working together might turn Bitcoin into their "playground".

Well, that scenario would only happen if the government is already knowledgeable enough to play within the Cryptocurrency Industry but as far as most users can see, its not happening within the next incoming years. However, if a project failed that is completely reliant on banks and the government, it would really turn into something bad which can affect this Industry.

[franky1]

Well, that scenario would only happen if the government is already knowledgeable enough to play within the Cryptocurrency Industry but as far as most users can see, its not happening within the next incoming years. However, if a project failed that is completely reliant on banks and the government, it would really turn into something bad which can affect this Industry.

governments dont play in the finance industry. they give that game to a separate organisation which is central and commercial banks. even you subtly recognise the separation by saying 'banks AND government'

so getting back to the topic.
if BANKS want to be involved in crypto heavily they would lobby/bribe government to make laws that help monopolise crypto into banks favour
(EG independent average joe hoarding needs transparency, taxing,verified accounting)
(EG teasing average joe to put funds into custodians offering those services and not be independent hoarder)

if BANKS dont want the crypto as competitors and dont want crypto in their asset list they would again lobby/bribe government to outlaw crypto
(EG governments didnt care either way early on but banks told governments that crypto should be feared)
(EG banks were involved in freezing exchange fiat accounts out of fear early on.)

but using the scenario of favouring crypto assets as this topic deems. we can all look at the gold history of the last 100 years to see what could happen if banks had 90% of circulation.

what happens is banks set up services where normal people can vault up their assets into management of bank services. and in exchange banks offer them tokens/promissory notes to play around with under the guise that its too expensive to handle the underlying asset in normal peoples own hands.
then they start substituting out the tokens via diluting the value via sub divisions of the asset and then when the time is right declassifying the like-for-like settlements if people chose to truly exit the bank service token and return to holding the real asset.

LN factories that do "offchain settlement(close:reopen channel session without blockchain confirms)" are basically bank accounts of promissory note credit

enjoy

[Wind_FURY]

a bitcoin is not the recipients property until its confirmed. thus the 'non broadcast' LN contracts are not verified/solid/confirmed/guaranteed.

BUT the onchain transactions that opened the channel are confirmed transactions, signed by the participants of the channel. They are actual Bitcoins.

meaning its a promise not a settlement

It's either you're playing stupid, or if you truly believe that there are entities that issue IOUs in Lightning when you open a channel, then you are truly stupid.

[FlightyPouch]

If this will be their plan, I think we should take advantage of what we can while in the process. With a lot of Bitcoins in other people, they would be having a hard time controlling the price. And if that would be really their plan, the price of bitcoin would surely go up since they will be buying them unless they convince most of those companies that hold bitcoin to do that.

[franky1]

BUT the onchain transactions that opened the channel are confirmed transactions, signed by the participants of the channel. They are actual Bitcoins.

It's either you're playing stupid, or if you truly believe that there are entities that issue IOUs in Lightning when you open a channel, then you are truly stupid.

learn about factories.. or other LN things. such as lightning labs 'shadowchains'
then maybe you will understand that inchannel HTLC's (not 8 deciminal, so not broadcastable) do not always get converted to bitcoin transactions(8decimal) to settle to the bitcoin blockchain

meaning settlements are not always broadcast to the blitcoin blockchain. but instead just arbitraged/aggregated back to the factory/orchestrator/manager. that then just re-issues new HTLC to play with offchain.

ive told you multiples times now if you want to act like an LN promoter. atleast do some research

htlcs do not have to convert to 8dec transaction to settle to the bitcoin blockchain. and cannot themselves be settled on the blockchain direct.
their converted settling contract can just be a signal to a manager to re-allocate HTLC off chain. or can end up "settling" to a sidechain which again is not the bitcoin blockchain.

try to understand the tech.. not just repeat the promotional brochure buzzwordatory

again
HTLC are not 8 decimal nor direct link to a blockchain transaction. they are a sub contract in a different unit measure.
please just try to do research. dont hit reply to say you done it and you disagree.. just go check. actually check. then reply. if you reply in the next couple hours it shows you didnt put in the effort and you have no interest in learning. you just want to cause an argument to defend a "product" you want to advertise/promote.
drop the promotion mindset for just a day and put in some research mindset effort.
things to check before dare replying:
factories.
shadowchains,
watchtowers.
millisats vs sats
htlc vs confirmed bitcoin transaction.

..
i say this. because there are already "liquidity markets" that are selling HTLC balance all off chain where people can swap balance to open and close new channels all without touching the blockchain.
go research it. and then maybe then you will see how the big finance and devs are trying to de-tether LN value from true bitcoin value.
EG 1 real 0.00500000 bitcoin utxo may only be worth   470000000millisat  (0.00470000btc) in LN htlc due to all the service fees and 'renting' fee's of a channel

[franch]

I also think that most of the bitcoins are in private hands and very few of these people will sell it to banks or governments. Anyone who believes in the development and growth of the cryptocurrency market will keep and protect them in their wallet.

[Wind_FURY]

BUT the onchain transactions that opened the channel are confirmed transactions, signed by the participants of the channel. They are actual Bitcoins.

It's either you're playing stupid, or if you truly believe that there are entities that issue IOUs in Lightning when you open a channel, then you are truly stupid.

- Snip -

There was NOTHING in what you posted, that proved or showed, that there is/was a centralized entity that held Bitcoins, then issued IOU tokens in the Lightning Network.

[franky1]

when you finally go and research what factories/shadow chains do (settle and reissue) OFFCHAIN. then you will have your wake up moment.
then during that wake up moment i hope you start to wonder and then further research who would own/manage/supervise such factories/shadowchains. who sets the rules for whats an acceptable "settlement" on these offchain services.

then you might start to see the bigger picture.

but that day.. seems to be another ignorant amount of months/years away

so have fun in the meantime.

..
p.s should you get bored of ignorance. check out whats the difference between a HTLC and a 'commitment tx'
yea they love to rename things to hide their function. but. i know you wont bother
..

anyway. to the global point of this topic..
when people start to realise their asset is being made to be too expensive to barter/transact daily with normal things in life independently. and bankers are offering services which can give them the speed/cheapness they used to have independently. yet there is a relationship between the bankers and those 'innovators' that made the asset more expensive to handle

then slowly people do end up handing over their assets to a custodian. and the custodian hands them other tokens. and slowly but the vale/spendable value of the token detaches from the value of the locked up asset.
eventually more fee's and methods are employed to make it harder to get hands on the underlying asset. and the bankers try to offer you less valued assets in exchange

..
with LN this is ALREADY HAPPENING
i do hope you learn about shadowchains beyond the glossy brochure fluff. it is eye opening

[Wind_FURY]

--- Snip ---

NOTHING from your post proves/shows that Lightning transactions are made through the use of IOU/tokens. You're deliberately making it long, and confusing for newbies, but it doesn't prove anything. Bitcoins in Lightning channels are actual Bitcoins.

[DooMAD]

*topic derailment*

So, as always, you don't bat an eyelid about centralised exchanges, PayPal, or any other fully-custodial services, where users will undeniably have far less choice about how much control they want to keep over their funds.  Instead, you take aim at the open-source code that provides people with more choice.  Not to mention taking yet another topic that had nothing to do with Lightning and turning it into yet another lie-fest about a system you're totally obsessed with.

Just because people could eventually have an option to use services that work with channel factories, they will still have the choice to open their own channels if they choose to.  Stop pretending that factories would be compulsory, you lying shitweasel.  I know you hate freedom, being the fascist little Nazi that you are, but none of your tiresome fear-mongering is going to stop users enjoying the freedoms off-chain transactions offer them.  You can't put a dent in progress because you are a meaningless speck of excrement.  I can't remember the last time I saw anyone take you seriously.  You're a joke.  Why don't you go back to loitering in the Politics and Society board?  Your caveman mindset appears to be tolerated there.  You're too ignorant and too heavily discredited to be in any position to lecture people about Bitcoin anymore.  You pathetic, worthless troll.


To everyone else, I'll point you to this factual topic about Lightning, where the above troll is banned from posting, because the moderators got tired of his constant dishonesty.

[lifeforcepools]

So far, this is not happening, so try to make a profit now, and do not think about what will happen later.

[Wind_FURY]

*topic derailment*

So, as always, you don't bat an eyelid about centralised exchanges, PayPal, or any other fully-custodial services, where users will undeniably have far less choice about how much control they want to keep over their funds.  Instead, you take aim at the open-source code that provides people with more choice.  Not to mention taking yet another topic that had nothing to do with Lightning and turning it into yet another lie-fest about a system you're totally obsessed with.

Just because people could eventually have an option to use services that work with channel factories, they will still have the choice to open their own channels if they choose to.  Stop pretending that factories would be compulsory, you lying shitweasel.  I know you hate freedom, being the fascist little Nazi that you are, but none of your tiresome fear-mongering is going to stop users enjoying the freedoms off-chain transactions offer them.  You can't put a dent in progress because you are a meaningless speck of excrement.  I can't remember the last time I saw anyone take you seriously.  You're a joke.  Why don't you go back to loitering in the Politics and Society board?  Your caveman mindset appears to be tolerated there.  You're too ignorant and too heavily discredited to be in any position to lecture people about Bitcoin anymore.  You pathetic, worthless troll.

Plus even if you use a custodial Lightning service/wallet, NOTHING in their process of opening the channel has, made them deposit to a centralized entity in order to receive "tokens" to use in LN. NOTHING.

To everyone else, I'll point you to this factual topic about Lightning, where the above troll is banned from posting, because the moderators got tired of his constant dishonesty.

That should be taken as an opportunity to reply/post the truth. He's posting anything in case people like you don't reply, and gaslight newbies.

[franky1]

windfury. still has not learned the meaning of the word gaslight..
also windfury himself was told that the in channel transactions are measured in millisats and they are separate to the close session(commitments)

so again inchannel transactions in LN are IOU. the commitment/settlement transactions are separate contracts

Between nodes that have channels between them keep accounting records down to millisats.
When closing the channels back to onchain funds they go away. You really can't trust they will exist "in the real world"

cant trust the htlc.
measured in millisat
when making the commitment transaction the HTLC is not used it simply gets trashed
.. do you get it yet
the payments within LN are not guaranteed commitments. they are weak assed promises. in a token measure thats not 8 decimals

im starting to think you have never even used LN. because in that very same thread. those using LN alot are talking about how LN has flaws and messes up their close sessions. where they have to play around with fee's and their channel partner does the same. delaying things.

this 'trust' and reliance on a partner is not the independant control idea of bitcoin.

as for doomad trying to be your body guard. he has for years now been hyping up the services because even he know trying to just be your own node and hope for good working routing without a hub/spoke, just wont work.
he knows people will have to end up giving hubs(custodians)(factories) your funds and then let then hand over arbitratored millisat balance htlc's.

so please atleast try using LN, try seeing the flaws, try reading the many people saying there are flaws. and stop just reverting to the outdated promotional material

please its been requested soo many times for well over a year now.
can you please just try to learn about LN before trying to fluff up its promotional material from 2017.

heck read the concerns on the link doomad provided. read into the bits where it says they can add more layers and services to avoid onchain settlements. understand LN.. properly.

again, things to check before dare replying:
factories.
shadowchains,
watchtowers.
millisats vs sats
htlc vs commitments
routing issues
fee issues