Bitcoin was doing fine until trust began to shift more towards big investors

[Churchillvv]

*This does not mean things were good back then, it just wasn't this bad.

From the time I learnt more about bitcoin or should I say when I joined the forum, I noticed that attention where already moving from bitcoin nature or principles to money or profit, that I knew that you can’t have the two things work together, is either the community remain solid on the principles of bitcoin which will allow bitcoin to remain in its original start or growth without being altered by news or some speculation that is national or not global but then as time kept moving the community kept pushing towards making more profit which is now the outcome which is the bad you are talking about but it’s not really bad in terms of profit but bad in terms of its core principles.

[d5000]

Bitcoin does not like this because, just like certain wealthy elites control fiat system, they could try to do thesame thing here if Bitcoin community start trusting or depending on them.

The "wealthy elite" of course can buy into Bitcoin and get some influence, and this is a bit unavoidable for an asset with a good ROI. But there are two catches:

- several thousands of small retailers can be as strong as a big whale,
- and the early cypherpunk adopters were often not that rich, at least not super-rich. They are the ones that most benefitted from BItcoin's rise, not the wealthy elite (with few exceptions).

I don't know who is the single biggest Bitcoin owner (besides of Satoshi) - it's probably not Saylor because in his case "his" BTC belong to a public company, and there the ownership is distributed (in a quite complex way) amoung the shareholders. So they have probably not a "single will" when it comes to where Bitcoin should evolve to.

For example, let's have the following thought experiment: Bitcoin wants to incorporate more privacy with a softfork. That would increase the potential benefit for the users and thus could increase demand and market cap.

Thus most retailers _and_ smaller ETF investors _and_ smaller Strategy shareholders support that change for purely selfish reasons, because they think the price could go up.

But the ETF and treasury companies and some of their larger investors are against the change because they fear tighter regulation and even trading bans (Bitcoin would become a "privacy coin".) And even if this increased the Bitcoin price and also the potential group of investors, they could be forced to close that business section or at least move their headquarters out of the US or Europe.

I only posted about that possible conflict to show that the coins controlled by ETFs and treasury companies do not necessarily behave like "single big investors". So the sheer amount of coins (2-4 million) controlled by big treasury and financial investors can be misleading and exaggerate the influence of "big entities" or "whales".

[Darker45]

The bottom line is always the trust in Bitcoin. I guess this can't be overemphasized.

Those who came, especially recently, because this and that influential business or company has embraced Bitcoin or has established a Bitcoin treasury may not be well-informed about Bitcoin and therefore could not trust it fully, but the company he/she's trusting is ultimately trusting Bitcoin. That's precisely the reason why they're risking their money on it.

However, that's indeed an investment founded on sand. That's sheep mentality, blind trust. These are typically the kind of investors that are easily shaken off by corrections and bear markets and crypto winters. If the company they look up to began selling off, they too would do the same. In fairness, however, many investors could start like this but eventually mature into supporters genuinely enamored by the technology.

[GreatArkansas]

I partly agree, but I'd be careful about framing this as big money being the villain. Institutional adoption brought liquidity and legitimacy that made it harder for governments to simply ban Bitcoin outright. The real problem isn't wealth entering the space it's the community slowly outsourcing its thinking to whoever has the loudest voice or the biggest bag. That's a people problem, not a money problem.

I agree, this is part of Bitcoin being decentralized. What's good thing right now, even big money is already here, Bitcoin is still Bitcoin, still no one controls, Bitcoin stays decentralized.

For me, this was really expected a long time ago, even the ETFs where institutional money started to flow, as before, multiple ETF rejections still occurred when it was just starting. This is given, especially the huge percentage price increase of Bitcoin.

[Insanity]

I partly agree, but I'd be careful about framing this as big money being the villain. Institutional adoption brought liquidity and legitimacy that made it harder for governments to simply ban Bitcoin outright. The real problem isn't wealth entering the space it's the community slowly outsourcing its thinking to whoever has the loudest voice or the biggest bag. That's a people problem, not a money problem.

I agree, this is part of Bitcoin being decentralized. What's good thing right now, even big money is already here, Bitcoin is still Bitcoin, still no one controls, Bitcoin stays decentralized.

For me, this was really expected a long time ago, even the ETFs where institutional money started to flow, as before, multiple ETF rejections still occurred when it was just starting. This is given, especially the huge percentage price increase of Bitcoin.

I do agree that a lot of people thought that institutions were going to make a lot of money when they were coming into Bitcoin before ETFs were even cleared. The multiple rejections by the ETFs simply prolonged what appeared inevitable – Bitcoin's rise in price and recognition. Bitcoin is still decentralized and works as it always has, but large investors are beginning to make their mark in the market. What matters is that no one firm, fund or individual with enough money to dominate the network can do so. While the involvement of large financial entities. Can have an impact on the market it does not affect the core principles or decentralization of Bitcoin.

[OcTradism]

I do agree that a lot of people thought that institutions were going to make a lot of money when they were coming into Bitcoin before ETFs were even cleared. The multiple rejections by the ETFs simply prolonged what appeared inevitable – Bitcoin's rise in price and recognition. Bitcoin is still decentralized and works as it always has, but large investors are beginning to make their mark in the market. What matters is that no one firm, fund or individual with enough money to dominate the network can do so. While the involvement of large financial entities. Can have an impact on the market it does not affect the core principles or decentralization of Bitcoin.

It takes a lot of time since a first Bitcoin Spot ETF application in the USA about one decade ago, till the January 2024 with first ever approval for Spot ETFs in that nation. During a very long time about a decade, Bitcoin did not stop its development and adoption growth globally which is actually very impressive growth for it with massive decentralized contributions from developers, users and communities globally.

Legal challenges from governments in many countries were not enough to stop Bitcoin growth and adoption in the community while with time and years fly fast, there is like snowball effect which somehow forcing governments to change their national legal and policy approaches as well as regulations on this industry. Nowadays in most of nations globally, the legality status of Bitcoin is good enough with domination Legal status and very limited nations where Bitcoin still has Illegal, Allegal or Unknown status.

https://newhedge.io/terminal/bitcoin/legality-map

[seoincorporation]

Doesn't matter who has the coins, people trust Bitcoin for the code, not for the money,

If you trust the code and the technology behind it then it will work, and you don't need to go that deep, you can trust the logic: No one is behind your transaction with another human, and that idea is just wonderful.

The market is moved by the rich guys, governments, and industries, but bitcoin will stay there, and that's what fine codes do.

[tread93]

The price of bitcoin is not doing bad currently, I don't know where you got the idea that Bitcoin is doing badly right now, based on the well known four years circle which I believe we all are well familiar with, we are supposed to be in a strong bear season right now, but look at the price of bitcoin, it's holding up strong above $60k after dropping from its all time high which is normal thing for all volatile assets.

Gold (for example) rises and creates a new all time high but when bear market hits it, the price falls and sometimes far behind the all time high it reached.

Nothing is wrong with bitcoin at the moment if you context is based on the price actions, were you expecting the price of bitcoin to be $500k by now or what exactly?
All I can say is buy, hold and be patient, there is time for everything under the sun.

Yes i would have to agree with you in that i dont think bitcoin is doing badly its hanging on in a really high zone still and I am hopeful that the price is going to continue to rise up into the 80k -100k region soon here. Its going to be a strong rest of this year

[Somegory]

There is nothing wrong with price of Bitcoin, I still don't see the difference of today compared to the past and I believe that sso far bitcoin has become better, because whether you like it or not bitcoin will have to survive in this centralised world.

I don't care how many millionaires around the world have Bitcoin, they can't take it all, there will always be buyers and sellers, it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, this is good enough for me.

At this point in time you can't get rid of the rich and also the government, bitcoin was never created for the poor masses only, with or without them bitcoin will never stop to grow.

[davis196]

Bitcoin was doing fairly OK back in the days when focus was more on privacy, censorship resistance, trustless transactions, decentralization, deflation, etc.

1.The true Bitcoiners are still focused on privacy, trustless transactions, decentralization and all that stuff. The greedy investors, who bought BTC just because it will "go to the moon" won't go away anytime soon and they play a huge role for the Bitcoin price hitting ATHs.
2.When exactly was Bitcoin "doing fairly OK back in the days" in terms of price movement? Are you talking about the 2012-2014 era, when the price crashed from 1300 to somewhere around 100 USD? Or maybe you are talking about the 2018-2019 crypto winter? The BTC price is more stable than in used to be. The ups and downs of the crypto market are pretty much normal. I don't care about what the "moneybags" are saying about BTC. Most of the things they say is BS anyway.

[MRY]

There is nothing wrong with price of Bitcoin, I still don't see the difference of today compared to the past and I believe that sso far bitcoin has become better, because whether you like it or not bitcoin will have to survive in this centralised world.

I don't care how many millionaires around the world have Bitcoin, they can't take it all, there will always be buyers and sellers, it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, this is good enough for me.

At this point in time you can't get rid of the rich and also the government, bitcoin was never created for the poor masses only, with or without them bitcoin will never stop to grow.

The ability of Bitcoin to stand out as much more centralized world is an achievement of the core and power of the technology it has been based on since it is emergence. You are correct when you say that Bitcoin, is not simply an instrument of a particular part of the economy, but a place based asset that is advancing outside the need of elites and government. The fact that it exists, is now a stable offset in the uncertainty of global monetary policy that will keep on changing.

[imthegreat]

If the moneybags say things to gain your trust or to make you depend on them, just make sure they are according to the Bitcoin foundation,  then watch as the price of Bitcoin start doing really well again

The price of Bitcoin has really fallen lately, but not everything is as bad as you mean. 126k recently had it, and everyone who wanted it had the opportunity to sell at this price if they wanted money here and now . And now there is an opportunity to buy cheap Bitcoin at a discount of two times. But the right thing to do is not to think about these valuable differences and I just use DCA. As for centralization and anonymity in the Bitcoin network, unfortunately, everything is bad, and I agree that the situation has only worsened. After all, many cryptans easily share their documents with exchanges, and forget about the postulates of anonymity.

[Bastketsrus]

I think we are still on track, although people these days put too much hope on what the next social media expert has to say.

Everyone keeps watching the news, waking for the next institutional buy. What they want to happen? Yea price to bounce off because we have silently shifted out perspectives into seeing these big investors as the ones responsible for price growth.

If it continues like this in the future, there will be a major problem and that's would be us trying to convince the future investors that price is independent of institutional and government purchases.

I agree. Institutions can influence the price, but Bitcoin doesn't depend on them. It was doing just fine before the big players arrived, and its real strength still comes from the people who use and support it.

[tottong]

The way out of this is to first consider or trust the strong Foundation Bitcoin is built on. Everything else, whether rich or poor, has to be subject to the foundation. If the moneybags say things to gain your trust or to make you depend on them, just make sure they are according to the Bitcoin foundation,  then watch as the price of Bitcoin start doing really well again

Much has happened, and perhaps when it comes to individuals, many of us have experienced difficult times before, so experience has taught us to continue striving to develop the foundations upon which to build our investments.
There should be no mistaking the context of price movements because Bitcoin's trajectory is determined by supply and demand, so at certain moments, the price can rise and fall, as we are seeing now.
The best step from all the things we have discussed should be simple how one can continue to buy and hold it. I believe, and we can see clearly, Bitcoin's long-term development will be much better for its price effectiveness.

[un_rank]

While you could argue that Bitcoin still works the same way and therefore nothing has changed, that shift poses multiple risks to Bitcoin as a project. A few that come to mind:
- Less actual usage = less on-chain transactions = less miners' fees = less hashpower = less security.

Are we actually seeing less of any of this overtime? Usage and on chain transactions have increased which is expected with more adoption, this means there is no effect on miner fees. Hashrate and security also increases overtime.

It's possible that in a not-so-distant future, mining will have to be done at a loss by centralised businesses (i.e. CEXs, companies like Strategy etc) who have vested interest in keeping Bitcoin alive. Having Bitcoin dependent on a few corporate entities is not quite the decentralisation that was intended.
- If the trend continues, most of the bitcoins would end up under the control of a few businesses, e.g. Strategy, major exchanges or large ETF providers. This means relatively few people could have the power to cause a massive disruption to the price and, since the majority of the community is in it only for the money, it could effectively kill the project if the price tanks and everyone starts exiting.

Mining is becoming more centralized but this is not a result of the attention shift to price by retail investors but more money going into mining which raises the entry level for other miners till you have a few companies that can keep up and float to the top.
We also cannot stop businesses from buying bitcoins.

The more people are content with keeping their coins with centralised exchanges, ETFs and alike, the easier it gets for governments to impose censorship, i.e. by forcing said businesses to freeze coins coming from non-custodial wallets and demand.

Here I am in agreement. Majority of available liquidity has been centralized and that creates both a privacy and censorship risk for holders.

- Jay -

[Marvelockg]

The way out of this is to first consider or trust the strong Foundation Bitcoin is built on. Everything else, whether rich or poor, has to be subject to the foundation. If the moneybags say things to gain your trust or to make you depend on them, just make sure they are according to the Bitcoin foundation,  then watch as the price of Bitcoin start doing really well again

You can not take out the presence of big investors from bitcoin even though at the end of the day they are still under the category of an average investor like yourself. They are the ones that mostly buy large quantities of bitcoin that influences the volatility of bitcoin so as much as we can't make it look like bitcoin depend on them, we can't also take out the fact that they are big in the bitcoin ecosystem.

Even as they continue to join and exit the bitcoin sphere, Thier present in bitcoin is just a tiny fraction of what causes bitcoins relevance to continue to be a big deal. Investors first and main trust is in bitcoin and the other one is just an added form of trust that comes by reason of validation.

[Publictalk792]

The way out of this is to first consider or trust the strong Foundation Bitcoin is built on. Everything else, whether rich or poor, has to be subject to the foundation. If the moneybags say things to gain your trust or to make you depend on them, just make sure they are according to the Bitcoin foundation,  then watch as the price of Bitcoin start doing really well again

You can not take out the presence of big investors from bitcoin even though at the end of the day they are still under the category of an average investor like yourself. They are the ones that mostly buy large quantities of bitcoin that influences the volatility of bitcoin so as much as we can't make it look like bitcoin depend on them, we can't also take out the fact that they are big in the bitcoin ecosystem.

Even as they continue to join and exit the bitcoin sphere, Thier present in bitcoin is just a tiny fraction of what causes bitcoins relevance to continue to be a big deal. Investors first and main trust is in bitcoin and the other one is just an added form of trust that comes by reason of validation.

Two are nothing alike, whale influence, and foundation of Bitcoin. Surely big investors play big part in short term price ups and downs, due to nature of cash flow when large orders are placed on order book, but it is just market noise. It does not affect the basics. As far as I am concerned, big company buyers are not controlling Bitcoin, they are simply proving it. They can help increase trust and speed up use process for long term, but they will still be ruled by same fixed supply rules as any small holder. Panic sets in when everyone only cares about price action of daily chart and nothing else that is related to network code. If you believe in actual foundation, whale tricks is simply small spot on radar, and it is easy to ignore.

[Die_empty]

A few that come to mind:
- Less actual usage = less on-chain transactions = less miners' fees = less hashpower = less security. It's possible that in a not-so-distant future, mining will have to be done at a loss by centralised businesses (i.e. CEXs, companies like Strategy etc) who have vested interest in keeping Bitcoin alive. Having Bitcoin dependent on a few corporate entities is not quite the decentralisation that was intended.
- If the trend continues, most of the bitcoins would end up under the control of a few businesses, e.g. Strategy, major exchanges or large ETF providers. This means relatively few people could have the power to cause a massive disruption to the price and, since the majority of the community is in it only for the money, it could effectively kill the project if the price tanks and everyone starts exiting.
- The more people are content with keeping their coins with centralised exchanges, ETFs and alike, the easier it gets for governments to impose censorship, i.e. by forcing said businesses to freeze coins coming from non-custodial wallets and demand. Where all transactions happen through centralised intermediaries (CEXs), it's easy to censor certain coins/users just by restricting their access to those businesses. The end goal could be to effectively ban any unauthorized on-chain transactions, which most of the "new-community" wouldn't care about, as they don't transact outside of exchanges anyway.

It is common for people to say that Bitcoin is still decentralised and private, hence everything is fine. But the truth is that the community is facing some challenges, as you highlighted. If minning because unprofitable, many farms might close their businesses and diversify into other profitable ventures like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC) data centers. The few miners that might be in business might be easily influenced.

These centralised platforms, such as ETF, are spending money on advertising to the extent that many people have become ignorant that Bitcoin can be bought without third parties. As more coins are concentrated in these platforms, manipulation and censorship become easier.