how many tullips did the famous families own?
Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners
81–90 of 486 posts
Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
In what way do users have control over miners or developers? If the assumption is that corruption can overcome a democratic state, I never understood why its so crazy to suggest it can overcome developers or a mining cartel.
Users have the money. If there's a fork, users can value one side higher than the other and then developers and miners will follow the money.
> Users have the money. If there's a fork, users can value one side higher than the other and then developers and miners will follow the money.
As the article shows, BTC's user side of the equation is actually controlled by a small group of investors. Thus, users like you and me have absolutely zero control or influence over the value of BTC, and are vulnerable to the manipulation done by this small group of investors.
We already saw BTC's value tank to half in a matter of days. How do you explain that as being something that meets the users' best interests?
Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners
#83Thing is, though, USD is controlled by an even smaller group. Between BTC and fiat, BTC seems like a safer choice at the moment - at the very minimum you can't just go ahead and double the supply. Obvs, not financial advice and all that.
It seems like Bitcoin's value is at least partly based on it being fungible to USD. Even though you can technically turn it into many currencies, would a halved USD value not influence the value of BTC as well?
Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners
#84Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners
#85Users, miners and developers all have different powers and hold each other to account in an interesting way that few people understand so far, affecting what 'control' really means. It needs to be put in context with alternatives. Compared to the alternative of corrupt governments that have complete control to print money at will, I have no doubt that it is a extremely promising experiment. ASICs do seem to pervert s…
By users you mean investors? The article argues that only a small group of investors have power. So replacing one man one vote by one dollar (or bitcoin) one vote is a loss of democracy. I don't see how corruption can be prevented by restricting the voting rights to the rich.
Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners
#86Users, miners and developers all have different powers and hold each other to account in an interesting way that few people understand so far, affecting what 'control' really means. It needs to be put in context with alternatives. Compared to the alternative of corrupt governments that have complete control to print money at will, I have no doubt that it is a extremely promising experiment. ASICs do seem to pervert s…
> the alternative of corrupt governments
Are all governments inherently corrupt in your mind?
Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners
#87Money is largely controlled by a small group of investors and central banks. [citation needed]
Yes it is. But bitcoin has an even greater degree of inequality, way beyond. Almost all the bitcoin is in the hands of a few thousand people.
Sadly crypto currencies do not solve the problem of money distribution. (It's not the problem of the money, it's how we as society use it)
Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners
#88Money is largely controlled by a small group of investors and central banks. [citation needed]
Yes it is. But bitcoin has an even greater degree of inequality, way beyond. Almost all the bitcoin is in the hands of a few thousand people.
You can change that today by buying some. It’s an all you can eat buffet at $61,000 and those thousands will gladly sell you some.
Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners
#89Thing is, though, USD is controlled by an even smaller group. Between BTC and fiat, BTC seems like a safer choice at the moment - at the very minimum you can't just go ahead and double the supply. Obvs, not financial advice and all that.
It seems like Bitcoin's value is at least partly based on it being fungible to USD. Even though you can technically turn it into many currencies, would a halved USD value not influence the value of BTC as well?
It would affect its value wrt USD for sure, by driving it higher. Bitcoin is, at this point, the new "gold standard", and that is by design. You can increase the supply some, but it's exponentially hard to do so, just like with gold - all the easy deposits are long gone.
Whereas increasing the supply of USD boils down to a single database "update" statement. I'm exaggerating for dramatic effect, obviously, but not by all that much.
Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners
#90Users, miners and developers all have different powers and hold each other to account in an interesting way that few people understand so far, affecting what 'control' really means. It needs to be put in context with alternatives. Compared to the alternative of corrupt governments that have complete control to print money at will, I have no doubt that it is a extremely promising experiment. ASICs do seem to pervert s…
In what way do users have control over miners or developers? If the assumption is that corruption can overcome a democratic state, I never understood why its so crazy to suggest it can overcome developers or a mining cartel.
Bitcoin is open-source software. Users decide which version they want to run. Developers and miners can't force users to switch to another version. Some miners tried to force an upgrade on users in 2017 which was averted with a threat of user activated soft fork.[0]
[0] https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-independence-day...