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The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

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Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#201

Post by xorcist »

clarkmoody wrote: post #155
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Since taxes are not voluntary >The libertarian position is that human interactions should be voluntary, so the coercion problem is where libertarians find issue first. Do you believe obeying property law is voluntary? I find it to be coercive.

Instead of answering your question, I will leave this: Very small children understand and recognize property, since it is a natural right. The toy in my hand is "mine," and when some other kid comes along and takes it, I get upset.

Whoever said this can not possibly have children. Small babies couldn't care less about toys which move in and out of their hands, except perhaps for the serious matter of tasting them.

They soon learn to say the word that other people use when they want to keep stuff. The actual meaning of the word, and that some people's ownership seems to have legitimacy, doesn't dawn on them until later.

(Just to clarify in the age of the Internet: I think we should respect ownership. But the argument that we should do it because it's an innate concept with babies is a bad one, even if it was true.)

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#202

Post by lancebeet »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #118
lancebeet wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government currency is mandated, bitcoin isn't. If bitcoin is manipulated, people can choose not to use it. If government currency is manipulated, people have no other (legal) choice but to continue using it. This makes the two distinct to a libertarian. Some libertarians may be more pragmatic than others. For example, some may argue that so long as a government issued fiat currency is in use (as it is today), manipu…

>If bitcoin is manipulated, people can choose not to use it. If government currency is manipulated, people have no other (legal) choice but to continue using it. Isn't this going to create a run on the currency? So say tomorrow some news comes out proving these btc whales are responsible for 80% of the order book and are manipulating the market, isn't it the slowest people to react who are stuck holding the bag? Furt…

I'm not a spokesperson for bitcoin and I'm neither qualified to nor interested in discussing its market risks or potentials. I don't believe these have any bearing on whether bitcoin is fundamentally distinct from government mandated fiat currency from a libertarian standpoint.

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#203

Post by lisper »

KirinDave wrote: post #165
clarkmoody wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government-issued currencies usually come with legal tender laws and citizens are required to pay taxes using the government money. Since taxes are not voluntary, this creates built-in demand for the fiat money. The creators of alternative competitor-money are punished as well. The libertarian position is that human interactions should be voluntary, so the coercion problem is where libertarians find issue first. A si…

> The libertarian position on wealth inequality is that as long as the distribution of wealth was determined voluntarily (without state privilege, in particular), then there is no problem. Buuuuut, they bought it with fiat currencies, in many cases USD. So... right there the entire idea breaks down. Still, maybe that's unfair. A valid criticism of this argument is that it's a variant of the the serf comic argument (o…

> they bought it with fiat currencies

No. Some people bought it with fiat currencies. Others mined for it. Still others exchanged goods and services for it.

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#204

Post by pascalxus »

sevensor wrote: post #28

It's interesting to see how this is playing out. Libertarians have long argued that government-issued fiat currency is a tool of state oppression. Now we have a real-world experiment demonstrating on a grand scale what happens when you create a currency by consensual fiat. I'd be interested to hear what libertarians think about this: Is Bitcoin truly the kind of currency libertarians have been advocating? Have I misc…

I don't think that Bitcoin is inherently favored by Libertarians. Ultimately, you pay the same amount of taxes on bitcoin as any other capital gain, so it's irrelevant.

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#205

Post by qsucvatz »

Nursie wrote: post #153
clarkmoody wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some countries, Bitcoin has been outlawed. Owning stuff the government doesn't like is certainly a risk. They also endured 90% drops in value from early peaks to troughs. Bitcoin could have gone to zero at any point if the system had failed. (It still could) Some invested time learning about new technology that could've gone nowhere.

>> In some countries, Bitcoin has been outlawed. Very few. In more/most it's just taxable. >> They also endured 90% drops in value from early peaks to troughs. Bitcoin could have gone to zero at any point if the system had failed. (It still could) OK, sure, but again not a massive risk if your initial stake was tiny. And it was a stake rather than an investment - it's not really an investment as you're not investing…

In the end, either one does or does not own the property. They choose when to buy and when to sell.

From your perspective, isn't it a massive risk not to sell at this all time high value?

If they hold or sell, do they deserve whatever outcome?

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#206

Post by nathan_f77 »

mmgutz wrote: post #96

I read an interesting analogy yesterday in a poker chat of all places. The guy basically said, let's put bitcoin to buy a coffee litmus test. If I were to buy a cup of coffee in the current frenzy, I would be at the cashier waiting a day for the transaction to go through and when it does go through the fee for transaction would be greater than cost of the coffee. If that is true, how is bitcoin better? Would that tra…

The Lightning Network [1] is very close to being released. If that works out, then you'll be able to buy a cup of coffee instantly, and with no fees.

You would still have to open a "payment channel", which requires a single Bitcoin transaction. So you might fund this single payment channel with $100 USD, and use that to buy all your coffees for a month or two. I think that's no different to having $100 in a checking account.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#207

Post by DINKDINK »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #4

>Holders of large amounts of bitcoin are often known as whales. And they’re becoming a worry for investors. They can send prices plummeting by selling even a portion of their holdings. That's not indicative of something that's a store of value.

>Holders of large amounts of bitcoin are often known as whales. And they’re becoming a worry for investors. They can send prices plummeting by selling even a portion of their holdings.

Written another way: People who would be financially penalized greatly for selling might sell!

The media and public believe that a group of people who want nothing to do with fiat currency might all of a sudden decide that they were wrong all this time and take massive positions in fiat currencies. Why? My only guess is that the media believe people buy Bitcoin just to ride the wave up when what's actually happening is people are exiting the fiat system. This is why Bitcoin's price curve is similar to trading pairs associated with hyper inflation. A Venezuelan who holds dollars isn't going to suddenly want to take a huge long position on the Bolivar. At minimum they'd exchange the only minimum amount to transact with someone who doesn't except the dollar (or Bitcoin) yet.

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#208

Post by ballenf »

lisper wrote: post #203
KirinDave wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The libertarian position on wealth inequality is that as long as the distribution of wealth was determined voluntarily (without state privilege, in particular), then there is no problem. Buuuuut, they bought it with fiat currencies, in many cases USD. So... right there the entire idea breaks down. Still, maybe that's unfair. A valid criticism of this argument is that it's a variant of the the serf comic argument (o…

> they bought it with fiat currencies No. Some people bought it with fiat currencies. Others mined for it. Still others exchanged goods and services for it.

And some were gifted it. I remember a handful of sites that would give you some BTC just for asking as a demonstration of the technology. It was worth roughly a cent or two at the time -- obviously much more now if held.

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#209

Post by nhaehnle »

darawk wrote: post #168
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Since taxes are not voluntary >The libertarian position is that human interactions should be voluntary, so the coercion problem is where libertarians find issue first. Do you believe obeying property law is voluntary? I find it to be coercive.

Not to directly answer your question, but to elaborate slightly, many political philosophers would draw a distinction between natural property (e.g. land, natural resources) and 'made' property. They would say that in the case of found property (land, natural resources), property rights are indeed artificial and coercive. But the value that has been added to those natural resources by the efforts of a person is their…

I think you're mixing up the argument of whether property is just with whether property is coercive.

The arguments you've outlined are drawing a distinction between which kinds of property are thought to be just by certain schools of thought. However, this is entirely unrelated to the fact that all forms of property are coercive -- enforcing them ultimately requires (the threat of) violence.

Most people fail to make this distinction unless they properly think it through, though I personally find it most grating with the type of libertarian who argues with the "non-aggression principle" or variants thereof. I believe people make this mistake because it can be uncomfortable to admit to yourself that you're in favor of something that is coercive, even when the coercive thing is clearly a good thing overall. I'm sure there's a fancy name for this type of fallacy :)

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#210

Post by Daishiman »

googletazer wrote: post #179
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Very small children understand and recognize property, since it is a natural right. The toy in my hand is "mine," and when some other kid comes along and takes it, I get upset. When a very small child in a poor family looks at what is under a wealthy family's Christmas tree he's also going to be upset. Does that make a relatively equal distribution of Christmas presents a natural right? I see no basis for decrying a…

Upset/uncomfortable - maybe, but at who? The rich family? His own family? Himself? Society? All of those? People on hackernews and in general tend to view "negative" feelings, envy, etc... as generically "bad". These feelings are evolutionary signals from your primal brain that something isn't going right. Its up to you to fix that, however you see fit.

> These feelings are evolutionary signals from your primal brain that something isn't going right. Its up to you to fix that, however you see fit.

So rape and pillaging it is then.

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