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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

#221

Post by nhaehnle »

infinity0 wrote: post #102
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Just the same as generational wealth in the real world. The problem with meritocracy is that ocracy implies some power over the system and in a true meritocratic system the first generation would corrupt it to help their kids. Meritocracy is an oxymoron because the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome is a gradient, not a line.

Doesn't the Law of Large Numbers imply that equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are one and the same thing? Or to put it another way, how do you measure "equality of opportunity" if not by "equality of outcome"? If your theory of "equality of opportunity" differs from the measured "equality of outcome", doesn't that automatically mean you've omitted some characteristic of the real world from your theory?

A lottery has equality of opportunity, but not equality of outcome.

Many aspects of our societies have lottery-like qualities.

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

#222

Post by nhaehnle »

mycall wrote: post #104
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Just the same as generational wealth in the real world. The problem with meritocracy is that ocracy implies some power over the system and in a true meritocratic system the first generation would corrupt it to help their kids. Meritocracy is an oxymoron because the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome is a gradient, not a line.

Even if you create a popular/useful coin based on a *cratic system (e.g. iron workers get X number of coins) and try to evenly distribute the coins, they will cluster over time to people to game the system. Perhaps some game detection could penalize those folks and rebalance the distribution.

> Perhaps some game detection could penalize those folks and rebalance the distribution.

That is indeed a large part of the point of the social/welfare state.

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

#223

Post by golergka »

marsrover wrote: post #2

I really enjoy investing in cryptocurrencies. However, I have a lot of doubt this is going to make the world a more fair or better place. It's going to create a wealth gap like has never been seen in first world countries.

Are you implying that more fair is more equal? Why?

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

#224

Post by rednerrus »

deweller wrote: post #106
aaavl2821 wrote: post #59

Market manipulation is a big risk here. Basically "wolf of wall st" style shenanigans, or the stuff that salomon brothers did in the mortgage bond market in the 1980s. Essentially a few big investors who've cornered the market, acting in concert, can move the market essentially according to their own desire. I read yesterday that the order book for btc was $33 million (don't know what the daily volume is; could anyon…

I don't understand the idea that a whale could move the market and make money off it. To move the market, you need to spend money. The only way it works is if you create some kind of momentum and the market continues to go up. But rational markets will sell into the artificial momentum and the price will be be close to where you started. The net result is that you lost money. I believe there is momentum in markets (t…

You don't think the Bitfinex/Tether cats printing Tether and using it to wash trade BTC is manipulating the price of BTC. I don't think the $19,000 price on Bitfinex yesterday was organic.

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

#225

Post by spookthesunset »

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…

One thing I never see discussed is if Bitcoin were to truly become mainstream, it would require "the mainstream" to purchase all of their Bitcoin from existing holders. In essence, all of the people who got in early get to decide who does and does not get to participate in this hypothetical Bitcoin-based future.

Setting aside all the other issues with Bitcoin (scaling, energy use, volatility) it seems like this would be a major issue if Bitcoin was ever on the precipice to being considered "mainstream". People would most likely strongly object to having to go purchase bitcoin from a bunch of people who bought in early in order to continue functioning in their lives. It is one of the big, largely undiscussed, reasons I believe that Bitcoin will never truly catch on.

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

#226

Post by metalliqaz »

pascalxus wrote: post #214
metalliqaz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a very difficult time separating "true" libertarians with members of libertarian parties. Like people don't readily give up how pragmatic they are. On one end, there seem to be people who really yearn for pure individual freedom with no government at all. I'm pretty sure that was tried for the first 50,000 years of humanity and the results are well documented. (spoiler, for populations larger than ~100 people,…

Liberterians such as myself, would like to see a more prosperous world. With the technology we have available today, we're 1000s of times more productive than we were millions of years ago, and yet, 99% of society is still stuck working 40-60 hours a week and barely earning enough money to get by. There are many reasons why this is the case: taxes are only 1 reason. But, most of these reasons ultimately have somethin…

"Currently, when a government takes and uses 1/3 of every dollar earned, the society is not free."

See, this is just nonsense. You follow this to its logical conclusion and the only free people have no government. You're free to reject it all. There's plenty of places where you can just say "fuck it" and nobody will come bother you. Go ahead. Nobody does, though, because they quite like the security of living in a city, where no matter what the emergency help is just a phone call away, and one can watch live video from the surface of Mars on a smartphone.

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

#227

Post by alexasmyths »

nhaehnle wrote: post #216
alexasmyths wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Since taxes are not voluntary, this creates built-in demand for the fiat money." Not really. The real underlying demand for a currency comes from the advantage that everyone gets by using the same currency in a common market. The 'required for tax' purposes is a side-show. Does anyone with any financial background appreciate that most businesses in the US want to use a single currency for their US transactions, and…

> The real underlying demand for a currency comes from the advantage that everyone gets by using the same currency in a common market. > The 'required for tax' purposes is a side-show. Why can't it be both? :) > Totally false. Inflation is a target by most central banks. They can make it positive or negative, generally, and target specifically 2% for certain reasons. This is a bit questionable. There are good reasons…

I meant to say that a managed currency does not imply inflation, as the commenter was saying.

I'm saying a managed currency can be whatever you want it to be. I agree targeting deflation would be bad.

Hint: deflation is kind of bad, and we have massive deflation with BTC :)

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

#228

Post by metalliqaz »

moduspol wrote: post #173
metalliqaz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a very difficult time separating "true" libertarians with members of libertarian parties. Like people don't readily give up how pragmatic they are. On one end, there seem to be people who really yearn for pure individual freedom with no government at all. I'm pretty sure that was tried for the first 50,000 years of humanity and the results are well documented. (spoiler, for populations larger than ~100 people,…

> Anyway, I think most Libertarians would be cool with a handful of ultra-wealthy, because they really think they can conquer the market someday and be one of them. The existence of ultra-wealthy people isn't inherently bad. The question is about the alternative . If everyone's quality of life improves (including relative to the ultra-wealthy), I'd rather that happen than reduce everyone's quality of life out of a se…

That's a good point, but I don't concede that improving fairness makes the quality of life worse for the 0.001%. Their wealth far exceeds their ability to consume it. With a small shift, you can drastically reduce suffering without effecting their life in any perceptible way.

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

#229

Post by darawk »

nhaehnle wrote: post #209
darawk wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yep, you're totally right. My mistake. Good point.

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

#230

Post by monort »

nhaehnle wrote: post #209
darawk wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

While this position is technically correct, it is absurd. By this logic, enforcing freedom from slavery is coercive as well, because it requires threat of violence.
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