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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

#291

Post by gnulinux »

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.

Private property has nothing to do with toys in your hand; so it's not related to this debate. Do children think owning a factory and making money off of workers working there is a natural right?

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

#292

Post by MintPattern »

knocte wrote: post #49
simias wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems pretty obvious to me as well. Given huge speculation surrounding them at the moment I'm surprised we don't hear more people warning about these things. I don't think I want to live in a world where BTC replaces the USD/EUR/... Untraceable money means that corruption and tax evasion would be easier than ever. Democratic governments would be worse off in dealing with that, because unlike totaliatrian regimes t…

> Untraceable money Bitcoin is not untraceable money, it can be even more traceable than normal currency. It could be stablished as a law that public money when being spent in the blockchain needs to be auditable by the people (identities of sender and recipient known), and this way you would end up with even less corruption than the current system. > Deflation means that the rich will get richer Wrong. Rich people d…

> The asset that is not stable is the fiat currency because it's being depreciated all the time.

Checking accounts (M1) have grown by (only) 8%/year over the past 2 years.

Savings accounts (M2) have grown by (only) 6%/year over the past 2 years.

Physical cash in circulation has grown by (only) 5%/year over the past 2 years.

Even if we value bitcoin today only by it's future 0% emission rate starting at around the year 2036, bitcoin shouldn't have been rising more than 7 or 8% per year relative to the US Dollar. Anymore is unlikely to be sustainable. Am I missing anything?

Citation: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/current/default.h...

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

#293

Post by pascalxus »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #43
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 Am Not a Libertarian but a few thoughts come to mind. Bitcoin is just about as close to the libertarian ideal as you can practically get in this world. The two main flaws that I can see is that it's not as anonymous as it could be, and many governments have already imposed a number of burdensome regulations which prevent people from using bitcoin as they see fit. More anonymity would get around those regulations to…

I am a libertarian. I can tell you, for a law abiding citizen, bitcoin is no better than a dollar. You still have to pay taxes on it, report it to the IRS and it's still subject to whatever regulations the government wants to put on it, for example 10k/20k reporting requirements, etc. If the gov wants your money, they will find you, one way or another.

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

#294

Post by infinity0 »

nhaehnle wrote: post #221
infinity0 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's why I mentioned the law of large numbers. But I see your argument - you're arguing that the variance in the probability distribution representing "opportunity" is so great that the measured outcome could be anything.

But this seems like "too convenient" an explanation to me, it could be used to justify literally any system. For any system, one could assert that actually the opportunity is equal, but the variance is so great that the measured outcome "accidentally" arose out of the totally-equal-honest "opportunity" probability distribution.

I'm not prepared to accept such weak justifications of any supposed equal-opportunity system, I'd prefer to have a system where the outcome provided me with some verifiable indicator that the original opportunities were actually equal, in a similar sort of way where one can have verifiable proofs in cryptographic protocols.

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

#295

Post by socialist_coder »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #136
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,…

I consider myself a pragmatic libertarian, which off the top of my head basically means that: 1. I believe very strongly in the sovereignty of the individual. 2. I prefer more open and incentive-driven markets. 3. I’m skeptical of governments, particularly large and powerful ones, because they’re inefficient, rely on coercion, and are too tempting as prizes to be captured for power, prestige, and wealth. However, the…

You strongly prefer a public option, or single payer.

You are open to trying basic income.

Do you think we should have laws and regulations to protect the environment?

If so, then I think you have graduated from Libertarian to Liberal. Ha ha! I did the same thing after I realized that a true free market libertarian ideal is easily abused by corporations and the wealthy, and the common man has no chance.

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

#296

Post by celdon25 »

VMG wrote: post #286
rspeer wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many times are people going to try whataboutism on HN? Everyone can recognize it by now. The existence of war does not absolve you. If your standard of morality is "everything that's better than war is okay", you have approximately no morality.

The whataboutism started with uninformed statements about bitcoin energy usage. My rebuttal is about the costs of the alternatives.

Call it whatever you want. The days of proof-of-work are numbered, I can guarantee you that.

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

#297

Post by bb88 »

redblacktree wrote: post #117
VMG wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who has a miner can generate bitcoin. Only the FED can create new USD.

This isn't really true. New USD is created anytime someone gets a loan. The Fed impacts that money creation only indirectly by setting rates (not considering QE -- even with QE, the point remains: new money is created when a loan is made by a fractional-reserve institution) Edit to further elucidate: It isn't exactly the loan that creates money, but what happens with the money after the loan. It will almost certainly…

This is known as the money multiplier effect.

It's perhaps better put like this:

You store a dollar in the bank. The bank makes a loan to a business to buy cars. The car company stores that dollar in another bank. The bank makes a loan with that dollar to a farmer to buy sheep from another farmer. That farmer who sold the sheep puts that dollar in the bank.

That one dollar was used in three different transactions, thus creating more US Dollars than were actually printed.

And on and on it goes.

Edited to add:

That's why runs on banks are so dangerous, because the bank never has the full amount of money in it's safe. It's using that money to make loans.

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

#298

Post by ryanwaggoner »

vidarh wrote: post #267
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "nationalized", I mean where the state owns and employs a significant portion of the healthcare resources and personnel, as opposed to just paying for it. Personally I find it telling that it is almost impossible to find people holding your positions in places where people have experienced these socialized systems unless they have the money to pay far more for care that is out of reach of most people. Really? Then…

> By "nationalized", I mean where the state owns and employs a significant portion of the healthcare resources and personnel, as opposed to just paying for it. In that case the NHS is a lot less nationalized than you might think: a huge proportion of NHS services are provided by private firms under NHS contracts. > Really? Then I think you've misunderstood my positions and you might want to try another read through m…

Because the prospect of "US conditions" is terrifying, to the point that "US conditions" is actually a term used in politics in some European countries used to scare voters with the thought of what happens if you let the right wing run rampant over public services.

Sounds like garden variety ignorance.

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

#299

Post by ryanwaggoner »

socialist_coder wrote: post #295
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself a pragmatic libertarian, which off the top of my head basically means that: 1. I believe very strongly in the sovereignty of the individual. 2. I prefer more open and incentive-driven markets. 3. I’m skeptical of governments, particularly large and powerful ones, because they’re inefficient, rely on coercion, and are too tempting as prizes to be captured for power, prestige, and wealth. However, the…

You strongly prefer a public option, or single payer. You are open to trying basic income. Do you think we should have laws and regulations to protect the environment? If so, then I think you have graduated from Libertarian to Liberal. Ha ha! I did the same thing after I realized that a true free market libertarian ideal is easily abused by corporations and the wealthy, and the common man has no chance.

Classical liberal, yes.

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

#300

Post by lisper »

KirinDave wrote: post #290
lisper wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you begin your argument with a claim that is factually incorrect there is no need to read further to know that the argument is invalid.

So. You didn't read it. Proudly. And it IS factually correct in that there was state-maintained fiat currency at the genesis of nearly every story, we just both agree it doesn't matter that much. Consider how uninteresting this exchange is, and how much of our collective time you've wasted by not reading the entire post. You've spent MUCH more time talking with me (and I with you) than if you had JUST READ THE POST.

> You didn't read it.

Whether I read it or not is irrelevant. The fact remains that you opened your argument with a demonstrably false claim.

> And it IS factually correct in that there was state-maintained fiat currency at the genesis of nearly every story

That may be, but that's not what you said, nor is it what I disputed.

> Consider how uninteresting this exchange is

I dunno, I think it's kind of fascinating the lengths some people will go to to avoid saying something as simple as, "You're right, I phrased that badly. What I meant to say was..."

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