Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It's time for an inequality index for cryptocurrencies distribution

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 116 posts

Re: It's time for an inequality index for cryptocurrencies distribution

#51

Post by howdydoo »

acdha wrote: post #30
howdydoo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto isn't intented to remove middlemen. It's intended to give people the choice of who to trust. People can choose to trust an exchange, or to self-custody, and deal with the consequences in either direction. If I choose to self-custody, it's much safer to memorize a seed phrase than to store cash in my mattress. Most people don't bother and use banks. But I think it's good that people now have a choice in the mat…

> Crypto isn't intented to remove middlemen That isn’t what the sales pitch has been for the last 13 years, with lots of fanciful rhetoric about removing the need for banks (“you can be your own bank!” is basically a cliché by now). > If I choose to self-custody, it's much safer to memorize a seed phrase than to store cash in my mattress. Are you sure about this? Lots of people have been phished or compromised, where…

People give sales pitches for lots of things. You don't have to listen to them.

> Are you sure about this?

Whether I'm sure or not... I think everyone should be given the choice.

Re: It's time for an inequality index for cryptocurrencies distribution

#52

Post by ur-whale »

> This concentration not only risks to threaten blockchain's own premises ...

And, yet another claim that needs to be justified.

Assuming one whale owns 20M Bitcoins, that still leaves 1M Bitcoins to use for transactions.

That's 10^14 satoshis, plenty enough to allow people to exchange value in complete freedom.

Can the one guy who owns the 20M tank the price by playing market games? Maybe, but why would he shoot himself in the foot by doing so?

And even if he did and - say - crashed the price down to BTCUSD = 2 ... would that prevent people from using Bitcoin to exchange value? Nope.

Re: It's time for an inequality index for cryptocurrencies distribution

#53

Post by repomies69 »

saurik wrote: post #32
EMM_386 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The silly thing is that crypto is now following the stock market for the most part, at least the big coins like BTC/LTC/Doge/etc are. Market goes down, crypto seems to go down with it. Look at something like 1-month BTC and 1-month APPL or something. It's not supposed to be doing this. I think this is happening because it's become so easy to purchase that people now just have it in their "portfolio", basket of everyt…

> It's not supposed to be doing this. Is it really not? Both stocks and cryptocurrencies act as inflation hedges against the central bank.

Both cryptocurrencies and stocks are traded with leverage these days, and central banks control the price of leverage. So, if central banks decide to start raising interest rates, asset prices will go down because leveraging becomes more expensive.

Re: It's time for an inequality index for cryptocurrencies distribution

#54

Post by numtel »

epgui wrote: post #40
iskander wrote: post #22

Wallets != people. Without proof of personhood, you never know the distribution.

Isn't this a problem? More specifically: assuming we can't derive it by some clever means, or approximate it from some tax reporting data, isn't it a problem that we can't get such a distribution? I mean this not as a moral judgement, but more as a system dynamics concern. It's easy enough to see how wealth concentration can destabilize a money/value system absent other factors. So my concern isn't about what's right…

Just wait until you find out that there's not even a block explorer for monero.

Re: It's time for an inequality index for cryptocurrencies distribution

#55

Post by disruptalot »

300bps wrote: post #28
atmosx wrote: post #13

> This concentration not only risks to threaten blockchain's own premises [...] BTC was designed specifically to avoid any kind of _state control_ and by _state control_ I mean something along the lines of a central bank. Adding protections here and there will inevitably lead to a system that is similar to current financial system with all the bells and whistles. I think you're missing the point: BTC tries to sell la…

lack of any kind of control Multiple choice question: Which of the following groups have lots of control over BTC? A. BTC Core Developers B. BTC Exchanges C. Credit Card Processors/ACH Entities/Payment apps that allow people to buy BTC from fiat without exchanging physical cash D. BTC Miners E. Any judge in the country that can order you to hand over your BTC just like he/she can order you to dig up the cash he/she s…

Do you have any examples of any of the parties you listed successfully exercising their power against the protocol?

Sure anyone can affect anything but how did any of them selfishly affect the fundamental properties of the protocol?

Re: It's time for an inequality index for cryptocurrencies distribution

#57

Post by iszomer »

mrtksn wrote: post #48
atmosx wrote: post #13

> This concentration not only risks to threaten blockchain's own premises [...] BTC was designed specifically to avoid any kind of _state control_ and by _state control_ I mean something along the lines of a central bank. Adding protections here and there will inevitably lead to a system that is similar to current financial system with all the bells and whistles. I think you're missing the point: BTC tries to sell la…

I’m baffled how people miss this even if it’s the mission statement of Satoshi himself: Bitcoin is a tool to prevent wealth re-distribution. It’s whole idea is to ensure that the accumulated wealth is preserved. In 2008 it was against the government bailing out the failed banks but it’s also against any government interventions, including easing the wealth inequality. In essence, the idea is that if a teenager in 201…

> It’s like being a landlord whom passive income guarantees him and his family a good life with no work when people working their arses off to be able to pay the rent.

Not necessarily. The state still takes a percentage eg: property tax, maintenance, utilities, safety certifications, etc.

Re: It's time for an inequality index for cryptocurrencies distribution

#58

Post by ashwagary »

grey-area wrote: post #35
saurik wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not supposed to be doing this. Is it really not? Both stocks and cryptocurrencies act as inflation hedges against the central bank.

It’s really not. It is highly correlated with high risk assets and growth shares. It is anything but an inflation hedge, which is why it has been plunging as inflation rises and will fall more if interest rates rise. If it were an actual currency things might be different, but instead it’s just another high risk speculative asset.

Just because BTC is temporarily correlated with risk assets, that doesnt mean it wont change.

Also, it's better to look at charts by starting at the beginnning of this 4 year cycle, dont pick out a bearish 6 month period and falsely claim BTC fails the inflation test. Short termism and Bitcoin's monetary policy are incompatible.

Re: It's time for an inequality index for cryptocurrencies distribution

#59

Post by wickoff »

EMM_386 wrote: post #27
atmosx wrote: post #13

> This concentration not only risks to threaten blockchain's own premises [...] BTC was designed specifically to avoid any kind of _state control_ and by _state control_ I mean something along the lines of a central bank. Adding protections here and there will inevitably lead to a system that is similar to current financial system with all the bells and whistles. I think you're missing the point: BTC tries to sell la…

The silly thing is that crypto is now following the stock market for the most part, at least the big coins like BTC/LTC/Doge/etc are. Market goes down, crypto seems to go down with it. Look at something like 1-month BTC and 1-month APPL or something. It's not supposed to be doing this. I think this is happening because it's become so easy to purchase that people now just have it in their "portfolio", basket of everyt…

Crypto has cooled off considerably during the last few months. It's kinda drifting on the waves of the stock market. It needs a new narrative to become "hot" again, than it'll decouple.

Re: It's time for an inequality index for cryptocurrencies distribution

#60

Post by lottin »

jasode wrote: post #39
300bps wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lack of any kind of control Multiple choice question: Which of the following groups have lots of control over BTC? A. BTC Core Developers B. BTC Exchanges C. Credit Card Processors/ACH Entities/Payment apps that allow people to buy BTC from fiat without exchanging physical cash D. BTC Miners E. Any judge in the country that can order you to hand over your BTC just like he/she can order you to dig up the cash he/she s…

I understand your larger point but to be fair to gp you're responding to, he was scoping the word "control" to Central Bank since he actually wrote: >and by _state control_ I mean something along the lines of a central bank. So central bank control would be something like "expansion of money supply beyond 21 million bitcoins". Therefore, your options (B) Coinbase/Binance (C) Visa/MC/banks and (E) courts -- really hav…

This is a misunderstanding of how the money supply works. Central banks have a legal monopoly on the issuance of currency, but they don't have complete control about the money supply, because commercial banks also create money via fractional reserves. Over 80% of the money in circulation is created in this way by commercial banks. And this applies to bitcoin as well. Crypto-exchanges can expand the supply of any crypto-currency by creating deposits that aren't fully backed with reserves. The idea that no one can expand the supply of bitcoins beyond 21 million is a nothing but fairy tale.
Post reply on HN