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

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

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 327 posts

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

#91

Post by btbuildem »

empath75 wrote: post #56
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…

It'll be interesting to see what happens when a few people own 90% of the bitcoin and everyone else just sort of shrugs and starts using a new cryptocurrency, instead.

Wouldn't the same scenario play out with any other cryptocurrency? Early adopters will sit on the bulk of it.

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

#92

Post by FLUX-YOU »

icebraining wrote: post #73
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article that I quoted.

Nope, it said "portion". It didn't say the size of said portion.

I don't think replacing "small amount" to "portion" in my posts really changes the point -- that a small amount (relative to the population of Bitcoin investors) of large players (by USD value) can influence the market price.

If you want to argue a minimum amount that whales would need to sell to manipulate the markets, that's probably better for the thread than arguing about semantics.

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

#93

Post by solotronics »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #83
VMG wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure, but what's the importance of that fact?

that it's the first distributed open currency much like BitTorrent is a distributed open fileshare.

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

#95

Post by burger_moon »

tCfD wrote: post #76
empath75 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when a few people own 90% of the bitcoin and everyone else just sort of shrugs and starts using a new cryptocurrency, instead.

Committed ideological Bitcoin supporters commonly believe in a network effect race condition spiral they call 'hyperbitcoinization' which models a world where a sort of event horizon in market adoption had been crossed, and everyone on Earth is forced to use bitcoin either directly or indirectly. In this techno-feudalist scenario, being one of the Bitcoin 1% or even 10% means the world is at your feet, and if you've…

Reminds me of this satire post from reddit (4yrs old). https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1lfobc/i_am_a_time...

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

#96

Post by mmgutz »

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 transaction even go through considering miners would prioritize transactions with larger fees.

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

#97

Post by montecarl »

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…

Mouse over the orderbook on this page: https://www.gdax.com/trade/BTC-USD It will show you how much money you need to move the market on that exchange.

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

#98

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

solotronics wrote: post #93
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but what's the importance of that fact?

that it's the first distributed open currency much like BitTorrent is a distributed open fileshare.

Are we still on the libertarian thing? I guess I don't understand why the fact that BTC creation is distributed is important.

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

#99

Post by FLUX-YOU »

tCfD wrote: post #76
empath75 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when a few people own 90% of the bitcoin and everyone else just sort of shrugs and starts using a new cryptocurrency, instead.

Committed ideological Bitcoin supporters commonly believe in a network effect race condition spiral they call 'hyperbitcoinization' which models a world where a sort of event horizon in market adoption had been crossed, and everyone on Earth is forced to use bitcoin either directly or indirectly. In this techno-feudalist scenario, being one of the Bitcoin 1% or even 10% means the world is at your feet, and if you've…

>and if you've maintained good opsec

Don't exchanges verify identity? Wouldn't you be committing fraud by maintaining good opsec?

Point being is that someone may eventually leak an exchange database with those details. Then the word's out. Kind of like Equifax.

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

#100

Post by bufferoverflow »

adjkant wrote: post #81
bufferoverflow wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imperialism is not capitalism, they are orthogonal concepts. You're right, imperialism did cause problems, but the extreme poverty has been shrinking. And now we have the mechanisms for almost anybody to get out of it. I grew up very poor, as in barely enough money for basic food and new clothes once-twice a year. Now I'm in the top 3% of US earners (not counting Bitcoin).

> Imperialism is not capitalism, they are orthogonal concepts. I would argue they are very tied, but that is a much larger argument not needed here. To give the short and incomplete version, they are both derived from the idea of exploiting others for profit. The level of exploitation is just much less in capitalism and masked behind the guise of fairness, ignoring power dynamics, original capital, and exponential gr…

I think you're a hypocrite. If you think people in Africa aren't getting paid enough, why are you not selling your PC / smartphone to help them out? It's easy to tell other people how to spend their money helping the poor, but when it comes to your own wealth, you're still typing into this tech forum.
Post reply on HN