This one may stir up the hornets nest. Is bitcoin really decentralized when the vast majority of BTC is concentrated In just a few wallets. Aren’t we simply trading one overlord for another?
Discussion
The majority, owns less than 1
The top 2100 accounts own 25% + of all BTC. How’s is that vastly different than what we have today?
they cant print more?
you still can buy more?
aka they can only manipulate the FIAT price
if we turn the cheek on fiat, that shouldnt matter.
Right, but you still have 25% of the commodity owned by a small handful of people.
They’ll be defacto kings once BTC reaches 100’s of millions in value.
That’s fairly centralized.
that literally doesnt have anything to do with (de)centralization of the network
and what do you mean with kings? what is it they will be able to do better now (both locally and globally) with that BTC (both in case fiat still exists and in case fiat has hyperinflated severly?
They’ll be trillionaires.
Easy to understand.
alright then😅
Many of those accounts are custodians that hold bitcoin for a large number of people.
But yes, just like with other forms of wealth, bitcoin wealth is concentrated. Over time, these bitcoins will be spent because people eventually die and want to enjoy their assets before death.
It’s like the Vanderbilts and Astors from the 1800s. They were some of the richest families in the world but now the majority of their wealth is gone, dissipated by the generations over the years.
Is it gone?
Rockefellers. Cough.
No, you’re right, but apparently they’re down too. From $600 billion equivalent to $11 billion today.
No, I don’t fully believe those numbers but they do seem to be the exception to the rule. No doubt being fiat banksters helped them keep the wealth.
Was it that family that had siblings marry to reduce the number of heirs? I can’t remember.
Lol. Just did the math. The 4 accounts at the top would be worth 66 trillion dollars if BTC was worth 100mm. As far as I know there are no trillionaires currently. Let alone 66x trillionaires. I’m not sure how this gets solved for, but it’s a problem.
It’s fairly distributed because there is an actual cost for mining or buying this. Nobody can get Bitcoin for free AND there is a limited supply. The fiat system, on the contrary, people close to the money printer get free capital, without any cost. #bitcoin fixes this.
Fair points. But the vast majority of wealth (meaning control. Political control, economic control, etc) is still in the hands of the lucky few. This isn’t merit based, it’s ambiguous luck. Right place, right time. I’m all for a “inequality” in holding, though this distribution seems ripe for abuse from the powerful.
It’s true that more Bitcoin equals more influence. But once you spend the Bitcoin to someone that provides you value, the Bitcoin isn’t yours anymore. Over time this means it redistributes forever with the right incentives backing it.
Fine, but what’s the incentive for the massive holders to spend it. Say BTC gets to the market cap of SPX. 33.36 trillion dollars, and it will have to get much bigger than that. The top wallets would be trillionaires many times over. What’s their incentive to “spend” it. The more they hold, the more they’re worth. It’s still leaves “peanuts” for the little guy.
Good question, and the answer is quite simple. You can’t eat a Bitcoin, can’t wear it, live in it or enjoy experiences with it. People will buy stuff once they need it or feel like it’s worth it for them
Sure. But if bitcoin is the defacto currency then they can just put enough into circulation to make the bit of BTC they spend to be massively expensive and pay for whatever they need, while still having enough to do massive projects that they want to do (or not). Could also die and have the coins locked forever.
Yes, but by limiting spending they limit the amount of stuff/influence they can buy. The point is, once you spend it, you can’t create more unless you provide value to others. To your second point: that would be awesome. Let’s say I own a million bitcoin. If I die and don’t pass it on, this means that these 1 million bitcoin will never be sold on the market again. It’s basically a donation to everyone else that holds Bitcoin, as contrary as it may sound.
Eth on the other hand, pays people for holding the token. So rich people get a free money for having money. They are not incentivized to sell their eth, because the can live off the staking rewards ‘forever’
Nah
And majority of mining is done in China. Public ledger ensures everyone can see who holds what and how it is spent. Slow, layer 2s have issues that negate most of the benefits of blockchain, high fees. NOT Private. BTC better than CBDC but I see too much of the old financial system mentality in this ecosystem. Privacy coins are the future.
Private coins?
Privacy coins, on the protocol level. Monero, Pirate Chain, Firo, Dero, Hush are the ones I like, but do your own research
And then there’s the maintainers of the code. There is only 1 and he has final say. Maxis go apeshit when you bring stuff like this up.
You might be right. That aspect might not be much different. There will always be elites with some richer than others in either system. But the major difference is they have no direct control over it like they do with fiat. We move in the direction of more fairness:
#1 Cant print more out of thin air.
#2 Cant stop you from transacting with it.
#3 Cant be confiscated.
One major attack surface on Bitcoin though is it's lack of privacy which weakens #2 and #3
Once people become smarter, or governments get wise to this it’s an easy game to track down biggest accounts, assassinate the hodlr, and claim tokens.
Not an issue yet (maybe it is?) v but eventually?
It's a never ending arms race with privacy and tech. I think it will ebb and flow.
Yes, exactly, which is why I think privacy is so important and you can't have freedom without it. This is already showing itself to be an issue. China and India government stance on crypto come to mind. Remember the Canadian Trucker protest Bitcoin donations?
But it's not just government, but other non-state adversaries to be wary of as well.
I don't know if you saw this recent news from a few days ago: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12345375/Missing-millionaire-crypto-influencer-41-dismembered-suitcase-Argentina-cops-launch-murder-probe.html
Lopp keeps a log of known major attacks as well:
https://github.com/jlopp/physical-bitcoin-attacks/blob/master/README.md