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I think that's a very insightful statement. Right now regular people only have a few different options to invest in: 1. Stocks 2. Bonds 3. Cash 4. Your own

I think that's a very insightful statement. Right now regular people only have a few different options to invest in: 1. Stocks 2. Bonds 3. Cash 4. Your own bootstrapped business 5. Cryptocurrencies 6. Lottery The first 2 are obviously limited growth opportunities... Corporations are already massive, people will never get the 100x or 1000x returns that they need to actually notice any lifestyle difference... And even if they did, by that point the world would be a horrible place not worth living in and you'd be near the bottom of the pile because you got in too late. Interest rates are too low so holding cash is pointless. In this VC-dominated and corporation-dominated landscape, the odds of successfully bootstrapping your own business are near zero and everyone knows it. Lottery usually appeals to the working class due to the large potential payoffs. But everyone knows that the odds are terrible and that there are middlemen taking a cut. Cryptocurrencies on the other hand are like a giant international startup which aims to disrupt the entire financial system and which is in a very good position to do so because everyone is in on it. The returns are great and the odds are much better than lottery.

wils1245 9y ago
Why do you think that it's a reasonable expectation that an economy offers a 1000X multiplier on your money? Where is this value supposed to come from? By altering the means of exchanging capital a significant number of people get 1000X richer? Those kinds of gains can only come at the expense of other "investors".
- jondubois 9y ago
  Yes, assuming that cryptocurrency takes over and it becomes a whole new ecosystem, the gain will be at the expense of everyone who doesn't hold cryptocurrency especially the wealthy elites whose net worth is mostly tied up in the current fiat system. More people will start offering services on a blockchain and anyone with computing power will be able to run a node for the service and will profit directly from customer payments made to their blockchain address. The key here is that anyone with moderate technical skills will be able to assist in providing a service by setting up a node on the relevant blockchain - It's not like in the current fiat system where I can't just run my own machine to help service Google users for example (in exchange for a commensurate portion of the proceeds). It's a fundamentally better system because it takes out the middleman. The current fiat system is all about locking people out while the new system will be able making it impossible to lock people out of opportunities.
  - quirkot 9y ago
    > especially the wealthy elites whose net worth is mostly tied up in the current fiat system Single parents hovering at the poverty line also have their entire net worth tied up in the current fiat system and they're far more likely to be hurt than someone with the means to be flexible
    - jondubois 9y ago
      Hurt? Their net worth is negative. They'd love nothing more than seeing their net worth rise to $0.

wils1245 9y ago

Why do you think that it's a reasonable expectation that an economy offers a 1000X multiplier on your money? Where is this value supposed to come from? By altering the means of exchanging capital a significant number of people get 1000X richer? Those kinds of gains can only come at the expense of other "investors".

jondubois 9y ago
Yes, assuming that cryptocurrency takes over and it becomes a whole new ecosystem, the gain will be at the expense of everyone who doesn't hold cryptocurrency especially the wealthy elites whose net worth is mostly tied up in the current fiat system. More people will start offering services on a blockchain and anyone with computing power will be able to run a node for the service and will profit directly from customer payments made to their blockchain address. The key here is that anyone with moderate technical skills will be able to assist in providing a service by setting up a node on the relevant blockchain - It's not like in the current fiat system where I can't just run my own machine to help service Google users for example (in exchange for a commensurate portion of the proceeds). It's a fundamentally better system because it takes out the middleman. The current fiat system is all about locking people out while the new system will be able making it impossible to lock people out of opportunities.
- quirkot 9y ago
  > especially the wealthy elites whose net worth is mostly tied up in the current fiat system Single parents hovering at the poverty line also have their entire net worth tied up in the current fiat system and they're far more likely to be hurt than someone with the means to be flexible
  - jondubois 9y ago
    Hurt? Their net worth is negative. They'd love nothing more than seeing their net worth rise to $0.