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This articule just seems to revolve around some pretty skewed data. > Recently the founder of something called Ripple briefly became richer than Mark Zuckerber

This articule just seems to revolve around some pretty skewed data. > Recently the founder of something called Ripple briefly became richer than Mark Zuckerberg. Became paper richer, which is really quite different. The "market cap" calculations just don't represent reality; he couldn't realistically dump all of his Ripple and expect price to not crash (not even taking into account the huge natural correction in price after the peak of the bull run) > The cryptocurrency community is centered around a tightknit group of friends This statement implies that there are few people in the community at all, which is just not true. > some estimate that 95 percent of the wealth is held by 4 percent of the owners. This links to an article that says that 95% of the wealth is held by 4% of the wallets, which makes an absolutely huge difference. This is because: - Some of these wallets are held by exchanges, who hold all of their users' crypto - Some of these wallets are lost early adopter wallets, from when a large number wasn't something impressive (e.g. Satoshi's lost Bitcoin, accounting for 4 million (!) Bitcoin) - Many of the wallets created are never used or have already been used just for moving funds and thus have 0 balance (in fact, the article's graph states that 41.93% of wallets hold just 0.01% of bitcoin)

josh_fyi 9y ago
> he couldn't realistically dump all of his Ripple and expect price to not crash Likewise Zuckerberg for Facebook
- barrkel 9y ago
  Zuckerberg's stock a bit different: the stock represents future income flows - they have real value - whereas cryptocurrency value is a function of confidence. Yes, the stock would go down on Zuckerberg selling, but that's because people would infer from it an estimate of a decline in future income flows. But the future income flows won't go away just because Zuckerberg sells; it's not just confidence putting a floor on the stock.
  - candiodari 9y ago
    Whereas Mark Zuckerberg could exchange his shares for dollars ... which supposedly represent future tax income of the united states government ... paid in dollars. Fiat currencies, including somewhat non-intuitively shares, dollars and every currency (including most forms of gold I might add) ultimately depend on confidence.
    - imustbeevil 9y ago
      It's a lot easier to have confidence that the US Government will exist in 50 years than one of one thousand fake currencies on the internet.
panarky 9y ago
> Became paper richer, which is really quite different I hear this all the time but I don't understand it. The Ripple guy's wealth isn't made of paper, it's an electronic ledger. And if he trades his Ripples for dollars or euros, that wealth just moves to a bank's electronic ledger. If he uses his dollars or euros to buy shares in Google or government bonds, the wealth moves to a broker's electronic ledger. Then he sells his securities to buy real estate, and now his wealth is in an electronic ledger of property titles. So in what way is cryptocurrency wealth "only paper wealth" but other wealth is somehow more substantial than "paper"?
- jstandard 9y ago
  Dollars, Euros, and stocks are all forms of highly liquid wealth which are generally trusted and can easily be exchanged for goods and services. They've all been around for many years and are backed by trusted entities. In comparison to Ripple they're much less volatile. Ripple isn't any of that yet and the "wealth" can evaporate much more quickly if Ripple fails to gain those qualities.
  - panarky 9y ago
    > They've all been around for many years and are backed by trusted entities That's so obvious it probably doesn't need to be stated. The GP's argument is that cryptocurrency wealth is somehow lesser because it's "paper" wealth. You didn't really answer how cryptocurrency is any more or less "paper-like" than other intangible assets.
    - jstandard 9y ago
      Everything I mentioned in my comment is why it's less than other intangible assets. Not all intangible assets should be valued equally at their same level of converted fiat. The riskiness of an asset in particular is an important factor. $100 of XRP is worth less to me than $100 of Google stock because it's 1) less liquid, particularly in times of crisis. 2) More likely to be worth $0.
      - 9y ago

josh_fyi 9y ago

> he couldn't realistically dump all of his Ripple and expect price to not crash Likewise Zuckerberg for Facebook

barrkel 9y ago
Zuckerberg's stock a bit different: the stock represents future income flows - they have real value - whereas cryptocurrency value is a function of confidence. Yes, the stock would go down on Zuckerberg selling, but that's because people would infer from it an estimate of a decline in future income flows. But the future income flows won't go away just because Zuckerberg sells; it's not just confidence putting a floor on the stock.
- candiodari 9y ago
  Whereas Mark Zuckerberg could exchange his shares for dollars ... which supposedly represent future tax income of the united states government ... paid in dollars. Fiat currencies, including somewhat non-intuitively shares, dollars and every currency (including most forms of gold I might add) ultimately depend on confidence.
  - imustbeevil 9y ago
    It's a lot easier to have confidence that the US Government will exist in 50 years than one of one thousand fake currencies on the internet.

panarky 9y ago

> Became paper richer, which is really quite different I hear this all the time but I don't understand it. The Ripple guy's wealth isn't made of paper, it's an electronic ledger. And if he trades his Ripples for dollars or euros, that wealth just moves to a bank's electronic ledger. If he uses his dollars or euros to buy shares in Google or government bonds, the wealth moves to a broker's electronic ledger. Then he sells his securities to buy real estate, and now his wealth is in an electronic ledger of property titles. So in what way is cryptocurrency wealth "only paper wealth" but other wealth is somehow more substantial than "paper"?

jstandard 9y ago
Dollars, Euros, and stocks are all forms of highly liquid wealth which are generally trusted and can easily be exchanged for goods and services. They've all been around for many years and are backed by trusted entities. In comparison to Ripple they're much less volatile. Ripple isn't any of that yet and the "wealth" can evaporate much more quickly if Ripple fails to gain those qualities.
- panarky 9y ago
  > They've all been around for many years and are backed by trusted entities That's so obvious it probably doesn't need to be stated. The GP's argument is that cryptocurrency wealth is somehow lesser because it's "paper" wealth. You didn't really answer how cryptocurrency is any more or less "paper-like" than other intangible assets.
  - jstandard 9y ago
    Everything I mentioned in my comment is why it's less than other intangible assets. Not all intangible assets should be valued equally at their same level of converted fiat. The riskiness of an asset in particular is an important factor. $100 of XRP is worth less to me than $100 of Google stock because it's 1) less liquid, particularly in times of crisis. 2) More likely to be worth $0.
    - 9y ago