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I resent the implication from the person that wrote the letter that Bitcoin was made to make the rich richer. This is exactly the opposite reason I love Bitcoi

I resent the implication from the person that wrote the letter that Bitcoin was made to make the rich richer. This is exactly the opposite reason I love Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. How can anyone look at the current extremely unequal world and think the system of endless printed money going to the people closest to the printer is working? https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/ https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-ameri... I dream of a decentralized world currency where you can trace where the money the governments use is going, exactly how much money is being created, and where poor people have a chance to not have their money constantly lose value. This is what got me going the first time I read The Age of Cryptocurrency from Vigna and Casey from the WSJ. https://www.amazon.com/Age-Cryptocurrency-Blockchain-Challenging-Economic/dp/1250081556 https://www.amazon.com/Age-Cryptocurrency-Blockchain-Challen...

ashtonkem 5y ago
Doesn't Cryptocurrency have a significantly higher gini coefficient than most developed nations? Cryptocurrency might have not been created to make the rich richer, but that sure seems to be the outcome.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/07/29/gini.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/07/29/gini.html Vitalik answers this much more eloquently than I could. And I would say what is the Gini coefficient for stocks? It isn't great either. Crypto is in its infancy. Bitcoin was created in 2009. What was the Gini coefficient for the first US dollars, the Continentals, in 1775? I'm going to assume most went to those closest to and believing in that new currency. I make no apologies or excuses for crypto. I fully admit it isn't perfect. But I only state what it could be and dream of the future. That future I dream of is a more equitable society.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    > But in an internet community, measured inequality can come from two sources: (i) inequality in total resources available to different participants, and (ii) inequality in level of interest in participating in the community. Oh man, that is some seriously shaky foundations to rest your argument on. It also only holds for very early day cryptocurrencies; nowadays the main thing that limits your ability to hold a lot of crypto is not interest, but how much disposable income you've got. Maybe if you intended your cryptocurrency to remain niche this argument might be fine, but if your currency is supposed to replace fiat (as Bitcoin claims) then that argument is pure unadulterated bullshit. All it's saying is that inequality is fine because it's about who cared earlier, please ignore all the people that bought in with USD. I suspect that Vitalk knows he's playing a rhetorical trick here, he's too smart to not be aware of that. > The average person with $15 in fiat currency is poor and is missing out on the ability to have a good life. The average person with $15 in cryptocurrency is a dabbler who opened up a wallet once for fun. Inequality in level of interest is a healthy thing; every community has its dabblers and its full-time hardcore fans with no life. So if a cryptocurrency has a very high Gini coefficient, but it turns out that much of this inequality comes from inequality in level of interest, then the number points to a much less scary reality than the headlines imply. Yeah, except if your currency "wins" and replaces fiat, then that dabbler becomes a new feudal lord, and everyone who didn't have "interest" starves. Not really a comforting argument in that context, is it? Worse still if that "dabbler" "dabbled" because they had spare cash to spare; e.g. if they were already rich. > Cryptocurrencies, even those that turn out to be highly plutocratic, will not turn any part of the world into anything close to dystopia A. I do not trust this argument coming from someone who is in fact a plutocrat of a crypto currency.
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ashtonkem 5y ago

Doesn't Cryptocurrency have a significantly higher gini coefficient than most developed nations? Cryptocurrency might have not been created to make the rich richer, but that sure seems to be the outcome.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/07/29/gini.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/07/29/gini.html Vitalik answers this much more eloquently than I could. And I would say what is the Gini coefficient for stocks? It isn't great either. Crypto is in its infancy. Bitcoin was created in 2009. What was the Gini coefficient for the first US dollars, the Continentals, in 1775? I'm going to assume most went to those closest to and believing in that new currency. I make no apologies or excuses for crypto. I fully admit it isn't perfect. But I only state what it could be and dream of the future. That future I dream of is a more equitable society.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  > But in an internet community, measured inequality can come from two sources: (i) inequality in total resources available to different participants, and (ii) inequality in level of interest in participating in the community. Oh man, that is some seriously shaky foundations to rest your argument on. It also only holds for very early day cryptocurrencies; nowadays the main thing that limits your ability to hold a lot of crypto is not interest, but how much disposable income you've got. Maybe if you intended your cryptocurrency to remain niche this argument might be fine, but if your currency is supposed to replace fiat (as Bitcoin claims) then that argument is pure unadulterated bullshit. All it's saying is that inequality is fine because it's about who cared earlier, please ignore all the people that bought in with USD. I suspect that Vitalk knows he's playing a rhetorical trick here, he's too smart to not be aware of that. > The average person with $15 in fiat currency is poor and is missing out on the ability to have a good life. The average person with $15 in cryptocurrency is a dabbler who opened up a wallet once for fun. Inequality in level of interest is a healthy thing; every community has its dabblers and its full-time hardcore fans with no life. So if a cryptocurrency has a very high Gini coefficient, but it turns out that much of this inequality comes from inequality in level of interest, then the number points to a much less scary reality than the headlines imply. Yeah, except if your currency "wins" and replaces fiat, then that dabbler becomes a new feudal lord, and everyone who didn't have "interest" starves. Not really a comforting argument in that context, is it? Worse still if that "dabbler" "dabbled" because they had spare cash to spare; e.g. if they were already rich. > Cryptocurrencies, even those that turn out to be highly plutocratic, will not turn any part of the world into anything close to dystopia A. I do not trust this argument coming from someone who is in fact a plutocrat of a crypto currency.

deleted 5y ago

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