25 sats \ 4 replies \ @higuyslol 20 Apr 2022 \ on: Adversarial discussion bitcoin
For me, I'm worried that BTC will not be well distributed enough during our lifetime to be achieve it's ultimate goals.
Obviously most people keep their net worth secret, but some of the OGs could be worth billions of dollars and are still saying "we're still so early."
I am not someone who cares much about the wealth gap metric between rich and poor, but the reality is, a lot of people do.
I understand this is unconfiscatable, pseudonymous money, but the looming specter of making the richest people in the world more rich, by buying into our system will surely dissuade a ton of people.
My cynical side believes bitcoin will be a counter-culture currency for a very long time or bitcoiners will be persecuted for being too well off.
I have similar concerns over bitcoin distribution.
I think of layer 1 as defense and lighting layer 2 as offense:
layer 1 -- lindy effect: "life expectancy is proportionate to age"
layer 2 -- gini coefficient: "a measure of the distribution of wealth within a group"
I can't speed up time and accelerate lindy, but we all can impact gini. Helping people earn sats over lightning is the best way I can think of to impact distribution.
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It's true. Lightning really helps the idea that bitcoin is a rock you engrave into steel, bury in your backyard and never touch again. At the moment, it is still seen largely as an investment. Not everyone invests. But everyone buys and sells stuff. As bitcoinization increases, more circular economies will grow, especially in developing nations. This will get more sats more evenly distributed. Many people who have HODL in their twitter handles are super-pumped to buy a hat or a t-shirt with Lightning. Bitcoin evangelism is definitley alive and well, i've seen many tweets about people orangepilling their uber driver or waiter and tipping them in sats on a newly downloaded Blue or Muun Wallet
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That's a good argument. I will say most metrics for coin distribution are flawed, since they include exchange wallets, which may have coins owned by tens of thousands of customers.
I once heard someone talking about "the halving" say, the price would be a lot less volitile if instead of halving every 4 years, it had a smaller decrease every year. The thing is the volitility has done a great job of keeping institutions and nation states out thus far.
Fiat is pretty unequally distributed also. It's easier to get a head if you are already ahead, that won't change with bitcoin. However, in fiat, they get to change the rules. They can benefit by making riskier gambles, and socialize the losses by tax funded bailouts paid through inflation.
Austin Hill, who was a founder and former CEO of blockstream spoke on Peter McCormack's What Bitcoin Did about some things he said bitcoin doesn't fix. He was talking about the "Vulnerable World Theory," in which as technology increases, ie, someone can easily bioengineer a virus and fly it over someone's citadel walls with a drone they built in their basement, the world becomes increasingly fragile. This causes wealth inequality to be a larger and larger issue. He also said something to the effect of "technology aside, when in history has 'the haves' ever been able to build a wall big enough to keep out the 'havenots.'"
I am also reminded of Pete Rizzo, editor at Bitcoin Magazine, who is a self-proclaimed "Bitcoin Historian." He said that part of the reason he does what he does is because in the future, after hyperbitcoinization, there will be winners and losers, and many confused and upset people, and we all will have some explaining to do.
Bitcoin doesn't solve everything, but it levels the playing fields alot. It works through people acting in their own best economic interests to create a beautiful network of value. Still, there are some things that Bitcoin doesn't solve, and Bitcoiners may have to make decisions beyond their economic interests to ensure the continuity of the human species.
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I've heard a couple good arguments concerning this that we could use to counter the wealth gap narrative.
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Money/wealth gets you power. That's true for any system, no matter what you do. The difference with a Bitcoin standard is that power doesn't get you more money. In a fiat system, the feedback loop of power and money is what causes the wealth gap to increase so much.
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There are no bailouts in Bitcoin. The reason why the rich stay rich and get richer is because they have the cushion of monetary inflation in case they fall. With Bitcoin everyone is grounded. If you fall, you will skin your knees. Doesn't matter how rich you are. They will have to get up and try again like the rest of us. Because the ground is solid though, it gives us all a chance to rise.
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