"It's already under their control" is a pretty bold statement. I wouldn't ask you to prove it, but could you at least offer some evidence that helped you form that conclusion?
Absolutely. "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws."
Modern adaptation for crypto: "Give me control of a crypto's asset value and I care not who runs the network."
it's the same principle with bitcoin and any cryptocurrency. What people fail to understand is that when you tie a technology to economic factors (if the price of the coin goes up, the cost to communicate/use the network goes up as well) you're fundamentally handing the control of the network to those who control money. "Money" in this instance is tied to the global economic system.
Let's take an example. We've got a crypto which is part of a larger decentralized communications platform. All is well. It only takes 0.000341 of cryptoX to send a message. That's only 0.0000472 USD!
The network is thriving, everyone is having a great time and it's all secure and shit. "Uh-oh!" says the elite. "We've got a problem here! This network is too secure and effective! Let's fuck it up." They proceed to buy up large amounts of the crypto and do their typical currency manipulation thing. Now it's still 0.000341 of cryptoX to send a message on the network, but that 0.0000472 USD is now 0.21 USD. Meaning your application, which communicates 100 times per minute on the network, now costs you $21/minute to run, instead of $0.00472/minute.
Cryptos serve a very specific purpose. What they do, they do well. Their strength is in financial applications. A DLT is very valuable tool. But the problem is (and this is intentional by the elite) people want to use cryptos/DLT's as the answer to ALL problems related to decentralized/distributed tech. Look at something like IPFS w/IPFS-cluster (not filecoin). You've got a P2P solution which is highly scalable and requires zero crypto interation. Bandwidth is the budgeting tool. Not a crypto. And dammit if it doesn't work fucking beautifully.
TL;DR: Cryptos serve a specific, financial purpose. They are NOT the solution to "web3.0"/decentralized internet. Cryptos are being pushed as THE solution because they give ultimate control to the global economic system and thus the global elite.
They proceed to buy up large amounts of the crypto and do their typical currency manipulation thing.
What does that mean? If they buy up large amounts of crypto, that makes crypto rise in value. It might go from $40K USD to 60K USD. Is this something you think is bad for the crypto community? Cause I wouldn't mine... If they then "dump" they might "crash" the price from 60K to 40K USD. This would make the "cost in USD to send a transaction in BTC" drop from $.21USD back to $.00000472 USD, which would be good?
It doesn't really matter how they manipuate USD, because they're only manipulating USD. 1 BTC still equals 1 BTC. Our tie to USD is what allows them to fuck with all of these things. They can (and do, independent of Bitcoin) manipulate USD through fractional lending, bond buying, etc. etc. etc. They can't manipulate bitcoin. They can only manipuluate the BTC/USD relationship through their control of USD. When I step back and look at that, I say, "How can I get away from them fucking with me? Oh, USD is the problem. I want to get away from that."
Good point. Something that concerns me with Bitcoin is that anyone can see how much is in my account. Would love to see privacy coins become more of the norm.
You can create some obfuscation through using multiple addresses. But the Lightening Network is where privacy is really going to kick in. The concept is well understood, the system and apps just need to mature. Its like sending email in the mid-90's. It was cutting edge, blazing fast, and free, but only tech nerds used it because you had to use the command line to send them. Now everyone has email on a smart phone and the whole world uses it. Bitcoin, and the additional layers, are well on their way. It 5-10 years, the technology will mature to the point that everybody and their grandma can use it comfortably.
Except USD is the medium by which you acquire your crypto. If you control a majority of the crypto asset then you control who gets to have, and who gets to have not. Thus, you're able to artificially block people out of the network.
You've missed my point about how the price of the crypto increasing causes the cost of communication to increae along with it. Hence, it's not viable as the basis of a decentralized communication infrastructure.
I believe you're speaking about crypto in the purely financial sense. I am talking about the intended use of DLT's as the backbone of future decentralized infrastructure.
As a financial asset, it's good for the price to go up. If you're trying to use the crypto network for anything else, it's very very bad.
Bitcoin doesn't solve the distribution of wealth problem. There is no way to solve it. Different people have different intelligence, work ethic, and luck - all 3 contribute to varying amounts of accumulation of wealth. What bitcoin does do - is it creates a fair set of rules by which everyone must adhere. Whoever currently has a large amount of stored value is able to use that to acquire a larger amount of BTC than someone with less stored value. This isn't a manipulation of Bitcoin, this is a consequence of the manipulation of fiat. And it doesn't block anyone. You can buy $1.00 USD worth of bitcoin if you'd like. And in 10 years the purchasing power won't be what it would have been if you kept it in USD...
USD is also not the only method to acquire crypto, its just one of the most obvious and with the least friction because money is good at buying things and people have USD. Bitcoin is mined all over the world, anyone can do it, they just have to overcome the barrier to entry, which has gotten significantly higher since so many people want bitcoin now. There are also jobs that pay in bitcoin. Obviously this is rare, but bitcoin is still young, we're very early.
I didn't miss your point about how the price of crypto increasing causes the cost of communication to increase, I just didn't see how that was overly relevant. That's one specific use case that may not be well suited to use bitcoin based on where bitcoin currently is in its evolution.
I don't think bitcoin is even close to fairly valued. I think we're still in a price discovery phase. During this phase, we'll have wild swings. During this phase, I believe its going to go up wildly in the future, so I hold onto my bitcoin and I spend my fiat. If I'm right and it goes up wildly, it would have been pretty silly spending a bunch of this incredibly valuable finite asset on decentralized infrastructure when you can just spend USD on it instead. Once bitcoin reaches maturity, I believe the Lightening Network will be better equipped for that use case than USD. But I fully acknowledge it isn't there yet.
So yes, I am mostly considering bitcoin as a financial asset right now. It needs to become a rock solid financial asset first. Build a strong foundation, then build on top of that.
Just because its not ready for this doesn't mean its a failed project. There was a time when Satoshi said Bitcoin wasn't ready to be used to donate to Wikileaks.
I advise WikiLeaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You can only get change, but the heat you carry will destroy us at this stage
But that doesn't mean it would never be a good fit for that use case.
Its not done maturing, but its on the most solid path.
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