Re: Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc]

On Tue, Jul 7, 2015 at 3:50 PM Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:

2015-07-08 7:27 GMT+09:00 Sean Lynch :

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What? Bitcoin exists so that rich people in western countries

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especially the US can become even richer. So far it worked pretty well.

Really? What rich person has gotten richer through Bitcoin so far? Remittances seem like the biggest use of Bitcoin at the moment. Sure, there's plenty of speculation, but your claim that Bitcoin's purpose is to make the rich richer is also speculation. And FUD.

Yours would the Uncertainty and Doubt, I see.

Bitcoin is cold hard money - therefore benefiting those that can exploit it best. The most capital you have, the better you can exploit it. Therefore, the wealthy stand more to benefit from Bitcoin than anyone else. Any other effect would indicate softness of Bitcoin or some human issue. It does prevent (certain forms of) suppression; it's very hard to censor financial transactions on the Bitcoin network. It also provides a great deal of financial and administrative utility to all in similar quantity, it levels the playing field of the poor/rich somewhat.

Perhaps my response was a bit hyperbolic, but that is a very different claim than "Bitcoin exists so that rich people in western countries especially the US can become even richer."