I'm in here for quite a while, both in this forum and this planet so I got the chance to study some persons, including myself. I have studied the behavior, beliefs and needs both in pleasant and unpleasant situations. And I have found out that we're ultimately driven by greed. And that's very difficult to control.
Now, to be short. My issue is that greed wasn't in the bitcoin ecosystem from the begging. No. First people here, the early adopters (including CPU miners), we're regular people, most of them with no significant wealth. They, we, were here because wanted and needed a change, needed freedom. At those times people would trade 10,000 BTC for a pizza and be happy. But now, things have changed, most early adopters are now rich and they are rich even if they have been scammed for some, lost some while speculating or spent some. They are rich because this thing, greed, came into this system and new people wanted also to be part of this new thing. This made price to go up, and while it goes up, the very early and early users are now filthy rich.
But things don't stop here... The first ones or the ones that had lots of fiat and were able to buy thousands, are now the most richest 500 owners, controlling about 35% of all bitcoins. Let's leave the ones that bought many coins just recently, they were already rich. Let's focus on the first ones, the ones that "traded" in the single digits, the early adopters and miners. Most of them have been corrupted in such way they forgot that they found about bitcoin because of passion and desire for better and not for money, they forgot that they were poor (or at least not wealthy) when they started. And the problem with that, is that we have lost good men in favor of speculative business and fade businesses that bring nothing in the world, but only take.
And now, new people, driven out of greed, hope prices of 10,000 dollars this year, because they own a few coins and thus would have more dollars. But, think of the few-tens-of-thousands owners. They'll be even richer but without any direction, because most of their wealth is won not worked. They now started businesses (exchanges, precious metals, shops) to gather more wealth. Some of them got into mind-twisting schemes, taking advantage from other people, manipulating markets and doing such maneuvers.
I'm not being philosophical about the taste of the bread you worked in the mine for but I'm trying to point out that with great power, really comes great responsibility. And not the responsibility of feeding children of Africa but the responsibility of not feeding your ego.
In the end, my opinion is that wealth distribution in this ecosystem is too concentrated in a few hands and needs more dispersion before we move to higher levels. We need a solid economy, based on goods and services and not on speculation. Speculation is pure greed and brings nothing.
Very well said! The first post beneath this made me groan and I lost the will to read any further into this thread.
Bitcoin is a pyramid shaped pile of rats. When no new rats are piling into the pyramid, they are all trying to devour each other to get or keep themselves as high up the pile as possible. I hate Bitcoin, I hate watching blatant manipulation play out in the market (unless it makes me win) and I hate the mode of thought and behaviour that it demands of me as I trade it in order to sometimes turn profits that I would never get for actually working or being otherwise productive. It might be fair to suggest that the ethos of Bitcoin reflects that of the community that has adopted it, but the fact that 'Satoshi' holds 12% of all Bitcoins in existence tells you all you need to know about the Bitcoin ethos right from the start.
Bitcoin is the crypto-spawn of Satan.