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Comment by jcbrand | Hacker News Reader

With Bitcoin, you've had ten years to acquire some, in multiple different ways. It's about as fair as one can hope for while being permissionless and not requiring identification.

In the early days Bitcoin was given away for free via faucets, you just had to create a wallet

The existing fiat currencies suffer the same issue. It's called the Cantillon effect. People who are closest to newly created currency units (mostly financial insiders) pay lower interest rates and have more buying power with that money. They can also immediately turn around and lend the currency out at higher rates, pocketing the difference.

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> you've had ten years to acquire some

That makes it a ten-year-old pyramid scheme. It may be born from noteworthy ideals, but its flaws have become more apparent over the years. Stephen Diehl succinctly puts why the bubble has lasted so long:

“Writing about bitcoin for a lay audience is challenging. If people know enough about tech alone they might think there's no problem, if they know enough about finance alone they might think there's no problem. If people know enough about both then they know it's all a big scam.” —https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1363898199010852869

> The existing fiat currencies suffer the same issue.

Bitcoin touting to be the future of money while having the same if not more problems than fiat currencies is exactly why it deserves all the scrutiny it can get.

> Bitcoin touting to be the future of money while having the same if not more problems than fiat currencies is exactly why it deserves all the scrutiny it can get.

I'm totally on board that Bitcoin should be scrutinized and examined critically.

Concerning the Cantillon effect, in the fiat system, the beneficiaries are the already rich and well connected insiders.

Recent central bank monetary interventions are major drivers of inequality by pushing up the asset prices of the rich while the poor suffer joblessness and inflation.

With Bitcoin, new units are created in fierce and open competition, and not handed out to insiders.

>in the fiat system, the beneficiaries are the already rich and well connected insiders.

Same with crypto“currencies”, hence why they're a pyramid scheme.

>Recent central bank monetary interventions are major drivers of inequality by pushing up the asset prices of the rich while the poor suffer joblessness and inflation.

Again, crypto“currencies” do the exact same thing; increasing inequality by creating another elite who hoard their wealth.

>With Bitcoin, new units are created in fierce and open competition, and not handed out to insiders.

New units are mined by the already filthy rich because mining on regular PCs has become obsolete.

> It's about as fair as one can hope for

Emitting half of all bitcoin in just the first 4 years is hardly fair. One would hope for a more Gold like distribution, such as a pure linear emission. This still has a finite soft total supply [1].

[1] https://john-tromp.medium.com/a-case-for-using-soft-total-su...

The supply of gold on earth is finite.

An infinitely growing cryptocurrency presupposes perpetual economic growth, which requires ever increasing population and resource extraction.

Maybe that's realistic if we start colonizing Mars and mining asteroids, but it's not possible on earth alone.

If limited supply turns out to be an issue, competing currencies can be used to augment supply, it's basically already the case.

it is mining since thousands years. That is finite time for you?)

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