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Comment by yunohn | Hacker News Reader

> I suspect the people most vehemently lobbying against open-finance/Web-3.0 are those most deeply entrenched in the centralized power structures of the establishment.

Crypto shills are not the underprivileged, poor/homeless class of society either? They’re usually well-paid, educated tech/finance bros.

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Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if crypto holders started off as wealthier. They're certainly overly-represented amongst the wealthy now. But they'll be under-represented amongst the centralized establishment.

Some interesting facts about crypto asset holders:

Nearly half of Millennial millionaires have more than 25% of their wealth in crypto. Millennials have otherwise been floundering relative to older generations in terms of wealth. Crypto is a rare bright spot for the younger generations, so it's unsurprising much of the older establishment wants to crush it.

Also, 44% of crypto holders in the US are non-white: https://archive.md/slVPj

I recall crypto ownership is 2X more common amongst hispanic Americans, and 3X more common amongst black Americans, relative to white Americans.

> have more than 25% of their wealth in

.. highly volatile assets? Where has all this money come from, other than people bidding each other up?

Wealth is not always zero sum.. it could very well be a case of the pie getting larger.

> With regard to lottery play for respondents of various racial/ethnic groups, non-Hispanic whites and Native Americans had the highest proportion of gambling on the lottery (51% for each group); however, with regard to mean levels of gambling on the lottery, blacks and Native Americans had the highest averages (20.6 and 25 days, respectively).

> Those in the lowest fifth in terms of socioeconomic status (SES) had the “highest rate of lottery gambling (61%) and the highest mean level of days gambled in the past year (26.1 days).

The wealthy people are the ones selling the lottery tickets (/crypto).

https://journalistsresource.org/economics/research-review-lo...

Lottery tickets don't store value. Crypto assets do. The analogy therefore fails.

> Also, 44% of crypto holders in the US are non-white

Depending on how Hispanic people are counted, thats almost exactly in line with the 2020 census, which puts the non-hispanic white population at 57.8% [0]. I think if you adjust for the average age of cryptocurrency holders, 56% white would actually be more white than the demographics of the overall age group, which I think is not the point you were trying to make.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta...

The proportion of the US population that is white is 72% if hispanic whites are included. That would be more in line with the statistics I saw showing black and hispanic Americans are over-represented among crypto holders.

That's true. But it's also true that those that brush off the idea of whats essentially a checking account denominated in a currency of their choice (i.e. stablecoins) is unnecessary. They're usually well-paid, educated bros from a developed country where they have access to a well developed financial network, have banks in their neighborhood, have a stable currency and don't live under capital controls.

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