Deflationary, decentralised? Sorry for posting here but…
0 reactions
Deflationary, decentralised?
Sorry for posting here but keeps getting nuked everywhere else.
Genuine question, at what point do we admit Bitcoin is essentially a store of value coin only?
Like everyone talks about decentralisation, but at the same time you’ve got players like Strategy (MicroStrategy) and BlackRock stacking massive amounts of BTC. Even if the network itself is decentralised if a big chunk of the supply ends up in a few hands, doesn’t that still create a kind of centralisation in terms of influence?
I get the counterargument that “it’s not centralised unless someone controls the protocol or the nodes,” and on a technical level that makes sense no single party can just change the rules or shut the network down. But that feels like a pretty narrow definition of decentralisation. If a small number of entities hold a large % of the supply, they don’t need to control the protocol to have outsized influence. They can move markets, shape narratives, influence liquidity, and indirectly affect how the ecosystem evolves.
Like if a few large holders decided to sell, accumulate or even just signal intent that has massive downstream effects on price and behaviour. And since price drives mining incentives, development funding, media coverage, and institutional participation, doesn’t that translate into a kind of soft power over the network anyway? It’s not protocol-level control but it’s still influence that smaller participants just don’t have.
So yeah, maybe no one can rewrite the code but if economic power is concentrated is that really meaningfully different from centralisation in practice?
And on the whole “alternative to fiat” idea… is it really though? Everything is still priced in dollars, and Bitcoin just seems to move with macro conditions tied to the dollar anyway. If its value is still basically measured against and reacting to the dollar system, is it actually independent or just sitting on top of it?
Same with the deflationary argument. I get the fixed supply, but in real terms it’s all over the place. If something can lose like 30–50% of its purchasing power in a short time, can it realistically function as “deflationary money” in any meaningful sense?
Even if Bitcoin somehow became the global reserve currency I don’t really see how that magically removes inflation. Prices can still go up because of credit, supply shocks, demand changes, all that stuff. So where does this idea come from that Bitcoin = no inflation?
And then there’s the practicality side of it. The base layer is slow, fees can spike, and it doesn’t exactly feel usable at scale. Lightning helps but it’s not exactly simple or frictionless for normal people. Are we actually expecting something like this to run a global financial system?
Not trying to hate, just feels like there are some big contradictions people kind of ignore. Curious how others here think about it.
#cryptocurrency
Sorry for posting here but keeps getting nuked everywhere else.
Genuine question, at what point do we admit Bitcoin is essentially a store of value coin only?
Like everyone talks about decentralisation, but at the same time you’ve got players like Strategy (MicroStrategy) and BlackRock stacking massive amounts of BTC. Even if the network itself is decentralised if a big chunk of the supply ends up in a few hands, doesn’t that still create a kind of centralisation in terms of influence?
I get the counterargument that “it’s not centralised unless someone controls the protocol or the nodes,” and on a technical level that makes sense no single party can just change the rules or shut the network down. But that feels like a pretty narrow definition of decentralisation. If a small number of entities hold a large % of the supply, they don’t need to control the protocol to have outsized influence. They can move markets, shape narratives, influence liquidity, and indirectly affect how the ecosystem evolves.
Like if a few large holders decided to sell, accumulate or even just signal intent that has massive downstream effects on price and behaviour. And since price drives mining incentives, development funding, media coverage, and institutional participation, doesn’t that translate into a kind of soft power over the network anyway? It’s not protocol-level control but it’s still influence that smaller participants just don’t have.
So yeah, maybe no one can rewrite the code but if economic power is concentrated is that really meaningfully different from centralisation in practice?
And on the whole “alternative to fiat” idea… is it really though? Everything is still priced in dollars, and Bitcoin just seems to move with macro conditions tied to the dollar anyway. If its value is still basically measured against and reacting to the dollar system, is it actually independent or just sitting on top of it?
Same with the deflationary argument. I get the fixed supply, but in real terms it’s all over the place. If something can lose like 30–50% of its purchasing power in a short time, can it realistically function as “deflationary money” in any meaningful sense?
Even if Bitcoin somehow became the global reserve currency I don’t really see how that magically removes inflation. Prices can still go up because of credit, supply shocks, demand changes, all that stuff. So where does this idea come from that Bitcoin = no inflation?
And then there’s the practicality side of it. The base layer is slow, fees can spike, and it doesn’t exactly feel usable at scale. Lightning helps but it’s not exactly simple or frictionless for normal people. Are we actually expecting something like this to run a global financial system?
Not trying to hate, just feels like there are some big contradictions people kind of ignore. Curious how others here think about it.
#cryptocurrency
| 3,000 mlx | |
| 6 | |
| 0 |