I stumbled upon the article "What happens if bitcoin succeeds?" in which John Danielsson, Director of the Center for Systemic Risk at the London School of Economics, argues that the inequality between rich and poor will be further exacerbated.
https://voxeu.org/article/what-happens-if-bitcoin-succeedsThat leaves us with two interesting questions. What happens to the holders of bitcoin? And what happens to everybody else?
To begin with, the current owners of bitcoin will become the wealthiest people in the world, rivalling the kings and emperors that ruled over empires in centuries past. They literally will own all the money. They can buy anything they want. There aren't that many of them. Compared to the multitudes that own assets today via all the pension funds and mutual funds and the rest, it is a tiny group of people.
So, a sharp increase in inequality is an inevitable consequence of bitcoin success. And unlike the richest people of today – the Jeff Bezoses and Elon Musks, whose wealth comes from creating companies that benefit most of us – the bitcoin aristocrats will get their rank just by buying early. They will make no contribution to society.
And again, these conclusions are that bitcoin is a bubble, and because it is volatile, it will not be able to equalize with money.
So what are the risks of bitcoin going forward? Is it really capable of seriously dividing society and causing even greater inequality?