Quote from: Abiky on May 30, 2025, 12:51:40 PM

Quote from: BenCodie on May 21, 2025, 01:32:16 AM

That is the big war. Bitcoin did a very rare thing by being heavily distributed before banks got a chance to take too much ownership of it. Now it will be interesting to see if they try to take as much ownership as they can of Bitcoin and absorb the market, or if they will always be chasing Bitcoin's innovative tail. It depends how much private wealth can be deployed and if people are willing to sell enough Bitcoin to make power centralization a concern. Right now, with coinbase, microstrategy, blackrock, fidelity and others with a combined ownership of 10-15%+ of the entire bitcoin supply, it is an interesting and pivotal peroid we are in regarding this war.

Yes. Centralization by banks and "Wall Street" is near. Only if they manage to control network nodes and hashrate as well. With most of the circulating supply in their hands, they will have the leverage they need to "bribe" developers in the path they want Bitcoin to head into. The community must stand strong by preventing these giants from ruining Satoshi's original vision for Bitcoin. Otherwise, BTC will lose.

Thank goodness, most people still hold BTC, so chances of centralization are slim. Let's not forget that centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Binance are the dominant forces of the crypto market. They can manipulate prices and crash the market if they want to. Like you've said, it'll be an interesting war to watch. Let's hope Bitcoin wins in the long run.

The more likely scenario is manipulation by banks and wall street in order to try and accumulate more coins for cheap. Depending how desperate they get, determines how desperate their measures go both within the Bitcoin market and outside of it. This is nothing new, during earlier times where people and entities competed/fought for rule over assets and commodities, banks and wall street were known to play dirty. No different this time.

Centralization through ownership of supply (which would effect the market, not network) is a possibility if people sell to them. Centralization of the network is a much larger and more complicated task, requiring control over territory and influencing/controlling both local and international mining operations.

Quote from: BitHodlers on May 31, 2025, 01:42:57 AM

Quote from: BenCodie on May 21, 2025, 02:44:03 AM

Obviously you are not aware of banking-related officials who have repeatedly tried to tarnish Bitcoin's name between its inception and today. Obviously you are also unaware that ownership is power, and that the more Bitcoin you own, the more power you have over its market (especially in the context of large institutions who own 5%+ of the supply).

Nice try. Control of the market price of Bitcoin, does not give you any power over Bitcoin.

Just like any market, the more control over the supply, the more control over the market. Control over supply gives you influence/control over market price. Having control over that gives you control over the profitability of mining operations. Having control over that allows you to gain control over mining operations as they turn unprofitable...thus enabling a growing control over the network itself. It's wrong to say or think that control over Bitcoin's supply does not give any power of Bitcoin.

Quote from: BitHodlers on May 31, 2025, 01:42:57 AM

Quote from: BenCodie on May 21, 2025, 02:44:03 AM

These are dangers of centralized ownership of the supply.

What you are not properly taking into account is that while these institutions hold Bitcoin for other people, it is still a single entity holding all of the Bitcoin, thus they are a point of failure whether it be by their intention to be bad actors (wouldn't put it past BlackRock, how do you think they became the largest MNC in the world? By being honest and by the book?) or because of a circumstance out of their control, such as a hack or social engineering like we're seeing with Coinbase...or, like a technical event like a hard fork and Blackrock choosing the fork over the original Bitcoin.

Sure and I agree partially, but there is a but. We can't properly calculate the total value of crypto that was scammed or stolen from individual users. But if we could, it is very probably that the amount stolen from individuals outweighs the amount stolen from large platforms or custodians in recent time. Right? There was a report just recently about a potential $300 million hack which was converted to XMR. You are underestimating the risks of asking people to be their own bank, people who own many number of devices, but do not know how to use them. The elderly people do not know how to use them, the young people do not know either. If they did, these things would not be happening.

Custodians are inevitable in such a large asset class that requires both knowledge and expertise, no amount of whining or complaining will stop custodians from appearing and keeping the majority of the ownership. That said, the bigger the custodian the more extreme security measures do I expect. They have no reason to touch wallets or move large amounts basically ever. They know what they are doing, and on the other hand you can trick many users with a simple enter your seed phrase to claim the biggest ever space jackpot. Cheesy

Crypto scammed from individuals are lessons to prevent it from happening again. In the future, scams might be such an insignificant metric as individual distribution continues to spread far and wide, and as people get smarter...though custody and protection from breaches/attacks will always be a topic for as long as there are custodians who have enough to be targeted.

If people do not know how to use Bitcoin, they should learn. Not trust a custodian to do it for them. It's not hard to securely store Bitcoin, it definitely does not require expertise. It just requires some learning, and with the right guide this learning takes very little time.