[spiffydave]

Those in power fear anything out of their control. See what's happening with the infrastructure bill and crypto as the latest example.

On the other hand, us little people should support anything that gives the average person a fighting chance against the rich and powerful.

[wwweston]

Cryptocurrency is more likely to become a powerful tool to the rich and powerful with even less accountability than there is now than it is to become an incredible boon to the "average person." There's a difference between distributed and decentralized. Money and power can buy a lot of the distribution.

And what, exactly, do you think you're fighting?

Inflation or inflationary policies? Places to park money that are better than bits or gold have existed for a long time.

Surveillance? An indelible ledger has its downsides here.

Technology is more often a magnifier of existing human dynamics rather than a qualitative change. Especially one that seeks to replace existing tech. If you think it's going to produce a fundamental change, why is this different?

[SantalBlush]

I think it's the new sales pitch for pyramid schemes: "Buy and hodl, and together we'll fight the machine!"

Well, we'll need a lot of help from the likes of Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey, but it's totally all about helping the little guy.

[sgt101]

>us little people should support anything that gives the average person a fighting chance against the rich and powerful.

I don't think that I have a chance in heaven or hell to navigate a completely opaque ecosystem where wash trading sets the value minute to minute and the mechanisms of realizing that value are run to make money off the realisation.

[iratewizard]

Even in crypto, wash trading is illegal. It is also significantly more prohibitively expensive to wash trade a security with a market cap of $750T. If you were to try wash trading from a country where it's legal, you might be able to get away with it. But at that point you might as well wash trade in forex.

[jorblumesea]

Jackson Palmer, creator of Doge Coin, summarizes why he thinks this is a false narrative:

https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1415353986392072196?re...

I tend to agree. There are legitimate use cases, but overall it's unclear whether "the little guys" are really the main use case or how much the average Nigerian (or anyone else except the ultra wealthy) might benefit.

Now if your point is that some wealthy elites want to take power away from other wealthy elites, I'd say this is a more accurate take on the situation. For example, being able to circumvent taxes, or being able to manipulate markets on a global scale.

[spiffydave]

Anyone can buy crypto. Not understanding how it's only for wealthy elites.

And Mr. Palmer is out of crypto. Good for him. And the solution to reign in fiat-based crony capitalism is what?

I 100% agree with the premise that the ultra-wealthy are finally getting on board with crypto and will pollute it with the same manipulation they've used in other markets. But that still doesn't mean it can't be used by the average person to build wealth if done correctly.

[0x000000001]

Why does anyone care what Jackson Palmer thinks?

[quadcore]

Well apparently it's taken people out of poverty in Nigeria. Now I agree it's a tax problem. Coulnt smart contracts solve that?

[bko]

Can I have an ELI5 on the infra bill and crypto? I keep seeing it come up on my twitter feed and I read a few articles, but it seems to be moving very fast. Is it just about taxes and squeezing crypto owners w/ realized gains for taxes?

[spiffydave]

Here's my rough explanation:

Provisions were added into the bill that would require "know your customer" type requirements and taxation of crypto exchanges but were written so poorly that the requirements could be extrapolated to crypto miners, staking, etc.

This is what happens when people who don't understand the technology in the first place try to write legislation at the last minute to insert into a bill that has nothing to do with crypto.

Amendments have been proposed to try and clarify the bill, but there are multiple amendments that are "worse" or "better" for crypto. Guess which one Janet Yellen is pushing? (after receiving millions from big banks for "speaking engagements."

[wmf]

No, they say it's about taxes but there's much more in it. The bill appears to require everyone in crypto (exchanges, miners, stakers, maybe even software developers) to do KYC on every transaction. This either requires massive technical changes or more likely all those entities would leave the US.

[danmaz74]

A lot of people think that the power of the state, even in Western democracies, favors the rich and powerful against the little guy, through corruption and regulatory capture. What they don't realise is that, even in the much less than perfect state of our democracies and rule of law, the little guy is much more protected than any anarcho capitalistic system you could possibly create, where the rich and powerful won't even need to corrupt any officials: they will just use their personal police (or army) to enforce their power direcly, a bit like in the far west, or possibly like some kind of cyberpunk neo-medieval future.

[spiffydave]

I think your argument is a very nice strawman. No one is endorsing an "anarcho capitalistic system" here.

What we're saying is that having an alternative to fiat is some people's only hope when the government can close your accounts, inflate the currency, etc.