Joseph H Sadove
2 min readJun 7, 2019

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Oh boy.
1. You do realize that there are various estimates out there, but the most modest is that 40% of bitcoin is owned by less than 1,000 people. And the remainder is indeterminate since the largest segment of wallets are held by exchanges and these are often the same people (and their relatives) across 3 of the main exchanges.
2. You do realize that the Argentinian, Zimbabwean, or Venezuelan “interest” is essentially all money laundering by elites and regime insiders, right? And therefore the only people with joy (the norm in undemocratic corrupt societies) are those part of the corruption and political dysfunction.

I looked through the stories you provided links to. There’s a mix of half-decent to appalling. This is the one that I would pick to remark on in order to keep things short and go to the heart of the matter: “6 Reasons Why People Still Aren’t Buying Bitcoin”
All of these are what I would call transactional reasons. In other words, there is no trace of a moral dimension. But there is always a moral dimension to money and always has been. The control over money is most acutely moral. As I noted above, the economies where you point out (Yippeee!!) Bitcoin is experiencing serious uptake are all corrupt and the governments are central to that. Giving those with money (i.e., access to valuable commodities and USD, and advanced knowledge of currency devaluations, etc.) an easy ability to safely convert and move about their ill-gotten wealth seems immoral.
The pseudononymous Nakamoto thought the worse thing a government could do is manage a currency’s value. I think the worse things a government can do is be undemocratic and poorly run its economy.
In well-functioning democracies, crypto will just attract fools, gamblers (often the same) and opportunists to its argument it’s an investment. In undemocratic and corrupt societies it will attract the insiders and plunderers. If you are promoting crypto, then this latter is your crowd and you are helping them avoid suffering the consequences of their actions.
Reason #7 Why Some People Aren’t Buying Bitcoin: it is immoral.

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