Most people do things because it's what's in vogue. My guess is that half of the people who own bitcoin now didn't even think of if as anything when it was below $1000.

Herd mentality is lame, ya. But a different thing than hierarchy. If I watch a show because all the other cool kids are doing it, I'm not being ordered to do it.

Herd mentality might actually be good in some ways too. It makes it easier to lock in to things that are good. I wonder if even basic things like "don't kick people when they walk by you in the street" might be disagreed with sometimes if people weren't following the norm.

Regarding Bitcoin it might be true that most of the people are en vogue, but they'll be smaller stakes. Most of the money is a stronger hand.

But we both know the price is driven more by speculation than value.

Well, it's kind of one in the same. It's speculation that it has value.

I think sometimes people think of speculation as random fidgeting around. There's a guessing and gambling element of it, but it's based on guessing what the value is. And if it was too high or too low, there'd be opportunity for someone who knows better to long or short it.

So anyone who believes it's random noise should feel like there's a lot of money to be made with shorts. Good luck.

Some 'powers' that be are 'in charge'. If some large holders empty their bags, so many struggling folks would be burnt. So burnt, they might hate anything crypto

As facebook's Libra has shown us, power begat power. The power behind Libra is enough to trigger discussions from world leaders. Imagine they were backing bitcoin instead?

Maybe I should have picked different words to make them write on the chalkboard. I meant power and hierarchy as in like top-down orders. Ordering or controlling another person's will or choices.

Keynesians can't imagine economies functioning and the world going 'round without this.

What you're talking about.. may fit a definition of 'power' but is a different thing than what I meant.. I'd maybe call it 'influence'.

And the influence that many of these large players have, while technically fine and peaceful, probably result from the control I'm talking about. More money is funneled up top into fewer hands, because of the control-freak economic policies.

(People think the policies are there to keep everything running correctly, but it's really just rules that favor the largest corporations who are in the best position to lobby and bribe government officials.)

Plus, countries going to war with each other can artificially enrich one (meaning, the entrenched, politically connected interests within it) at the expense of both country's common citizens.

In a peaceful world, wealth is more evenly spread and influence like this is harder to get.

The one thing that keeps btc going is that no one knows the founder. This is what makes it truly trust less. There's no central figure controlling it.

I don't agree with this. At all. I like that "Satoshi" rode off into the sunset. If there was a known founder it might be distracting to some people, early on anyways. But it doesn't truly matter. We could figure it out today, and it wouldn't mean that guy controls it in any way. It would just mean, oh, you're the guy who discovered this uncontrollable protocol, thanks.

If finding his identity would give him control... wouldn't that mean he already has control and we just don't know who it is that has control? I don't really get why you think this.

What keeps bitcoin going is what it inherently is. A mathematically secure way to send information back and forth without any party controlling it.

I remember reading somewhere that for most small-scale miners to break even, btc must stay around $6k. With rising power, tech and maintenance costs, btc might evolve to become a natural monopoly

The large mining companies will only become larger with each price pump

You mean bitcoin mining might evolve to be a natural monopoly.

(Which would be scary for Bitcoin itself but not exactly the same.)

I totally doubt it. I don't see why it would. It will evolve to be in more specialized hands, sure. But I don't know why there won't be lots of competition among those specialized hands.

Natural monopolies can occur with things like utilities, because there's a very small market relative to the startup costs. (Plus it would be weird to have multiple sets of electric lines running through your neighborhood and people would probably resist the new entrant.)

With bitcoin mining you service the whole economy from anywhere. To me it seems perfectly not suited to evolve into monopoly.

It would only evolve that way if someone out there is really amazing at bitcoin mining and no one else can figure out how they're doing it.

Lastly, the average folk doesn't care about the decentralized features and all that. (until they have a really bad experience with centralized systems). so at the end, it boils down to what they hear on the news, or what they friends are doing or what their religious leaders say.

Maybe. But the average person is never leading the way.

At the end, the world runs on hierarchy and power

Nah. It runs on the spontaneous order that emerges out of everyone's peaceful choices. Sociopaths leech off of it and give speeches and wear nice suits, but they aren't creating the order or any of the nice things we have.

I feel like a lot of your disagreement comes down to linguistics and what we mean by these words.

I'm not suggesting that the average person is steering the ship.

Rare people on the extremes have a disproportionately high impact on the world. Whether it's a discovery, an invention, a procedure, an idea, whatever, their behavior is peaceful and voluntary and not an order given to someone else. Controlling and ordering people is not the force that causes the world to be good.