- 2.4 million bitcoins are lost forever [0]. Their owners, for one reason or another, can't access their wallets. No insurance, no guarantees, nothing.
- 1.1 million are owned by a mysterious person who sits at the top of the pyramid [0].
- 2.3 million belong to investors and speculators [0] (who, I'm guessing, make money by pumping and dumping).
- 1 million are owned by banks [0], the same institutions that the mysterious man at the top of the pyramid, who created the "system of trust" said couldn't be trusted [2].
- 1.6 million are held by whales [0]: billionaires, money launderers, drug dealers [5], and so on.
- 1.4 million are still left to be mined [0], but only a handful of rich people with servers worth millions can actually mine them [3].
- The rest are owned by individuals who see it as a long term investment [0].
- It's a digital currency most people don't use to buy or sell anything. The only ones making transactions are banks, investors, and the rich [1][3][4].
- Worst of all, banks, investment firms and billionaires with ties to politicians and policymakers are likely to find out first when major regulations or shifts are coming and they'll be able to sell early and minimise losses, while everyone else finds out after the fact. In a system that was meant to be decentralised and fair, the people with the most power and access still end up with the advantage.
– And if you own even a tiny bit of bitcoin and read something like this, you get upset because your investment's at risk and you end up siding with the banks, investors, and the rich to keep the system going.
[1] Research from 2025 has found that the popularity and application of cryptocurrencies have not only promoted financial innovation, but also exacerbated wealth inequality. In other words, blockchain developers have made the gap between rich and poor even worse. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/391506544_Cryptocur...
[2] A quote from Satoshi's forum message that he posted on Feb. 11, 2009. It explains the goal of creating Bitcoin and why using banks demands too much trust with no guaranteed positive outcome. https://u.today/did-satoshi-nakamoto-foresee-current-bank-cr...
Agreed, by and large. Furthermore, Nakamoto wanted to disintermediate intermediaries.
Instead, now we have many centralised exchanges, centralised stablecoin issuers, centralised custodians, centralised miners, etc. So many additional intermediaries, providing so little value. Remarkable.
Exactly. Like I said in another comment, the system was supposed to be decentralised and fair, but fast forward 15 years, and it's still the same players with the most power end up with the advantage.
Cryptocurrencies are not like other forms of money. They don't have intrinsic value. Cryptocurrencies are only valuable insofar as they are well distributed.
What did the banks win? The nerds of the world sold them fool's gold.
What intrinsic value does other forms of money have? It's at best a promissory note which can freely be devalued by the promises.
2008 and the subsequent QE demonstrated that surely? Look to Argentina, Zimbabwe and numerous other periods of time and countries for when the value of money became frankly worthless relative to it's previous value.
The total amount of Bitcoin held by all DEXs is a relatively small fraction compared to centralized exchanges. And crypto exchanges and funds are typically backed by large corporations and banks. For example, 51% of Coinbase shares are owned by a bank.
My faith in Satoshi died the day I pictured him in a suit, shaking hands as JPMorgan's newest partner.
The way I see it now, Satoshi didn't create a system for the people. He created a system for the rich, where regular people are just resources doing the work, keeping the network running and helping the rich stay rich.
Sure, but the people who value Bitcoin at 120k and have the power to move markets aren't average people, they're banks, investment firms and billionaires. In a system that was supposed to be decentralised and fair, it's still the same players with the most power, access and early information who end up with the advantage. That's the problem.
Yes, the system itself is decentralised, but if most people depend on centralised exchanges and a handful of whales can move the market, how is that any different from the system we already had?
Blockchain is capitalism at its finest. It rewards risk because risk-taking drives innovation, builds businesses, and creates jobs. Banks fund that because it grows the economy, and they make money on the upside. So yeah, risk-takers get the incentives, and thanks to those incentives they end up siding with the banks and preaching the system they're now part of.
Imagine the cost if JPMorgan had to run all that compute themselves: power, hardware, cooling, security, redundancy. It'd be massive.
So what did the mysterious man at the top of the pyramid do? He got the public to do it. By distributing the computational load and offering tokens as rewards, he turned millions of people into the infrastructure. They pay for the hardware, run the nodes, and keep the system alive for free.
Satoshi knew exactly what they were doing and why. That kind of precision doesn't come from guesswork. So chances are we'll never know who they are.
Same goes for the economist who inspired by Milton Friedman turned the idea of future-income-based education into the student loan system we have today.
- 2.4 million bitcoins are lost forever [0]. Their owners, for one reason or another, can't access their wallets. No insurance, no guarantees, nothing.
- 1.1 million are owned by a mysterious person who sits at the top of the pyramid [0].
- 2.3 million belong to investors and speculators [0] (who, I'm guessing, make money by pumping and dumping).
- 1 million are owned by banks [0], the same institutions that the mysterious man at the top of the pyramid, who created the "system of trust" said couldn't be trusted [2].
- 1.6 million are held by whales [0]: billionaires, money launderers, drug dealers [5], and so on.
- 1.4 million are still left to be mined [0], but only a handful of rich people with servers worth millions can actually mine them [3].
- The rest are owned by individuals who see it as a long term investment [0].
- It's a digital currency most people don't use to buy or sell anything. The only ones making transactions are banks, investors, and the rich [1][3][4].
- Worst of all, banks, investment firms and billionaires with ties to politicians and policymakers are likely to find out first when major regulations or shifts are coming and they'll be able to sell early and minimise losses, while everyone else finds out after the fact. In a system that was meant to be decentralised and fair, the people with the most power and access still end up with the advantage.
– And if you own even a tiny bit of bitcoin and read something like this, you get upset because your investment's at risk and you end up siding with the banks, investors, and the rich to keep the system going.
The way I see it, the banks won.
---
[0] As banks buy up bitcoins, who else are the 'Bitcoin whales'? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68434579.amp
[1] Research from 2025 has found that the popularity and application of cryptocurrencies have not only promoted financial innovation, but also exacerbated wealth inequality. In other words, blockchain developers have made the gap between rich and poor even worse. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/391506544_Cryptocur...
[2] A quote from Satoshi's forum message that he posted on Feb. 11, 2009. It explains the goal of creating Bitcoin and why using banks demands too much trust with no guaranteed positive outcome. https://u.today/did-satoshi-nakamoto-foresee-current-bank-cr...
[3] Prior to May 2021 Bitcoin miners were hugely concentrated, with around 60% to 70% located in China. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/bitcoin-who-ow...
[4] Bitcoin ownership is concentrated among the rich. Research showed that at the end of 2020, there were 1,000 “clusters” controlling 2 million bitcoins. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/bitcoin-who-ow...
[5] Between February 2011 and July 2013, drug dealers operating on Silk Road facilitated sales amounting to 9,519,664 bitcoins. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)