BTC is forever changed. Stop whining and take advantage of it.

TL;DR: The BTC market has undergone a fundamental change and we are never going back to the world of a year ago. This was bound to happen. But the fundamentals of the technology haven't changed, and Whale Dominance of the market is NOT the same thing as centralization. So get used to it, and adapt to the new environment!

Okay, now the long version:

A lot of us got involved with Bitcoin for philosophical reasons. Most of us who have been around for more than a year, I'd say, got involved with BTC because of what it offers in terms of freedom from the state, freedom from centralization, privacy, opposition to fractional reserve banking and inflation, etc.

You can all these old-timers the "Philosophical Bitcoiners."

And you can count me in that group. I got into BTC because I got sick of the government and big corporate interests screwing me over every few years with recessions, bailouts, tax laws that benefit the wealthy over the working man, etc.

But I always knew the "whales" would come, that eventually our own success would draw the wealthy over to BTC and they would begin manipulating and dominating the markets. In this recent post I explained how and why whales let us, the Philosophical Bitcoiners, take all the risk and do all the investing in building out this platform. Now that the whales have entered, we have to understand the shift in circumstances.

I see a lot of people whining about the current state of affairs, complaining that people don't invest in BTC for the right reasons any more, that folks are just buying BTC to try to get rich.

And yeah, thay annoys me as well. I WANT people to understand BTC, understand what makes it fundamentally different from any previous financial instrument in history. But the whales, specifically, don't care about ANY of that.

They fetishize BTC in the way they fetishize all commodities. That is to say:

When whales invest in Ford, they don't give a shit about the cars. They just want the stock to go up so they can make more money.

When whales invest in gold, they don't give a shit about the shiny rocks. They just want the price of gold to go up so they can make more money.

When whales by a company, they don't care about the workers or the customers. They just want the profits to go up so they can make more money.

This is a fundamental aspect of any market that allows people who have accumulated billions of dollars to enter -- because this is the only way to accumulate billions of dollars!

Look at the assets that are being disclosed belonging to Bill Gates. The man owns more farmland than anyone else in the USA. You think he knows anything about farming? You think he cares about farming? He owns a private jet company. You think he bought it because he's passionate about aviation? You think he runs his "foundation" because he actually gives a shit? No, they're all wealth accumulation vehicles which fetishize the commodities, activities, and philosophical underpinnings of whatever sectors Billy boy has entered.

Such it is with BTC. These financial institutions like Black Rock and Goldman Sachs and whatever other billionaires and corporations are getting involved don't give a shit about the philosophy and promise of BTC, they are entering the market because they want to make more money. This should come as a surprise to nobody, and everybody should see that things will never go back to the way they were, because the billionaires can throw their money around and manipulate the media to their own advantage, and there's nothing we can do to stop them.

That said, I'd like to push back against a few narratives I frequently see around here:

1. Whales manipulating and dominating the market is NOT the same thing as centralization. Centralization would mean that these entities can actually control the RULES of BTC. In order to do that they'd need to control 51% of the nodes and 51% of the hash rate, and the chances of that happening are extraordinarily slim, even for billionaires, because of the brilliance of BTC's design.
2. BTC is not "dead" because of manipulation by whales. In fact, right this very moment is probably one of the last times in history you'll be able to enter BTC with a good chance of benefitting the most as a smaller investor. You can "ride the whales" up, knowing that they're going to want a return on their investment.
3. The whales aren't trying to "kill" BTC because they're "afraid" of it. They see it as an opportunity to make more money, and they WILL make more money with BTC. The smart banks will get in and turn it to their advantage and sucker people into "buying" BTC with their proprietary virtual wallets, BTC-"backed" derivatives and financial systems will start to crop up, and all kinds of shell games will be played to con normal average people who don't understand the philosophy of BTC into thinking they own BTC when they don't. This will drive the price of BTC up without really benefitting the "suckers." We're already seeing the embryonic form of this kind of shit with things like "Binance Chain" and Robinhood's BTC "investment," etc.

The fact is, if you understand BTC, you will be able to take advantage of all the same benefits we always have. You will be able to really and truly own it, as long as you alone have the keys. The government can't seize it from you if you can keep your keys secret. It will always be anti-inflationary. It will always be decentralized. Nothing about the fundamentals has changed.

The only thing that has changed is that the price can be manipulated by whales (who will generally prefer to see the price go up over the long term) and a lot more people will be using it who don't understand it (which is just the nature of literally any currency or asset... most people who use fiat money don't understand fiat money, but that doesn't stop them from using it).

So, does it kinda suck that whales have entered BTC? Does this fundamentally change the BTC environment? Yes. But this is the cost of growth within the capitalist system. As long as individuals and corporations are able to accumulate billions of dollars this is always going to be the case. But BTC can't be fundamentally corrupted and sabotaged from within like the stock market and fiat money, which is a distinction we should all be aiming to leverage.

As always, don't invest more than you can afford to lose, and best of luck.