If you read my last post you will see a list of things I believe will happen if bitcoin became the global currency. One thing I did not mention much about on that list is the shift of power bitcoin will cause. As we know, money is power, Donald Trump being living proof, but if bitcoin became the world currency, who would be the most powerful influence in this world?
Currently Bill Gates is known as the richest man in the world. His net worth is around 90 billion dollars which makes up around~0.13% of the global market cap. For one man, that is a lot of power. But if bitcoin replaced all modern day currency, who would be on top? With only 21 million bitcoins that will ever be in circulation, you would need not even 25,000 bitcoin (currently around 65 Million USD worth) to have the same power as Bill Gates. That seems like a lot of bitcoin for most of us, but not for the early miners and investors. With normal people having this much influence, times will be very different than right now. Government would have to start listening to the people if they wanted to survive. There could actually be a chance at true democracy.
Even though this all sounds great, there is one thing that always crosses my mind that everyone seems to overlook; there is one bitcoin wallet that holds one million bitcoin. That is almost 5% of the total amount of bitcoin. Though it is true that there are no transactions made on the wallet and no one can say for sure who the owner is, but is that a good reason to overlook this peculiarity? Lets say that this wallet belongs to Satoshi Nakamoto, like most people believe, would he/she really do something like that by accident? What if Satoshi knew how big bitcoin would become and put these coins aside for when the time is right? If this wallet stays silent till bitcoin becomes the world currency, the owner of the wallet will potentially be the most powerful person in the world. With almost 5% of the world's wealth owned by this person, there's no saying what they would do or the influence they would have on our planet.