What does everyone think about whales in the crypto ecosystem? They seem to have diametrically opposed interests to the everyday small investor. This Slogging thread by Akasha Rose, Tomas Sirio and Justin Roberti occurred in 's official #unpopular-opinion channel, and has been edited for readability. slogging Small investors want to hang on till a crypto 20 x or 100x. Whales are happy to take 2x or 5x and dump. The small-time retail investor gets cold-feet, panic sells, and then the whales buy more and the hunt starts again. I've watched it happen a real time in the last few days to some small-cap projects, and it really seems to kill sentiment in the project and motivation to keep going. What are your ideas? Akasha Rose Apr 28, 2021, 2:21 AM We've been shown before with the Gamestop shares that whales don't make the whole market and small investors can make a difference if united. Whole point about crypto is not having regulations and assuring that there's freedom of transaction. This includes whales. Tomas Sirio Apr 28, 2021, 8:02 PM The whales have changed. Ironic t-shirts have been replaced with slate gray suits of traditional (institutional investors). There is no way I'm gonna attribute this 14 mo bull run to institutional investors (as so many articles do) and ignore the role of the massive influx of new retail investors. But as for pumping and dumping -- in an alternate universe where we eliminate careless speculation that doesn't respect the project we would also eliminate half of the investor interest. I have mixed feelings about having over 5000 altcoins right now. When the market settles, we will need about 5 of them, so if investors want to day trade their fav projects to instability, that's the wild west we live in. Some projects aren't going to make it and that's OK. Being on blockchain isn't a business case all by itself and it's kind of nuts that we have treated it like it is. Justin Roberti May 5, 2021, 12:52 AM Particularly with these low cap coins, you can get on a rocket. But it's a bumpy rocket that goes down because whales can come in too, buy a large bag, and then dump and rebuy endlessly. Akasha Rose May 5, 2021, 1:08 AM Then maybe just don't buy them. Tomas Sirio May 5, 2021, 1:13 AM The fact that you are investing in an altcoin with a fancy name doesn't necessarily mean that other people with more capital can't do the same Tomas Sirio May 5, 2021, 1:14 AM There will always be people who want to take a bet when an altcoin gets released. I've seen that a solution now is to have burning and redistribution - so that, for example, up to 10% of every transaction gets redistributed between liquidity and holders. However whilst such a large tax benefits holders it undermines the utility of the token as a means of payment. Akasha Rose May 5, 2021, 1:17 AM Those features may as well be implemented on newer coins and people can go and buy them with as much liberty as the other coins. Forcing a policy on the existing ones is what we should avoid like the plague. While governments keep regulating our trading capacity we will never get rid of the issues we know about now. By those issues I mean inflation mostly and irregular government spending. Tomas Sirio May 5, 2021, 1:22 AM Listen, I'm not trying to bash your opinion here. I understand how scary and ominous the free trading of capitals can be. But this is the best chance we've got thus far to have a decentralized way of trading from the beginning of history. Adding regulations to it will cap our freedom from authoritarian entities like governments and/or banks Tomas Sirio May 5, 2021, 1:24 AM I can't see anywhere that I have advocated for regulation. If anything, I have objected to redistribution taxes as undermining token utility. What I am suggesting is that there are some people participating in crypto who don't see it as a way to "decentralise" and are more interested in the centralization of their personal wealth. I am not asking for regulation - but a little less farming of retail investors by whales would be nice. Akasha Rose May 5, 2021, 1:35 AM Akasha Rose the whales we most have to worry about are the people running the projects and assigning themselves hoards of tokens from the origin block in premine. It's better than it was in 1997-98 i guess but there are still some bad actors making ponzi schemes and calling them blockchain projects. I admire your ideals. We don't hear enough about them in the blockchain space. and there is one reason for that -- the pleasing sound of $$$ which is leading the luminaries of the blockchain space down the path of working with regulators. BTC and all other digital assets still exist at the mercy of government and will thrive by colluding with regulators. Sometimes revolutions are surrendered peacefully to the tinkling sound of commerce, so everyone's dancing and it doesn't seem so bad. The US used to execute people who challenged their authority by creating a currency. We would be foolish to assume the industry is not suspiciously eyed. we exist at the mercy of the king. and we celebrate joyously that the already rich and powerful have decided BTC is worth more to keep than it is to crush Justin Roberti May 5, 2021, 1:51 AM Tomás is a Hacker Noon app that makes Slack work for Blogging. You can add it to your Slack community, and turn great conversations into timeless Hacker Noon articles. Slogging Sign up for more at slogging.com

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