How will the world be different when half its billionaires are self-made from crypto?
It’s not just an interesting meme for Twitter discussion.
Some serious people are talking about it and trying to guestimate at what BTC-USD price this particular flippening will occur - somewhere north of $100,000 it seems, so perhaps we’re not too far off.
Personally I’m less concerned about the exact numbers, either in terms of the total number of billionaires - currently under 3,000 so rising to over 5,000 in this scenario - or the triggering BTC-USD price.
Certainly I won’t be one of them. You’d need to possess the equivalent of 10,000 BTC at the $100,000 price, or a more modest 1,000 at $1 million.
But what’s more significant is when it happens how will the world be different?
A less perfect union?
Figures vary - ranging from 56% to 68% - but it seems the majority of billionaires are already self-made entrepreneurs.
On that basis, it could be argued the introduction of the crypto-billionaire mindset will not be that different from than of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos etc.
The crypto elite will be much younger though; crypto wealth having been accumulated within a decade or so. They will also be much, much more self contained.
While business billionaires are likely more arrogant and egocentric than the rest of us, in order to become that wealthy they will have had to work diligently for many years, also building an sustainable organisation around them to fulfil wider aims.
In contrast, the crypto billionaire requires no social skills. Instead their wealth likely arose from a small number of serendipitous decisions and the ability to secure their private keys.
Basically, the rise of crypto has rewarded the most geeky, tech-savvy subgroup in the world; probably also a group predominately white, male and WEIRD - so-called for being characterized as western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic.
Interestingly, thanks to their interest in crypto, this is also a group which has strong libertarian leanings and is focused on pure economic theory as opposed to working with governments and NGOs.
Of course, this isn’t to say that they have no interest in improving the lot of mankind.
There are examples - notably Sam Bankman-Fried who is committed to Effective Altruism - but my gut feeling is that if this particular group of billionaires does start thinking about changing the world, they’re going to do it in a very different manner to what we’ve seen previously.
Think less UNICEF and The Giving Pledge and more UBI airdropped globally through crypto wallets.