Cryptocurrency continues to make news every day based (mainly) on it's parabolic price action. But can crypto (and Bitcoin in particular) actually be a solution to inequality? Or is this just another example of "the rich getting richer"?

Aside from the obvious clarifier (what do you mean when you say "inequality") there are roughly two camps within the BTC ecosystem:

Pro: Bitcoin is a form of financial freedom, requiring no intermediary centralized institution to verify or restrict transactions. It is a deflationary store of wealth, which has a supply that halves every four years (roughly), and outside the control of any one entity (like a central bank) that can decide to just "print more of it". It is open to anyone regardless of citizenship or pre-existing wealth and cannot be seized (if proper precautions are taken). It is rapidly increasing in value and thus an opportunity for wealth creation. The environmental impact of Bitcoin is unfortunate but part of the design of the coin in the first place (Proof of Work requiring more "work" as price increases) which is being mitigated by cleaner energy sources and "Trapped energy" which is now being put to use. Cryptocurrency (more widely) is essentially instantaneous and can be almost free to transact, removing barriers to global finance, remittances, payments, purchases, etc.

Con: Bitcoin is a form of a Ponzi scheme, or a "Greater fool" scam, meaning that every buyer of Bitcoin needs to find more buyers in order to prop up the value. It is "backed ny nothing", a purely speculative form of asset which has no intrinsic value (gold has industrial and aesthetic value, dollars can be used to pay taxes, etc). It uses huge amounts of electricity to work and has a humongous carbon footprint. It allows people to evade controls, taxes, and oversight and is therefore a dangerous shadow system of illicit money, rampant with fraud and speculation. The only people who are profiting off of Bitcoin purchased their coins early on through their pre-existing connections and wealth, and there is no real "redistribution" of wealth actually happening.

What do you think?