New to ancap ideology, curious to know more.
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We could name plenty of monopolies. Its either the government or protected by it. Don't worry about a monopoly on a stateless society.
I dont know, another commenter mentioned the highly unregulated crypto currency market, where Bitcoin consistently dominates 50%+ of the market, even without government intervention at all. I think, especially without reference to an actual historical stateless society, its hard to say monopolies can never form. I also would like your perspective on Standard Oil, which bought up 90% of the oil refinery market without any favorable government regulation.
Maybe by bitcoin is over 50% of crypto currency but what about currency itself? (I heard it was 4th amongst all currencies. I haven't double checked that.) If something becomes a monopoly or monopoly like without government then something could still enter the market.
I double checked to make sure, the top two cryptos (Bitcoin and Ethereum) own 81% of the crypto market. Bitcoin has 68.1% and Ethereum has 12.9% . Regardless of your perspective, that does show monopolitistic tendencies even in unregulated markets.
The point being, when does a monopoly/oligopoly become unhealthy for market competition? Because there werent government regulations on what standard oil could do until it became too powerful, and then government (not the market) broke it up with anti-trust laws.
The Bitcoin example is arguably a poor one. Its market dominance exists because it's the most appreciative asset as cryptocurrency's first mover. That is to say, it's naturally the favored coin for speculation and hodlers because it's the best performing asset in human history. This is akin to saying that gold has market dominance in the metals markets. In that sense, neither Bitcoin nor gold really relates to the type of monopoly/oligopoly market supremacy you're discussing wherein an active market competitor controls the heights.
I dont think Bitcoins a bad example, and heres why: the network effect. In economics, a network effect is the phenomenon by which the value or utility a user derives from a good or service depends on the number of users of compatible products. Network effects are typically positive, resulting in a given user deriving more value from a product as other users join the same network. In other words, if you have dollars in your pocket, and I have dollars in my pocket, we're more likely to exchange dollars. Crypto currency is a utility, so the network effect applies, as more people use Bitcoin, its easier to exchange Bitcoin.
The original point of using Bitcoin as an example, is to state that even in unregulated markets, theres a central tendency to conglomerate utilitarian resources towards a few (many times one) option(s), rather than spreading all investment on every single crypto currency on the market. People simply dont behave like that, and it shows in terms of market share. The fact that it happens, even without human intention/intervention, shows that the market behaves that way naturally. Monopolies and oligopolies can occur in a completely unregulated market.
It's definitely an example of market preference, but Bitcoin doesn't have a monopoly even if it has market dominance. The two are not synonymous. And even then, its dominance is a feature of its appreciative value the way gold might be preferential asset over other metals, not because of the market's preference for Bitcoin's utility (or lack thereof) which is outmatched by other cryptocurrencies. That lapse in utility is also becoming magnified in the current day. Bitcoin's reign is unlikely to be everlasting as a result, nevermind the one-true-coin believers.