Nouriel Roubini is right.

During a recent debate between Joseph Rubin, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Consensys, and Nouriel Roubini, a economist at New York University.

Nouriel Roubini brought up a number legitimate criticism of the cryptocurrency space. And there is one specific point that deserve special attention.

 "The entire crypto land is more unequal in terms of income and wealth than North Korea" 

Now this might be sound like an exaggeration, but Nouriel went on Twitter to defend his statement.

 Crypto-land has worse inequality than North Korea. Gini  inequality coefficient 4 Bitcoin ownership is 0.88 (worse 4 ETH), for North Korea is 0.86, 0.47 for USA. So @VitalikButerin & @ethereumJoseph beat Kim Jung Un when it comes to inequality. So much for democratizing finance.

While it is true that comparing an industry to a country is a bit unfair, but it raised a good point. 

What ever consensus system, if the power is not widely distributed and regulated to be so, it tends to concentrate.

That Blockchain technologies has made financial tools available to many people than ever before, offering them a way to safeguard their financial assets without a bank or financial institutions. But all this matters not if the number of people who have access to financial assets that requires the technology has not increased.

The fact that a small number of people control vast majority of wealth in crypto-land is not a surprise. The fact is: without proper governance, power will concentrate in the hands of a small elite.

proponents of the unchecked market often argue that those who can, should, and have the right to manipulate the market to their advantage. 

However, we all know this is not a fair nor a good way to run an economy. 

This is the same reason why we have anti-trust laws that prevent monopolies from stiffing competition.

It is the same reason why we argue against the concentration of hashing power in Bitcoin, and it will be the same reason why we would oppose a pure, Proof-of-Stake system.

Whatever system, whether Proof-of-Work or Proof-of-Stake, if there is no governing system, it will concentrate. No matter how elegant the mathematical proof is.

But this need not be the case.

Imagine Bitcoin had a system that rewarded Bitcoin users with block rewards the same way it rewards miners. Imagine further that mining hardwares are accessible to the average users.

No one would oppose Bitmain releasing a newer, more powerful mining hardware if they could get their hands on it as easily as those already hold a large sum of Bitcoin.

improvements in mining technology would only mean a better, more secure network. The problem is not the mining hardware, but rather the distribution of it.  

If the Bitcoin community created a system where users could take out loans to buy mining hardware, and have the profits from mining pay for the equipment during the duration of the loan, then much more people will be able to participate.

However, without the effort of the entire community, this likely will not happen.

It will need should a system implement in the Bitcoin protocol itself for this to function, and social pressure to enforce it.

In this scenario, Proof-of-Stake could be more egalitarian if a proper system was put into place, because physical and intellectual limitations like electricity and technical understanding computer systems preventing participation would be eliminated or drastically reduced.

Blockchain technologies could be a solution to wealth inequality, but proper governing structure and social norms must be implemented and cultivated.