[phatfish]

This is the reason bitcoin will never be more than a way to move funds illegally and for a few gamblers to trade it online.

Society is fine with startup founders and "employee number 5" making their fortune because they put in actual effort to build a company.

The bitcoin millionaires happened to mine a few coins in 2011 before most people knew about it and then just did nothing as you said. Zero contribution to society from making that paper (or bit) fortune.

Why on earth would everyone else not on the right internet forum in the early 2010s make the few that were fabulously rich?

Investing in stocks is a similar passive income, but at least in that case the investors money is going towards some business that pays a wage to workers or provides some net benefit to society (hopefully).