Topic: 790 people own half the bitcoins (Read 5464 times)

It's obvious that a portion of these 790 people have recently started using their wealth to keep the price stable on a few major exchanges.  Since the price of bitcoin is entirely confidence driven it is easy for the whales to sell anything over 800 and buy anything under 750.  It even generates a profit for them.  Indeed, it is the ONLY way to defend their holdings since they could never liquidate so many coins, and an unstable currency is ultimately worthless.

So how many bitcoin do I need to own in order to be able to quit my job within the next 6 - 12 months?

I don't care about big houses, flash clothes or fancy cars, I just want a roof over my head, food on the table and all my free time to focus on music!

It's obvious that a portion of these 790 people have recently started using their wealth to keep the price stable on a few major exchanges.  Since the price of bitcoin is entirely confidence driven it is easy for the whales to sell anything over 800 and buy anything under 750.  It even generates a profit for them.  Indeed, it is the ONLY way to defend their holdings since they could never liquidate so many coins, and an unstable currency is ultimately worthless.

Do what you like to do, then you'll never want to quit.

I mean only quit your job when you have cashed out at least $1M worth of bitcoins, and still keep the majority... 

This is possible now for hundreds of people, but as the price rises, it will soon work out for thousands, 10000s etc.

How many Bitcoin Centers we have in the world now? NY, Montreal, Tel Aviv? I bet there'll be a hundred of them by Christmas.

I mean I'd love to but it's a bit risky don't you think. It's still just an experiment..

Almost two million people own all the bitcoins? Two million bitcoin users. Does anyone else find this figure high?

Based on the above, what a rational person who wants Bitcoin to succeed should do, is to work as much as possible and buy as much bitcoins as possible until he cannot reasonably increase his position any more. Then quit his job and become full-time bitcoiner, to leverage both his knowledge of bitcoin, and his time, and his wealth, to make a great impact.

Interesting topic. How was this derived? According to the table, about 329k people hold BTC1+

there will never be more than 1 million people with more than 1 bitcoin at any one time

[...] Then quit his job and become full-time bitcoiner, to leverage both his knowledge of bitcoin, and his time, and his wealth, to make a great impact. This will be a symbiotic act, helping the next generation of bitcoiners and by this doing, protecting the continued appreciation of his own investment, even though the number of coins is in decline.

the bitcoin wealth distribution will decrease as the value of each bitcoin goes up. This is because money has marginal utility like anything else does. It's why billionaires become philanthropists. When you have far more of something than you need, each unit of that thing becomes less valuable than the previous unit.  If you have everything in the world that you want except a good reputation, you will likely trade your money for a good reputation, even if you think it's being more productively used where it's at. It's called sanitizing your wealth and it's the smart move to protect yourself from envious people.

Unless he lists the email as @virgin.com purely for jest, he probably is


Sir,

In the short term, what counts is the number of your bitcoins, because there is/will only be a certain number of them, regardless how useful/valuable they turn out a few years down the road. By grabbing as many as possible and holding through this "land grab" phase, you withhold the supply and also contribute towards their value increasing, which causes the existing bitcoin millionaires' position to increase in value, and gives them more leverage to develop the Bitcoin economy.

In the long term, what counts is the purchasing power of one bitcoin, because it can be posited that it is either quite low or really high, with no "most probable case" in between. In the "really high" case anyone who has even 1 bitcoin is set for life - there will never be more than 1 million people with more than 1 bitcoin at any one time, it is a corollary of the parameters of the distribution that this thread is all about.

Based on the above, what a rational person who wants Bitcoin to succeed should do, is to work as much as possible and buy as much bitcoins as possible until he cannot reasonably increase his position any more. Then quit his job and become full-time bitcoiner, to leverage both his knowledge of bitcoin, and his time, and his wealth, to make a great impact. This will be a symbiotic act, helping the next generation of bitcoiners and by this doing, protecting the continued appreciation of his own investment, even though the number of coins is in decline.

The dollar value of a bitcoin (or the value of a dollar) is not used except to communicate the values in "2014 units", to make the analysis a little more understandable for people with no mathematical analytic mindset.

#people = wallets?

Unless he lists the email as @virgin.com purely for jest, he probably is


Sir,

In the short term, what counts is the number of your bitcoins, because there is/will only be a certain number of them, regardless how useful/valuable they turn out a few years down the road. By grabbing as many as possible and holding through this "land grab" phase, you withhold the supply and also contribute towards their value increasing, which causes the existing bitcoin millionaires' position to increase in value, and gives them more leverage to develop the Bitcoin economy.

In the long term, what counts is the purchasing power of one bitcoin, because it can be posited that it is either quite low or really high, with no "most probable case" in between. In the "really high" case anyone who has even 1 bitcoin is set for life - there will never be more than 1 million people with more than 1 bitcoin at any one time, it is a corollary of the parameters of the distribution that this thread is all about.

Based on the above, what a rational person who wants Bitcoin to succeed should do, is to work as much as possible and buy as much bitcoins as possible until he cannot reasonably increase his position any more. Then quit his job and become full-time bitcoiner, to leverage both his knowledge of bitcoin, and his time, and his wealth, to make a great impact. This will be a symbiotic act, helping the next generation of bitcoiners and by this doing, protecting the continued appreciation of his own investment, even though the number of coins is in decline.

The dollar value of a bitcoin (or the value of a dollar) is not used except to communicate the values in "2014 units", to make the analysis a little more understandable for people with no mathematical analytic mindset.