Topic: Distribution of bitcoin wealth by owner - page 18. (Read 153446 times)

Several more thoughts. If the TPTB have accumulated millions of coins (probably are Satoshi as well and thus own his 1 million coins), they control a poison pill. Just in case they can't destroy the anonymity and make it the ledger from hell, they control several means to kill it (law, majority of the float, etc).

The very wealthy are always controlled by the government, for they can't do anything without being tracked, due to their large size. The Winklevoss twin's stash is also effectively under the control of the government. For example, Warren Buffet has to toe the line because for one reason his insurance businesses need licenses from the governments.

What is excruciating ironic is that Bitcoin may actually grow stronger from more centralization of mining, exchanges, and coin ownership. Excruciating because there is no way to resolve the $150 trillion debt bubble that doesn't result in confiscating all traceable wealth (and I think that will include yours rpietila and especially your very traceable castle, sorry to say). And these charts show the model for this outcome is already underway. Trusting the government and the rule of collective law (a.k.a. socialism) is going to result in horrific failure. And this is not a decade from now. The financial and physical violence is breaking out now in Thailand, Ukraine, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela, etc.. By 2016ish, this will come to the core countries, such as the USA, France, etc..

This is a time where leaders such as Patrick Henry need to be bold. Rpietila as an astute, full-time trader lead me to Bitcoin. I am not focused on trading, rather am the thinker, the highly detailed technologist, the programmer, the conceptual iconoclast genius. He did his part to lead me here. Now will he know when to follow?

I explained why anarchy can never be as horrible as the end game outcomes of socialism.

Hey what happened to all the ignores on my name. Remember it was glowing in color a couple of months ago.  

Yes Ethereum is one of the possible serious challengers to Bitcoin, and I've been aware of it for months behind the scenes. I am doubting the economics of how they tied their scripting into the mining. I fear it may be a fundamental flaw that could cause it to fail over time. Other than that, I think contracts changes everything in the crypto-currency paradigm.

Also IMHO Ethereum's planned IPO model for starting a currency is flawed.

In the meantime, I expect something better than Ethereum will come out. Hopefully with a better name too (Etherium.com is a game, what the heck does ether mean to the average person).

I hope I am wrong about Bitcoin crashing to $300 or below, because it would be much more positive for the ecosystem of serious altcoins. I guess rpietila moved his predicted bottom up because so much time has passed and the trendline is higher now?

We don't know how the manipulators of Mt.Gox want to play this. If they were satisfied with $400 or if they sense that is the most damage they can do in face of exponential demand, then its the bottom. Do they want coins or are they trying to create desire within the community for more regulation (thus willing to dump 750,000 coins warchest to create a panic)? Or perhaps the manipulation is chaotic and no party is in control, but that seems less likely given Mt.Gox is a centralized target.

Appears there is a "massive coverup", thus potentially dejection in the community once the truth finally comes out. It might turn out that government and banks have been in control over the past year or something really sinister.

What happens to Bitcoin price when the headlines for weeks or months are all about the massive fraud that was going on for over a year at the largest exchange and how until there is regulation we don't know if the other exchanges are also doing similarly. The masses are not going to want to buy this until there is FDIC insurance on deposits. This could cause projections to get downscaled.

Any way I will let the market tell me.

This government and bank inflicted fiasco has shown with strong likelihood that Bitcoin is not going to remain a decentralized currency. However that doesn't necessarily imply a lower price. Might grow faster with regulation and centralized control, especially until at least 2015 or so when the bail-ins (confiscations) start and regulation is instead seen more and more as a trap. For the moment, the masses are blissful frogs boiling in the pot.

On avoiding centralization:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.5248863

That is sooooo 2013. And even then it was wrong.

That's the feeling I have, breach $300 then bounce hard and fast off rock bottom $245-$275, and be back at $1,000 within 30 days.

At $300 I will borrow money to buy some BTC.  Total set-up, total steal.

I did not have the exact target, but as 400 is now reached, I think that was it. Don't think we go to 300 any more. There are many positive developments in Bitcoin. The most powerful force in the universe is exponential growth.


Agree. But you don't even know that there are remedies.


Silver is already rising, so the comparison is fitting


This is the capitulation if you ask me.

I was certain that China and Russia were secretly amassing BTC but I thought the Gox job was our Fed and maybe JP Morgan and Goldman; trying to play catchup.

I'm still trying to figure out if Karpeles was part of the game or if he truly can be this stupid and arrogant.

Well, IXC is rather bland and lacking iterative improvements so I don't know why it should catch on (absence of bad press, perhaps?). But as long as it is not flawed crypto, I'll use it I guess, unless there's a good reason not to. I really don't see a way for there to be a "one". There may be a global currency, but if it has the correct properties, it won't matter that TPTB use it; likewise, the cryptocurrency genie is out of the bottle. The existence of a centrally-controlled, heavily-manipulated world cryptocurrency doesn't mean anyone will use it except when in places where it's dangerous not to. I've a feeling peephole will use what they like.

By the time anyone starts nailgunning anyone, or whatever, we'll either be a spacefaring species or someone or a group will pop up like Neo to counterbalance the system's Smith. Next thing you know, We have an actual trillionaire superhero, which will logically be Satoshi or another early coiner. Maybe it'll be me, making an arc reactor in my basement. (Refer to my avatar if confused.)

Necessity compels invention, and my gut feeling isn't that we go extinct. Therefore, one of these things or something also amazing, will happen.

Rulers and thieves alike used to plunder regions for gold and treasures; it was even romanticized. This still occurs, but the Bitcoin demographic tends toward heists and cat burglary. We're not much for violence, even the thieves. At least the species is evolving.

The only Bitcoin challenger I see is Ethereum. (Zerocoin is worth watching, at least, too.) I'll be using it extensively unless something goes terribly wrong. Whether I use it to create Bitcoin transactions and contracts, or whether the market finds it easier to just use Ether itself as currency, or a hybrid, I neither know nor care. The products and services will work just fine regardless, which shall speak for themselves. There's no way to establish a solid support for underlying value until a couple killer apps suck in large swatch a of people who will become unwilling to live without it, as the internet is viewed.

Meantime, we just get to keep an eye on the climate to avoid falling victim to any adverse movements. (Not even that difficult.) Keep calm and form startups.

I like your tl;dr, this was a big concern for me but to put it in perspective it isn't as bad as the status quo.

The Bitcoin rich don't own 60% of revenue generating business like the 1% today (Bitcoin is static and needs active participation to create value as opposed to TPTB (aka the 1%) they extract value.

The value of Bitcoin is voluntarily given, the Bitcoin Mega rich can't materializes there Bitcoin wealth if they do the price goes down and there net worth diminishes. This is a feature not a problem, (so hold untill the bad actors lose all there coins)

Individuals can erode the Bitcoin wealth by saving, that isn't possible with fiat (you are on a treadmill)

Once that graph looks more like a bell curve we'll start to see price stability.

For now price volitility is the mechanism necessary to help optimize Bitcoin distribution  to the true believes.

ur dumb
ignore picure, read data
bottom 40% own 0.24% off all bitcoins
bottom 60% own 1.34% off all bitcoins
bottom 80% own 2.7% off all bitcoins
richest 20% own 95% off all bitcoins
richest 10% own 92% off all bitcoins
the 1% own 76% off all bitcoins
makes sense to you?
tl,dr: the bitcoin 1% own a much bigger piece of the bitcoin pie than the dollar 1% do off the dollar pie

Very nice. (Nitpick: If you get a sec, please edit your post and replace the image with the thumbnail+link I created for this reply. If you quote my reply, you'll see where I edited it. But excellent contribution all the same, thanks!)

Infographic using the data provide by OP: http://www.landmarkcash.com/articles/bitcoin-wealth-distribution.html

http://s12.postimg.org/6yfnsa2hl/bitcoin_wealth_distribution.jpg

 

MoonShadow claims 1 million Coinbase accounts versus the 488,000 figure I quoted from upthread.

However, Coinbase has seen its relative popularity rise like a rocket, so this could be existing users and not new ones. Also Coinbase's feature to email BTC to a non-Bitcoin user may be causing the creation of accounts. But are these really Bitcoin users then, i.e. are they sticky on Bitcoin or just cash out their accounts?

Bitcoin going to $3,000-$5,000 by summer and easily to $10,000 by year's end.

The catalysts in the pipe for Bitcoin are many and some are very massive.

bitcoin is strong but very very tiny. imagine it being strong and big/mainstream. every single bitcoin owner will have a blast.

We are entering a hyper phase of technology where new tech is greatly accelerated by big money, special interests (including governments) and the social effect which was not around for the dot com boom.

Crypto money will be developed and pushed by all of the above (no production or logistical restraints with crypto money ensures Hyper Growth without precedent) which is why I said last year that Bitcoin et al (the crypto industry) will be far more explosive and far bigger (and a bigger bubble) than the Internet itself.

That means many millionaires can be minted here (and in a fraction of the time, in mere months instead if decades) but most will choose to sell for a measly 10 fold when they could have had a mind numbing 1000+ fold.


That being said, BTC and one other crypto will reach critical mass and there will be one global currency way before 2032, but at first there will be a 2 CryptoCoin global battle but only one will win.

...and they will be brothers.

And yes, there is a cabal which tries to dominate the world but they have road blocks, few left, which require manipulation and more time than sometimes anticipated.  But such issues are quickly being eliminated with each [artificial] revolution and cloned government they plant.  Israel will be the very last stronghold which they will try but fail to remove.

The next Bitcoin is already here - it has to be, as [with any new technology] it needs time to be tested and perfected. 

Choose your coins wisely and don't blink!

The dates are always interesting to me, because most of the 2031, 2032 era claims usually stem from conspiratorial NWO stuff, and Occam's razor forbids me from believing in a small cabal of brilliant humans conspiring to commit evil (which itself seems a paradox). There are a lot of "but..."s to my assertion, there, however. And, who knows, I may as yet have missed the data that will turn on the light bulb and open my eyes.

In any case, any hints of NWO aside, I agree entirely with your reasoning throughout. With an "iphone of cryptocurrency" (I don't mean a phone, just a slick device that unifies the ecosystem pleasantly) we will see cryptos give silver and other regular means of in-person, in-store commerce a run for its money, IMO.

Regarding the post prior, I'll leave the user base debate to rpietela. I wouldn't be disappointed to find we had vastly overestimated the userbase, though. That only means good things for the market cap when we hit the next rush for adoption.

The concentration of wealth in Bitcoin means it is not yet a currency. The wealthy don't store their wealth in base money, rather in investments that can appreciate.  The concentration of wealth must entirely leave Bitcoin for it to be a currency (the masses have a different distribution curve than the wealthy [1]). Eventually that will happen and Bitcoin will be left with its currency use valuation. Hopefully it will be a gradual transition (via rpietila's rake) and not an abrupt exit when the number of new "users" (greater fools) can't increase. So far it looks more like that the latter outcome.

[1] Dragulescu & Yakovenko. Exponential and power-law probability distributions of wealth and income in the United Kingdom and the United States

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Gold may rise relative to fiat, but fiat may be collapsing relative to crypto-currency, thus a relative fall in purchasing power for Gold (to below its purchasing power at the peak in 1980 yet higher than it is now on current dip). I am becoming more and more amenable to that being a distinct possibility.

Gold is more useful for transporting value over larger distances, something crypto-currency does better. Whereas, silver is more useful for local barter, something crypto-currency does less well because a) it can't function where the recipient doesn't have a computer+internet, b) not everyone has an account, c) it isn't as convenient in physical trading, else the slimy hands of the fish vendor doesn't want to touch a smartphone while serving multiple customers multitasking. Although gold could serve this function with very small coins, silver is relatively undervalued based on available supply, thus silver will be more widely held and thus more recognized as a barter currency. Thus most people will want to have silver since it will be more widely accepted. This assumes we continue to see socialism failing into disorderly outcome where we need to use something other than fiat. Silver would of course be more volatile due to its much smaller market cap and also the disorderly outcome needed to drive demand for it in local barter.

Thus I see silver rising in purchasing power and gold falling (relative to 1980 levels), should decentralized crypto-currency become very ubiquitous and we continue to see socialism failing into disorderly outcome.

However, should the elite succeed with stabilizing fiat with a global SDR unit backed with a basket that includes national currencies and gold, then gold would reassert its relative value to silver, although fiat would then rise much in value again. But I don't see this before 2032 roughly.

I claim the OP is currently wrong. I don't believe there are 2 million Bitcoin users at this time.


I have re-read the entire thread and collected all the relevant comments as follows.

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This was the figure I heard last year and seems to be more realistic when you factor in my analysis below.

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I invalidate the above by noting at least Coinbase, Blockinfo, and Localbitcoins allow users to create multiple (unlimited) new receive addresses with the click of a button.

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My experience from the software download industry is only about 5% of downloads become users, due to repeat downloads for same user, failed downloads (but recorded as downloaded), curiosity only, etc. So 4.4 million x 0.05 = 220,000. The rate might be a little higher since Bitcoin is a very serious tool.

I created a few localbitcoin wallets and I am not even serious about Bitcoin (possession of less than 5 BTC which isn't even mine). You note the overlap in your case too. How can a wallet receive external Bitcoin sends if the wallet does not have an address that has been used? So obviously given the 600,000 non-dust address, then many of those online wallets have never received any Bitcoin sends, and were I guess loaded with fiat exchange. Do we even know how many have 0 balances, i.e. were created but never funded? When Mt.Gox says 400,000 active, does active mean has a balance or user has signed in recently (I will assume the later since companies have an incentive to pump up their importance)?

Given all the major online (potentially off-coin) services mentioned add up to maybe 2+ million with some unknown divisor > 1 and < 10 and the number of non-dust on-chain addresses are 600,000, it seems the true number of users is still less than 1 million.

It seems reasonable when factoring in several billion people in underdeveloped countries which have no use for Bitcoin yet, nor are investors, that only 1 in 10,000 of all people on earth are Bitcoin users, i.e. 7 billion divided by 10,000  = 700,000 users.

By user I assume we mean someone holding a balance denominated in BTC which they have not abandoned and long since forgotten about. This an important distinction, because then we can eliminate all addresses with less than 0.01 BTC from the count of users at the current price < $1000 per BTC.

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