The "wealthiest" account on Bitcoin holds 297,000 bitcoins... At a $30 valuation it is worth $8.9 million! Is it safe to assume that it belongs to the creator of Bitcoin? Quite a smart guy I must say. His/her wealth may even be spread across many accounts... It's quite disturbing that one person holds at least 5% of Bitcoins wealth.
Could a small sell-off from such a wealthy individual cause this much volatility?
Instantaneous sell off cant occur since MtGox has a exchange limit of $1000 USD. But yes if he were to transfer in $1000 worth of Bitcoins a day until all of it was in MtGox and he sold off of them it would affect the market but I doubt at that rate not substantial enough to cause a huge crash but definitely loss of value for a little while. It's not very disturbing that 1 person owns 5% of all Bitcoins wealth. In the US the top 10% own 80% of US wealth and the balanced in developing countries like China are even more lopsided. It's just capitalism at work.
Good point. It would nevertheless be interesting to know who this person is... Although the whole concept of Bitcoin goes against that
It is my understanding that the MtGox exchange limit of $1000 is due to US restrictions - why aren't there alternative markets maintained outside the US that could lift this limit? If none exist today I'm guessing this will supported very soon.
Wasn't there a thread about KnightMB and his 361K BTC? Was that figure from a single address?
In any event, the true Early Adopters would have been foolish to hold on to all of them at $30. We may be seeing the effects of a limited scope cash-out by a few dozen large account holders. Ultimately, its very very good for the future stability of BTC for the EAs to sell off a significant percentage of their holdings, anyway, and once again, a cool-off would convince a large bloc of investors like, *ahem*, ME, to get some capital into the market.
Also, IIRC, you can circumvent the $1k daily limit at mtgox by furnishing ID for verification, although why people wouldn't simply set up x checking accounts to link to x Dwolla accounts to link to x MtGox accts.....
And with BTC showing a period low of 20.19 and currently at 25.70 - I'd say my initial claim was right, this is a clear Selloff/correctional phase. If I could short BTC-USD on my 4X acct, I'd have made an absolute killing today. Dirty math on the pips of today's drop is insane.
