The Bitcoin Whales (1000 people own 40% of Bitcoin )

jseverson

hero member

Activity: 1834

Merit: 759

This article seems devoid of facts. It starts off saying someone moved 25k Bitcoins to an exchange, prompting people to talk about it. You know what this article is talking about? Roger Ver amidst the Bitcoin Cash attack:

https://amp.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7cefom/roger_ver_just_sent_25k_btc_to_bitfinex/

True, this was certainly market manipulation at work, but the coins moving didn't prompt the drop itself. It came with massive social media FUD and a mempool spam attack. That was a confirmed case of a Bitcoin whale trying to bring down Bitcoin with his friends and failing. That suggests it's much easier to do in theory than in practice.

Quote

About 40 percent of bitcoin is held by perhaps 1,000 users; at current prices, each may want to sell about half of his or her holdings, says Aaron Brown, former managing director and head of financial markets research at AQR Capital Management.

I would like to know where he got his data. I know that there is market inequality, but I always thought it would be impossible to precisely quanitify because people can use multiple wallets with no traces of each other.

Quote

Asked about whether large holders could move in concert, Roger Ver, a well-known early bitcoin investor, said in an email: “I suspect that is likely true, and people should be able to do whatever they want with their own money. I’ve personally never had time for things like that though.”

They conveniently forgot to mention that while Roger Ver is still holding Bitcoins, he's rooting for Bitcoin Cash now.

pooya87

legendary

Activity: 3472

Merit: 10611

the first thing about bitcoin is that it is pseudonymous, all you can see is bitcoin addresses and their balances. you can not say if an address that contains 100,000+BTC like this (3D2oetdNuZUqQHPJmcMDDHYoqkyNVsFk9r) you can not say if it is one person owning that much or a service. in this case it is an exchange called bitfinex.

and i skimmed through the article but i don't see any explanation about how they came up with that number. my guess is that it is a coordinated article with perfect timing for spreading FUD as soon as price started dropping meaning 2 days ago.
and i become more sure when i see statements like this in the article Cheesy

Quote

About 40 percent of bitcoin is held by perhaps 1,000 users; at current prices, each may want to sell about half of his or her holdings

they couldn't be more obvious about their FUD...

Filmmmakerr

sr. member

Activity: 518

Merit: 251

Hello. Bye.

This has to be common sense, I'm actually surprised its a 1000 people and not 200 people. Every crypto coin is controlled heavily by a few big bag holders, look at Bitconnect.

harrypotter1229

member

Activity: 162

Merit: 10

Maybe this is true. I also think a very small number of people have controlled most of the chips. Perhaps most of these people are early miners. Because the first people to find bitcoin always occupy a large number of advantages, which increases the risk for the people who later joined the bitcoin.

Realist247

full member

Activity: 154

Merit: 105

Quote from: Kloug on December 09, 2017, 10:47:00 PM

Quote from: Realist247 on December 09, 2017, 09:58:08 PM

Quote from: Kloug on December 09, 2017, 09:50:32 PM

Hum, 1000 people is a lot. How would you even imagine 1000 *coordinated* people.

Not like they were in a sect or something. Perhaps just some of them are buddies.

I would be more scared by miners.

If they have that much money they would easily be able to find each other (especially at this point...I know I'd seek out others like me if I was in their position) and have their own private discussion group. If enough of them decide to sell the rest will probably follow...so they could do a lot of damage.

But what for?

Ver & his buddies sure tried to pump the BCH, but as for others, they have zero interest in making the BTC go anywhere but up.

Manipulating it down to buy more isn't their best interest either, if only 1000 BTC owners were left, the BTC would have no more value. For those who already own a lot of BTC, their best interest is the BTC going up.

If you and your buddies have that much and you decide to cash out some or all of your holdings it cannot be done all at once or it will crash the market by driving it to panic. It needs to be done little by little so that the big-picture intention isn't noticed.

It may be in their best interest for BTC to keep going up, but you don't know that it will as much as they don't know the future. Most intelligent people would start looking to cash out a large chunk of their holdings and diversify into land and other tangible things....especially at this point. Also most of them are not looking to manipulate it down...they just want to remain invisible. Again, if they work together to sell predetermined chunks they actually keep the price relatively stable. It would give new money time to come in and scoop up their coins so everything is smooth and relatively calm.

reck1ess

member

Activity: 350

Merit: 30

Quote from: Realist247 on December 09, 2017, 09:58:08 PM

Quote from: Kloug on December 09, 2017, 09:50:32 PM

Hum, 1000 people is a lot. How would you even imagine 1000 *coordinated* people.

Not like they were in a sect or something. Perhaps just some of them are buddies.

I would be more scared by miners.

If they have that much money they would easily be able to find each other (especially at this point...I know I'd seek out others like me if I was in their position) and have their own private discussion group. If enough of them decide to sell the rest will probably follow...so they could do a lot of damage.

I agree, if it means them getting profit then cooperating with other is never a problem. Or even they are more than that numbers. Last month, bitcoin was totally 40% percent dump for a short period of time. So we can call it as if they were cooperating.

Kloug

member

Activity: 140

Merit: 20

Quote from: Realist247 on December 09, 2017, 09:58:08 PM

Quote from: Kloug on December 09, 2017, 09:50:32 PM

Hum, 1000 people is a lot. How would you even imagine 1000 *coordinated* people.

Not like they were in a sect or something. Perhaps just some of them are buddies.

I would be more scared by miners.

If they have that much money they would easily be able to find each other (especially at this point...I know I'd seek out others like me if I was in their position) and have their own private discussion group. If enough of them decide to sell the rest will probably follow...so they could do a lot of damage.

But what for?

Ver & his buddies sure tried to pump the BCH, but as for others, they have zero interest in making the BTC go anywhere but up.

Manipulating it down to buy more isn't their best interest either, if only 1000 BTC owners were left, the BTC would have no more value. For those who already own a lot of BTC, their best interest is the BTC going up.

Realist247

full member

Activity: 154

Merit: 105

Quote from: Kloug on December 09, 2017, 09:50:32 PM

Hum, 1000 people is a lot. How would you even imagine 1000 *coordinated* people.

Not like they were in a sect or something. Perhaps just some of them are buddies.

I would be more scared by miners.

If they have that much money they would easily be able to find each other (especially at this point...I know I'd seek out others like me if I was in their position) and have their own private discussion group. If enough of them decide to sell the rest will probably follow...so they could do a lot of damage.

A.Delaney

member

Activity: 266

Merit: 13

This is a problem that concerned me. With a limited supply of bitcoin the majority could be bought up by certain groups to control the market.

Kloug

member

Activity: 140

Merit: 20

Hum, 1000 people is a lot. How would you even imagine 1000 *coordinated* people.

Not like they were in a sect or something. Perhaps just some of them are buddies.

I would be more scared by miners.

ajieafianto

newbie

Activity: 266

Merit: 0

Wow this is amazing, if this is true, in the future, the market will be greatly influenced by these 1000 people who will hold and control the market.

max..

newbie

Activity: 3

Merit: 0

Some people say that Bitcoin can't be manipulated, other say that it is impossible to make the price of Bitcoin go higher or lower, All the markets in the world can be manipulated even criptocoins like Bitcoin, in this article you can read more about the 1000 people that own 40% of Bitcoin and they could easily make the price go higher or lower as they want.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-08/the-bitcoin-whales-1-000-people-who-own-40-percent-of-the-market

What do you think about this? Maybe Bitcoin is not the dream all think and if what they say in the article is right then a lot of people sooner or later will loose a lot of money.

Topic: The Bitcoin Whales (1000 people own 40% of Bitcoin ) (Read 389 times)