After a study by Coinmetrics that said most crypto transactions would have no economic value, it's Diar's turn to give us an uncompromising analysis: 55% of the 21 million bitcoins that will ever exist are stored on "whales"'s wallets, exceeding 200 BTC, more than one million euros each, at the time of writing of this article.
Hodlers believe hard, for various reasons
Focusing on the different distributions of bitcoins already mined between network addresses, the Diar authors recall that nearly 87% of bitcoins are stored in wallets of at least 10 BTC, which ultimately correspond to 0.7% of all Bitcoin addresses. As a reminder, even if the figure may already seem impressive, and rightly so, a TokenAnalyst study targeting Ethereum dating from June 2018 evoked in comparison that 83% of ETH never mined were stored on only 0.03% of Ethereum addresses.
The distribution still seems concentrated, even if we only look at wallets holding more than 100 BTC: Diar authors report a total of 62% of bitcoins owned by only 0.1% of total Bitcoin addresses.
Exchanges with a significant role
Note however that it is not because bitcoins are stored on a given wallet that they belong to only one individual: the top 5 addresses richest in BTC belong to the main exchange platforms of the cryptoworld . These exchanges store bitcoins that they actually own, but on behalf of their customers.
Diar estimates that 3.8% of all bitcoins never mined are in the hands of the giants.
"Buy When There's Blood In The Streets"
However, the point really remarkable in the study of Diar is still elsewhere: considering only the so-called "investment wallets" which each concentrate more than 200 BTC, we note a surprising background trend: 42% of bitcoins stored in these wallets have never moved in any way since the peak of December 2017, despite the massive fall in prices that continues since. More interestingly, among these 42% of bitcoins "hold" against all odds, 27% of the wallets on which they are stored have continued to receive other bitcoins, probably according to the authors for the purpose of accumulation taking advantage of the fall of the price.
A fortune concentrated in a few hands
This analysis by Diar is also to be compared with another study conducted this time by Chainalysis: the latter evoked a massive total sale of bitcoins for $ 30 billion between December 2017 and April 2018. As of April 2018, the 1600 richest individuals in bitcoins thus possessed nearly a third of the bitcoins in circulation, according to Chainalysis. If one adds the total of the bitcoins supposed lost and those remaining to be mined, counting for another third, there would remain only few really circulating.
In the end, here is a new study that will at least have the merit of formalizing a reality of the state of Bitcoin blockchain and its precious bitcoins: the overall fortune can in fact seem concentrated. Note however that compared to other channels (such as Ethereum in this case), the situation remains globally more distributed. Above all, the myth of the HODLer of last resort would not be so much one: the race for accumulation continues, despite the violent jolts of recent months.