Bitcoin Forum

https://cointelegraph.com/news/long-dormant-bitcoin-whales-resuming-activity-could-rock-price-action-analysts-say (https://cointelegraph.com/news/long-dormant-bitcoin-whales-resuming-activity-could-rock-price-action-analysts-say)

According to this, 1000 addresses own 85% of ALL the bitcoins out there.  If that is true, then bitcoin is a scam.

centralised coins are quite common,

its same with ethereum (vitalik)

or ripple (garvin)

the true scam comes from the cryptocurrency index system that defines "shitcoins" and "nonshitcoins"

this distinguishinsation will weaken in time

Uhm, what? How did you come up with the conclusion about bitcoin being a scam just with that statement?

Also, take note that the biggest wallets that contain the biggest number of bitcoins doesn't automatically mean 1000 people own 85% of all bitcoin. Take note that exchanges are a part of that 1000(assuming this statistic is actually true), hence, it doesn't mean that 1000 people own 85% of BTC. Take note that the top exchanges has A LOT of users. We're talking multi-millions here. Binance itself was gaining a few million of users per week just sometime last year. Think about it.

1000 addresses hold 85% of all BTC =/=(not equal to) 1000 people hold 85% of all BTC

correct.
without delving too deep into it I would love to know how much
bitcoin the top 10 exchanges "manage". Why not count the top
20 exchanges.

What about those people who believed in Bitcoin in the early days
and were able to mine a lot of coins and had the forsight to hold
on to them, to be able to see the future potential, I'm sure there
are quite a few of those people still with us and can potentially
be somewhere in that 1000 addresses....

Anyway if I am in this fictitious 15% I say thank you, Im glad to
be part of it.

I dont see a problem

We have some interested topic here. I'm starting to think about it if that's true after but after reading the statement below I just realized that he/she's correct maybe some or most of the exchange who holds the biggest amount of bitcoin are included in that 1000 and it doesn't meant that 1wallet is 1 persons wallet it is a exchange's wallet.

I'm a little bit enlightened here.

world will not take the bitcoincultists and their attention hack serious for long,

its just a temporary condition that is currently being corect,

you misinterpret that for profit reasons and call it falsely a "bearmarket"

mark my words i am telling this since more than a year.

That's true for pretty much everything. The few always hold the many. I mean, considering that Satoshi's addresses hold at least 20% of the supply (that's just his known ones) you can already adjust the figures based on that. Over the passage of time those coins will be redistributed. Even the biggest whales will sell at some point.

Probably less than a thousand people with a thousand private keys own 85% of the bitcoins.  Remember, if its in an exchange, you don't own it.  You are trusting them.

Also, that would imply 85% is being used as investments and only 15% is Available to spend.

We should start a new 1%  movement.

Great explanation,the 1000 addresses that holds bitcoins 85% stands for some individuals and the holders inside exchangers in which counting to millions,so this is different thing from 1000 individuals,so this means I as a holder are part of the inside the exchange and not of that 1000 ,very bright enlightenment from this guys.thank you

I think about the same thing happens in the current situation in the world. 85% of all wealth in the world belongs to 5% of the world's population. But you do not call fiat money a scam? Just the way the world works. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. This is called capitalism. And as far as I know, mankind has not yet invented anything better. It is unlikely that cryptocurrencies will fundamentally change the current distribution structure of wealth in the world and even in individual countries. Well, except in very poor countries.

Though they definitely don't have sort of "true ownership" due to them not having control over the keys, they technically still own the bitcoin that they deposited in the exchange.

And no, it doesn't imply crap. You can't come to that conclusion just by that statistic alone.

You will have to look at the storage history of those addresses to see how many of those addresses are owned by early adopters and how many of them have recently been used. Satoshi's addresses have a combined total of over 1 000 000 bitcoins and most large Bitcoin services store their bitcoins in cold storage in one or two addresses. <Exchanges / Gambling sites / Payment processors etc.>

One address might contain several thousand Bitcoin owners bitcoins that are stored in cold storage. ;)

It is possible that the information is unreliable, in General this is logical because the market has less rich people than earned. Let's not forget that a lot of wallets are inactive because the user does not have access to the wallet and there are a lot of reasons for this.

You can say the same thing about every currency to have ever existed.  Eight people own more than the entire bottom half of the population.  Whether it is USD, Euro, gold, or crypto the majority of the supply will end up in the hands of the few that own capital that creates the actual wealth.

almost every month we see the same topic out of someone new started here talking about the similar numbers. some say 1000, some say other numbers and they are always wrong because of the same reasons. because you can't know who owns what and who does those addresses belong to. not to mention that when you look at balances alone you are also looking at exchange addresses like Bitfinex  cold storage which has millions of dollars worth of bitcoin in it! is bitfinxed one person?

This is true about exchanges, but the exchange addresses are just a few and like you said, these addresses refer to thousands of customers. So if we exclude a dozen addresses (or twenty), we are left with, let's say, 990/980 addresses.

It could also be that, apart from the dozen or so addresses related to Exchanges, the other 990 don't belong to 990 different people, but maybe much less. There could also be some big whale who owns maybe 10 or 20 of the biggest addresses that we see in the first thousand. We don't know in reality, because every address is of course anonymous. Maybe (just a supposition) one hundred real people own the majority of bitcoins in the first thousand addresses, apart from the exchange ones.

Here a look of the bitcoin rich list address, where is pointed out the addresses which are owned by exchanges:

https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html (https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html)

Lots of bitcoins have been lost due to losing the private key. Satoshi owns a million coins but will likely never be sent. Exchanges hold a lot of the coins.

just agree with this , the 1 address from that 1000 can be from a company that investing on bitcoin or something like that
too early to judge if 1000 adress hold 85% and bitcoin was a scam

It is addresses that hadn't done anything for the last two years.  That is not exchanges.  That is whales seing off.  It states there is 40% more BTC in circulation since they started selling.

This info makes a lot of people suprised and horrified but it shouldn't. Even though 1k addresses doesn't mean 1k people, this figure shows how much bitcoin is opened to manipulation and speculation. We can see the same thing on fiat currencies. Most of US dollars is only in a few hands and they control almost entire exchanges.

According to your logic, fiat is a scam

Based on this, we cant conclude that bitcoin is a fraud. Do not forget that many of them could lose access to their wallets. It is known that about 15% bitcoins were lost. So anything terrible is not present that. Bitcoin is not a Scam.

The figures might not be accurate, but it's no secret that little hands hold a larger percentage of the entire bitcoin in circulation, some of which would be first adopters who got in when it was very cheap or free.

Bitcoin is decentralized, but the system can not limit the amount one can purchase. The system is not regulated.
As it grows in adoption and utility, circulation is likely to increase.

Maybe actually take a look at the link that was showed to you? Most of the top addresses has sent a transaction since 2018. Cut the crap. Seriously. "This is not exchanges", well crap. The name of the exchanges are even stated in that link.

Having a centralization in bitcoin is not new since the entry of big investors. But to say that this centralization makes bitcoin "scam" is rather irrational.

Many of the Bitcoin adresses with most bitcoins are hold of the same people, its not 1000 different people or exechance who have access to the top 1000 bitcoins adresses.
Just like there's not more than a million different people who own all the adresses with less than 0.001 Bitcoins

https://i.imgur.com/20o56Ra.png
https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html#

 Giving a conclusion from a mere statement is simply nonsense. How come that bitcoin is  a scam from just owning it by large entities? Bitcoin did not promise us anything but only as a means of transferring money and we enjoy it everyday thanks to blockchain technology.

Nobody ever promised Bitcoin as a solution to wealth imbalance. It doesn't solve that problem. The problem Bitcoin solves is transferring money quickly and cheaply anywhere in the world and, also, providing a cryptographically secure store of wealth that a government can't arbitrarily rob.

as soon as usd collapses these 8 people are poor as an average person

The OP might be right that we the little purse holders are the 15% but it doesn't change anything as there are a lot of fiats distributed among a privileged few who have managed over some time through their business and influence to accumulate them.

As far as I know, they are saying BTC is a scam because of the dumping of its price. People who invested in the wrong month at the wrong year are sure the majority of those people.

Ifwe are only 15% from all circulation, so me only a little percent that hold supply, maybe very little. So i not really care with it, as long bitcoin can be number 1 crypto and price to be like this.

part of those people are the us government. korea. maybe china. bitcoin is becoming like fiat where the rich is a little percentage. i wonder why the government would try to create fud. ha jp maybe a conspiracy.
bitcoin is a transfer of wealth when that happends it would not matter whose the riches in bitcoins.

We have no proof that the governments of some countries own some of the BTC. But due to your claims, it seems that you have proof. Mind showing us?

Bitcoin is a free market, if you own billions, then you can own billions worth of bitcoin. No one's stopping you. To be able to distribute wealth equally is none of bitcoin's goals.

How did you come with the conclusion that Bitcoin is a scam just because of 1000 addresses own 85% of Bitcoin? do you understand the meaning of scam? A scam is a fraudulent scheme performed by a dishonest individual, group, or company in an attempt obtain money or something else of value http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/scam.html meaning that Bitcoin is not since no one owns or operating what it should do because it is decentralized. So now can you explain how can Bitcoin be able to scam people if there is no single person or company that owns it? Lets say that this stats are true, but numbers of addresses that holds huge amount of Bitcoin is not enough basis to say it is a scam.

well, if those 1000 addresses are exchange's addresses  too i don't think that there can be a problem of cetralization.

The 15% in the fiat is banks, top politician, fed, and top professionals.
It is a blessing in fiat when you’re the minority.
Does it make you less fortunate to be the 15% in crypto?

If that is true, Bitcoin won't take long in this technology for 1 decade or 10 years. And why they are lot of people becoming more eager and had an interest to invest in it, particularly the whale investors got involved in this type of business world. Meaning, your reason was not valid and its just your own speculation only.

This is why the media is destroying everything. Sheep like you always listen to those flowery lies even though you haven't really researched. Those each of those 1000 wallets is not controlled by each person. Did you know that there are exchanges that hold funds of the users? You should look into that.