Founder and initial developers hold 7 million coins..

[gizmoh]

From:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/78-percent-of-bitcoin-currency-stashed-under-digital-mattress-study-finds/

"However, if we sum up the amounts accumulated at the 609,270 addresses which only receive and never send BTCs, we see that their owners have actually put aside in some kind of 'saving accounts' 7,019,100 BTCs, which are almost 78 percent of all existing BTCs," the researchers wrote. Almost 60 percent of those coins were "old," meaning they were received more than three months prior to the May 13 cut-off date for the project.


So the founder(s) and/or initial developers must be filthy rich and can risk crashing the market anytime should they decide to unload some big chunks of their fortune..

What do you think guys?

[zif33rs]

Interesting for sure...not sure what to make of it. From my perspective the less coins in circulation the better. You would think that anyone holding from that time would have dumped if they were going to when bitcoin crossed the 50 and 100 usd valuation. At least if I had those amounts I would have cashed in a large amount into fiat.

[Akka]

This study doesn't take into account:

1. Lost Coins - in the first Year Bitcoin where worth absolutely nothing. That kind of software you install, play around a bit, see you can do nothing with it and delete. There are ~47000 Adresses that hold exactly 50 BTC, or one old Blockreward, that where never used again. Indicating, there could be up to 2.3 Million Lost Bitcoins due to Mining some Blocks and deleting the Bitcoin Software alone (of course its lower, that's only the maximum)

2. And most important, when you send an transaction you client automatically creates a new address for the change. If now you only use each of your addresses once, like many users do, 100% of you Bitcoin addresses belong to the addresses that have revived but never send coins.

And more than 3 Month old would mean, you have to transact all you coins all 3 Month so they aren't added to that 60%.

There is Saving/Hoarding but not as high than indicated.

[jackofspades]

Yeah, if I invented something like this too I would
Definitely want to keep a large sum (51%+)
In order to ensure that I have control of the market
Not for the reason that I would dump them suddenly
And screw over the world but because I trust myself more than anyone
Else and 51% off the market would allow me to get rich and
Protect the network from others who may use their huge amount of BTC
To crash the network

[vit1988]

who knows.. maybe they have just lost their private keys 

[DeathAndTaxes]

How did the OP reach the conclusion that the report was about founders?  It included any address which only received and hadn't spent coins in the 3 months prior to the report (aka May 2012).  Essentially any cold wallet by anyone (including major exchanges and companies) created in 2012 would be included.

[cr1776]

Exactly.  Unless they are redefining the word to mean something like "anything prior to May 2012" is a founder.  ;-)

How did the OP reach the conclusion that the report was about founders?  It included any address which only received and hadn't spent coins in the 3 months prior to the report (aka May 2012).  Essentially any cold wallet by anyone (including major exchanges and companies) created in 2012 would be included.

[jrlichtman]

Back in 2011 I received 0.05 BTC for free from the old bitcoin fountain (anyone remember that?)

There could be lots of stuff like that in the mix too.

[Akka]

Exactly.  Unless they are redefining the word to mean something like "anything prior to May 2012" is a founder.  ;-)

This is exactly how I read it. Congratulations, this is how history will treat you guys.

Tell me a story Grandpa.

Well do you know the Story of the Founding Fathers of Bitcoin?

They set Sail to new Lands, where no currency had gone before, but their where pirates lurking for their treasure. The weak and the greedy didn't make it, but eventually the rest arrived in the lands of great fortune. Still 78% of their treasure where safely stashed in their cargo loads...

[springy]

Keep watching any you'll see reasons for the opposite argument, that some of those coins may be being used to help stabilize the market. Either way I'd rather see a good number of them in the hands of some furry toothed geeks who saw the possibilities when it was worth nothing than hands refined by generations of grabbing as much as possible.

I agree with you, but after a couple of generations of inheritance we will be in a similar situation   Let's hope there are strong genetic geek traits

[gica_contra]

The people who create BTC were probably driven by the idea behind it and not the desire to get rich. Mass dumping is not probable. A slow trickle is another thing...

[Gruu]

I personally don't see anything wrong with it; without them none of this would be possible. They were all very inteligent in making and managing this amazing system and should be rewarded for that.
They won't screw up their own system and try to sell all of them at once.

I agree with you, but after a couple of generations of inheritance we will be in a similar situation  Let's hope there are strong genetic geek traits

Haha yeah we need more geeks in the world and less idiots.
Natural selection doesn't work for humanity as well as it should considering we're the smartest animals on the planet (although I have doubts sometimes).
The ability to become rich and/or ensure the survival [and number] of your offspring doesn't necessarily mean you're intelligent.

[dree12]

I just moved all my coins to new addresses. All of a sudden, I'm not a "founder". Thank goodness, now the "founders" own fewer coins.

If this doesn't prove that the methodology is flawed, I don't know what does.

[LastFastRide]

that's a lot of coins and with the exchange rate on the rise...damn!