If 272.000 people today each owned 25 Btc bitcoins would be out of supply.

[ercolinux]

very few people will be able to buy 25 BTC.

seeing as 25BTC is currently $27k in today's money, i'd say very few people would be able or willing to buy them today.

And that's the cause of this poor distribution of bitcoins among people:

blockchain statistics of 02/12/2013:......................
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                             number   %of tot %of active            value   %of value
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       vuoti (0 BTC)                       20297507  90.2199%                      0.00000   0.0000%
       = 1 satoshi (0.00000001 BTC)          405151   1.8008%  18.41%              0.00405   0.0000%
       > 1 satoshi <= 0.001 BTC  ( ~1$ )     774458   3.4424%  35.20%            140.28490   0.0012%
       > 0.001 BTC <= 0.1 BTC                598294   2.6593%  27.19%          12872.65350   0.1067%
       > 0.1 BTC <= 1 BTC                    211832   0.9416%   9.63%          99384.50831   0.8238%
       > 1 BTC <= 10 BTC                     116990   0.5200%   5.32%         444999.50509   3.6884%
       > 10 BTC <= 100 BTC                    83350   0.3705%   3.79%        3485467.93053  28.8898%
       > 100 btc <= 1000 BTC                   9140   0.0406%   0.42%        2866193.30666  23.7569%
       > 1000 BTC                              1101   0.0049%   0.05%        5155640.66483  42.7333%
                         Total Active       2200316   9.7801% 100.00%       12064698.85759 100.0000%
                         Total             22497823 100.0000%               12064698.85759 100.0000%

We have an even worse distribution than 2 years ago: the 50% of bitcoins are hold by less than 1% of the addresses, and more than 90% of the bitcoins are hold by less then 5% (in 2011 80% was hold by 10%) and the poorest addresses (<1% of total bitcoins) grow from 30-40% to near 90%.

[GriTBitS]

bring on the Re distribution!!! isnt that why people voted for obama?

[wobber]

So all the weak hands lost to strong hands

[Spaceman_Spiff]

very few people will be able to buy 25 BTC.

seeing as 25BTC is currently $27k in today's money, i'd say very few people would be able or willing to buy them today.

And that's the cause of this poor distribution of bitcoins among people:

blockchain statistics of 02/12/2013:......................
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                             number   %of tot %of active            value   %of value
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       vuoti (0 BTC)                       20297507  90.2199%                      0.00000   0.0000%
       = 1 satoshi (0.00000001 BTC)          405151   1.8008%  18.41%              0.00405   0.0000%
       > 1 satoshi <= 0.001 BTC  ( ~1$ )     774458   3.4424%  35.20%            140.28490   0.0012%
       > 0.001 BTC <= 0.1 BTC                598294   2.6593%  27.19%          12872.65350   0.1067%
       > 0.1 BTC <= 1 BTC                    211832   0.9416%   9.63%          99384.50831   0.8238%
       > 1 BTC <= 10 BTC                     116990   0.5200%   5.32%         444999.50509   3.6884%
       > 10 BTC <= 100 BTC                    83350   0.3705%   3.79%        3485467.93053  28.8898%
       > 100 btc <= 1000 BTC                   9140   0.0406%   0.42%        2866193.30666  23.7569%
       > 1000 BTC                              1101   0.0049%   0.05%        5155640.66483  42.7333%
                         Total Active       2200316   9.7801% 100.00%       12064698.85759 100.0000%
                         Total             22497823 100.0000%               12064698.85759 100.0000%

We have an even worse distribution than 2 years ago: the 50% of bitcoins are hold by less than 1% of the addresses, and more than 90% of the bitcoins are hold by less then 5% (in 2011 80% was hold by 10%) and the poorest addresses (<1% of total bitcoins) grow from 30-40% to near 90%.

You do realize that some of the big addresses could be exchanges and other businesses, right?

[BitchicksHusband]

You guys are acting as if the Pareto Principle isn't inevitable, even in bitcoin:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

[ercolinux]

You do realize that some of the big addresses could be exchanges and other businesses, right?

Yes, is quite obvious that some of the big addresses are from big business, but some of them that I've checked are from addresses in which there was no transactions since 2010-2011, well before there was any business related to bitcoin (and I'm talking of 10.000-80.000 bitcoin each).

[Rival]

There will be diffusion over time. Coins get spread out faster than they get accumulated. We will not see any 100K accumulations added to the list in the future. We probably will never see a new holder of 10,000 emerge.

Eventually, the only hoards over 1000 will be in wallets with lost private keys. Even billionaires have to pay bills.

[ercolinux]

There will be diffusion over time. Coins get spread out faster than they get accumulated. We will not see any 100K accumulations added to the list in the future. We probably will never see a new holder of 10,000 emerge.

Eventually, the only hoards over 1000 will be in wallets with lost private keys. Even billionaires have to pay bills.

I'm with you (or at least that's my hope): maybe some over 1000 there will still be but not so many. And I think too that some of the addresses stuck with tons of bitcoins are lost (I'm not sure that I'll keep 10-80M$ of bitcoin on a single address even if is keep in a safe and engraved on a stainless steel plate)

[Okurkabinladin]

There will be diffusion over time. Coins get spread out faster than they get accumulated. We will not see any 100K accumulations added to the list in the future. We probably will never see a new holder of 10,000 emerge.

Eventually, the only hoards over 1000 will be in wallets with lost private keys. Even billionaires have to pay bills.

Did that work out for gold? I am with guy, who mentioned Pareto principle. People, who are already rich will get richer.

[ChessWhiz]

Today, 25 BTC is $25,000. It is also true that, if 272,000 people today each owned $25,000 (and no loans) we would be out of supply of dollars. The key here is that the loans create the supply.

[HeliKopterBen]

Today, 25 BTC is $25,000. It is also true that, if 272,000 people today each owned $25,000 (and no loans) we would be out of supply of dollars. The key here is that the loans create the supply.

Yes but bailouts are impossible with bitcoin, unlike USD.  People should be very careful if they decide to loan bitcoin  or create derivative instruments with bitcoin because that house of cards will have no choice but to crumble.

[zimmah]

And where do you think are this same 6.85 million coins right now? In the hands of people, and the number is a lot smaller than 272.000.

Problem right now is that a very small group of people, less than 5000, hold the majority (90%+) of all the coins minted so far. People in this group want to sell them for $$, but there isn't enough new capital to meet their supply at the moment. It will take a long time and tons of trading to spread out the coins from a small 5000 group of miners to your 272.000 people.

The question then is why would 272.000 people hold 25 BTC each ? Bitcoin is not an invesment. People's greed and speculation ran up the price from April $1 to June $30+. It could happen again, and again or it could not. Bitcoin will still preform same functionality either its price is $0.5, $5 or $500 per coin. People greed for fiat money wants it to be more.

As long as mining is still as profitable as it is right now, prices will keep sliding lower overall. Bitcoin *real* US$ value is between $1 and $5 right now depending on electricity cost and work put in to mine them. It will take a major change in bitcoin usage for price to start rocketing again anytime soon. We need services services and more services for that to happen.

you absolutely have no clue about the electricity bills of the average miner if you think $5/BTC can cover mining costs.

[zimmah]

The question then is why would 272.000 people hold 25 BTC each?

To  have them like in a wallet to pay for goods. not an invvenient way once things start moving from more shops. It is VERY inconvenient to wire some funds into an excahgne then wait for the BTC to clear just to amke an order - even if not hoding them for value, a certain amount of "wallet" has to be.

I completely agree. There's a big catch though and I mentioned it in my post. We need services in bitcoins that make sense for random people to go out and hold these coins in their wallets. Random Joe won't care about bitcoin if he can pay for the same service with $us if the price would be same. Why would he bother holding 25 BTC in his wallet if he already has a *wallet* that he can use on the same site for the same product. His current *wallet* is called credit card.

Cluster2k understands what is going on, he was even being a bit polite. Majority, read (90%+) wants bitcoin to first rise in value, so they would be worth more in fiat, then as a result some of this majority would use bitcoins with the rest of the worlds users. Right now there is only a small group of people that want to use bitcoin for its designed functionality. This two groups aren't 50:50. It's more like 98% of people that are in the bitcoin right now just/only wants it to be worth more in $$. This is the reason why outsiders see bitcoin as a ponzi scheme. The vast majority of bitcoin user base only wants OTHERS to keep buying coins, because as a result price would rise. It's that simple. Services and bitcoin functionality doesn't matter to this group that much. It's nice what it can do, but it would be 10000x cooler if bitcoins would rise in value to lets say $500 per coin and they could sell it to the greater fool and finally feel/think like they are worth something in the fiat world.

Bitcoin project needs a sea of service that make sense and some of the best services should be so hardcore that they only accept bitcoins, so a random Joe needs to go out his way to be able to buy that product. Later on when bitcoin would be widely used every service that sells in bitcoins should offer discounts if users pay with them instead of fiat money. Until then this is just a niche project for a super limited small group that has a big dream of making it big in the real world with a simple thing caller mining. A thing which almost anyone can do and its product, bitcoins sell for 600% of the production cost.

the funny thing is, once bitcoin becomes more functional, the price will rise beyond what we ever tought possible.

it's in EVERYONEs best interest to make bitcoin accessible to the general public.

[GriTBitS]

And where do you think are this same 6.85 million coins right now? In the hands of people, and the number is a lot smaller than 272.000.

Problem right now is that a very small group of people, less than 5000, hold the majority (90%+) of all the coins minted so far. People in this group want to sell them for $$, but there isn't enough new capital to meet their supply at the moment. It will take a long time and tons of trading to spread out the coins from a small 5000 group of miners to your 272.000 people.

The question then is why would 272.000 people hold 25 BTC each ? Bitcoin is not an invesment. People's greed and speculation ran up the price from April $1 to June $30+. It could happen again, and again or it could not. Bitcoin will still preform same functionality either its price is $0.5, $5 or $500 per coin. People greed for fiat money wants it to be more.

As long as mining is still as profitable as it is right now, prices will keep sliding lower overall. Bitcoin *real* US$ value is between $1 and $5 right now depending on electricity cost and work put in to mine them. It will take a major change in bitcoin usage for price to start rocketing again anytime soon. We need services services and more services for that to happen.

you absolutely have no clue about the electricity bills of the average miner if you think $5/BTC can cover mining costs.

I guess that guy was slow to the show!