Distribution of bitcoin wealth by owner

[dserrano5]

This is true. And even if you got in before May, you had to do it pretty decisively to acquire BTC 1000. It really was looking like an "online play money crypto experiment in some sort of bubble" and putting in $1000 took quite the insight and balls and/or stupidity really (unless you were wealthy and $1000 was irrelevant to you, which is unlikely for the kind of crowd bitcoin attracted at that time). I doubt a high percentage got in that "big". Most probably dropped 50 bucks or 200 on it. Only slowly scaling up when it was too late.

Agreed. I threw 400 EUR at several points between $7 and $27 during the bubble. That was an amount I wasn't uncomfortable with. Unfortunately some economic woes later that year meant that I had to liquidate some coins near the bottom.

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[rpietila]

So I'd go with something like BTC 100 to BTC 3,000 for people having joined in 2011, with heavy emphasis towards the former.

Only about 1,000 Bitcoin downloads in all of 2009, so perhaps 100 active users. If some of them are still around, we can assume that they've had chance to mine huge BTC and still hold. If they are not around, it is more likely that they have sold the majority.

About 17,000 downloads in 2010/1-6, but the price in OTC was still same. I believe the OTC market did not reflect the increased interest (or perhaps it did, but I don't have the data). At this point is was still possible to mine shitloads, but not as easily.

As price started to increase since the opening of Mt.Gox in July 2010, the difficulty also went up. It did not immediately feel a good idea to buy at the exchange as price was rising very rapidly. Many sold. (I watched price go up from about .25 to a hundredfold without buying).

Perhaps you are right - when Bitcoin was small at .10 or $1, it mainly attracted $1,000 or less investments. Near the top at $15+ it may have attracted more serious money say $5k, $10k or $20k, but at this higher price they would only fetch you BTC1,000 more or less.

After the bubble all the way to this January, was a prime chance to buy. Bitcoin had survived the bubble and was cheap. Now the average investor of $2,500 could have bought BTC250-BTC500, median investor perhaps half of that, and a serious investor of $100k would have BTC10k or more.

[rpietila]

I'll testify to having less than 1k BTC today

It is such a shame to belong to the world's 7,299,999,000 poorest...

[oakpacific]

And let me add that it was really hard to buy Bitcoin then. I wanted to but the threshold was so big I never bought any Bitcoins before 2012 (I mined a few though). So yes I bought after the bubble was deflated but not with huge amounts of money.

I'll testify to having less than 1k BTC today

U kidding me? It was way easier to buy than now when you have to jump through all the regulation hoops.

[oakpacific]

So which distribution do you use to approximate rpietila? The Oct.26 one looks a bit Gaussian-skewed, while the Oct.22 seems very much like Pareto.

I guess the number of BTC0-0.1 people should be much larger, they are just not conspicuous enough.

[rpietila]

So which distribution do you use to approximate rpietila? The Oct.26 one looks a bit Gaussian-skewed, while the Oct.22 seems very much like Pareto.

I guess the number of BTC0-0.1 people should be much larger, they are just not conspicuous enough.

Imo gaussian is more realistic because it conforms to the distribution found among people investing in silver (Silvervault).

The previous distribution has an unrealistic number of small BTC0-0.1 users, not really found anywhere when you search for them. Such amount is so small that you would have just forgot about it (or sold it if you had access to markets).

Many claim that bitcoin users number in 1-2 millions. It does not seem that way to me; number of addresses used is in that ballpark, but an average/heavy user would have dozens of addresses, and even webwallets have more addresses than users.

[Tirapon]

@rpietila:

This is an interesting thread, and I think you've done a great job with it. I have been wondering about the effect that 'strong hands' have on the price, and thought that maybe some of the results here could be used to try to make an estimation.

Many people here on the forums probably follow the 'buy and hold' strategy, at least to some extent. I have some BTC in cold storage which I'll be holding 'for the longest time', and I trade with the rest to try to increase my holdings (as well as to make a bit of extra spending money). This removes coins from circulation, leaving less BTC to be chased by the same money.

I wonder therefore, what the total amount of BTC actually in circulation might be? Could we estimate how many BTC are in cold storage, and unlikely to be sold in a panic when price drops X% over the weekend?

[molecular]

I wonder therefore, what the total amount of BTC actually in circulation might be? Could we estimate how many BTC are in cold storage, and unlikely to be sold in a panic when price drops X% over the weekend?

I'm still syncing my bitcoin-abe db (the process takes forever, many times longer than a blockchain download, currently at block 180,000, 3.3 million transactions (it's starting to slow down considerably, I guess satoshi dice is hitting hard around that time). I keep forgetting to resume it, turning it off when I use the machine because it clogs up all my IO), but once that's done I can offer to query pretty much any kind of statistics from the blockchain. Like number of coins that are moved "regularly", number of old coins never moved and such.

[rpietila]

@rpietila:

This is an interesting thread, and I think you've done a great job with it. I have been wondering about the effect that 'strong hands' have on the price, and thought that maybe some of the results here could be used to try to make an estimation.

Many people here on the forums probably follow the 'buy and hold' strategy, at least to some extent. I have some BTC in cold storage which I'll be holding 'for the longest time', and I trade with the rest to try to increase my holdings (as well as to make a bit of extra spending money). This removes coins from circulation, leaving less BTC to be chased by the same money.

I wonder therefore, what the total amount of BTC actually in circulation might be? Could we estimate how many BTC are in cold storage, and unlikely to be sold in a panic when price drops X% over the weekend?

My gut feeling is that most of the bitcoins are in strong hands (and the largest holders are definitely strong, otherwise they would not be large). But that is just a gut feeling, molecular is greatly appreciated to perform any kind of analysis on that.

Interesting, and mildly disturbing facts there...

What do you find problematic?

[rpietila]

Let's start working on the December 1 update of the list!

- A more careful analysis of the blockchain is in my todo-list. What I have in mind is a relation table of "holder activity profile" -> "number of accounts".

- Please check the TOP-500 Richest list, even though it is feeble what comes to accuracy. Apart from Satoshi, FBI and Loaded, no one has admitted controlling more than BTC100,000. (The BTC111,000 address is DPR's afaik.)

- My gut feeling is that number of bitcoin holders was estimated a little too small last time - an analysis of Bitcoin client and wallet software userbases, (Rassah!  ) plus Coinbase users, Bittiraha.fi users and Localbitcoins activity, and new user count in exchanges, is what we need to find more reliable figures.

3, 2, 1, GO!  BTC BTC

[wachtwoord]

I'll leave this here http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-02/its-1-world-who-owns-what-223-trillion-global-wealth

Nothing to do with the current situation, but likely the model it's evolving towards.

[cr1776]

I had mentioned this elsewhere, but it is apropos for here (you may have to follow the trail after this too):
https://blockchain.info/block-index/441990

https://blockchain.info/tx/1c12443203a48f42cdf7b1acee5b4b1c1fedc144cb909a3bf5edbffafb0cd204

:-)

Let's start working on the December 1 update of the list!

- A more careful analysis of the blockchain is in my todo-list. What I have in mind is a relation table of "holder activity profile" -> "number of accounts".

- Please check the TOP-500 Richest list, even though it is feeble what comes to accuracy. Apart from Satoshi, FBI and Loaded, no one has admitted controlling more than BTC100,000. (The BTC111,000 address is DPR's afaik.)

- My gut feeling is that number of bitcoin holders was estimated a little too small last time - an analysis of Bitcoin client and wallet software userbases, (Rassah!  ) plus Coinbase users, Bittiraha.fi users and Localbitcoins activity, and new user count in exchanges, is what we need to find more reliable figures.

3, 2, 1, GO!  BTC BTC

[Rampion]

I had mentioned this elsewhere, but it is apropos for here (you may have to follow the trail after this too):
https://blockchain.info/block-index/441990

https://blockchain.info/tx/1c12443203a48f42cdf7b1acee5b4b1c1fedc144cb909a3bf5edbffafb0cd204

Whose money is it?

over in the speculation wall observer thread i saw it mentioned that this was likely bitstamps money. no idea how accurate that is.

fyi: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/23/heres-who-probably-did-that-massive-150000000-bitcoin-transaction/

[User705]

I'll leave this here http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-02/its-1-world-who-owns-what-223-trillion-global-wealth

Nothing to do with the current situation, but likely the model it's evolving towards.

Thank you. Very good reading. (It is just sorry that the matter seemingly cannot be discussed without envying the top of the pyramid and labeling being wealthy as being greedy and/or a powermonger and/or a sociopath.)

Yes but to really get to the top it's almost a must to both be power hungry and a sociopath not in a bad connotation but clearly you'd be very different as compared to the rest of society.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

- My gut feeling is that number of bitcoin holders was estimated a little too small last time - an analysis of Bitcoin client and wallet software userbases, (Rassah!   ) plus Coinbase users, Bittiraha.fi users and Localbitcoins activity, and new user count in exchanges, is what we need to find more reliable figures.

In Japan, 週刊新潮 (Shukan Shincho, a weekly news magazine/tabloid) published a section on Bitcoin this week featuring an interview with a MtGox rep. The rep said that they have 720,000 users, of which 400,000 are active/frequent, and that 20% of their users are Chinese, up from 4% in April.

It looks from this like several million will be the correct figure.

[rpietila]

It looks from this like several million will be the correct figure.

I heard that only about 3 million bitcoin addresses are used. I would say that the number of addresses > number of users.

Myself, I have used dozens of addresses, and don't consider to be a heavy user of addresses.

[niothor]

I had mentioned this elsewhere, but it is apropos for here (you may have to follow the trail after this too):
https://blockchain.info/block-index/441990

https://blockchain.info/tx/1c12443203a48f42cdf7b1acee5b4b1c1fedc144cb909a3bf5edbffafb0cd204

Whose money is it?

over in the speculation wall observer thread i saw it mentioned that this was likely bitstamps money. no idea how accurate that is.

Bitstamp preparing to do arbitrage at gox. =))))
I would really LMAO if those bitcoins hit gox addresses.

[niothor]

It looks from this like several million will be the correct figure.

I heard that only about 3 million bitcoin addresses are used. I would say that the number of addresses > number of users.

Myself, I have used dozens of addresses, and don't consider to be a heavy user of addresses.

http://bitcoinrichlist.com/charts/bitcoin-distribution-by-address
Total   11,462,007
10mils really don't matter so ......

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

It looks from this like several million will be the correct figure.

I heard that only about 3 million bitcoin addresses are used. I would say that the number of addresses > number of users.

Myself, I have used dozens of addresses, and don't consider to be a heavy user of addresses.

It may be that many people are holding their coins on MtGox. Perhaps because they don't feel comfortable holding them themselves.

Here's the magazine where I saw the interview:

[wachtwoord]

It looks from this like several million will be the correct figure.

I heard that only about 3 million bitcoin addresses are used. I would say that the number of addresses > number of users.

Myself, I have used dozens of addresses, and don't consider to be a heavy user of addresses.

http://bitcoinrichlist.com/charts/bitcoin-distribution-by-address
Total   11,462,007
10mils really don't matter so ......

Wow, I would have guessed a number a few orders of magnitude above 11.5 M ...