Distribution of bitcoin wealth by owner

[psyclon]

I has been said before I'm sure, but let me say it again then: this disproportionate distribution could in itself cause problems if got out to wouldbe investors, not even talking of the very real danger of manipulation.

Not saying they don't deserve having that much, but they sure need to be responsible for all of us to keep it running by not dumping too much at one time.

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[rpietila]

So, in effect, you are advocating everyone to sell everything they own above 50,000 mBTC

Yes, most can do with 500mBTC very well No srsly, I added the very highest levels below, so that you can see that they are available. In the former world order (including your article), there is no "100+ billion USD" level, as you can see: it unmathematically mysteriously disappears from all lists and charts. This shows that the level should host about 30 people.


* top 30 would have BTC5,000 or more (100 billion USD)
* top 300 would have BTC500 or more (10 billion USD)
* top 3,000 would have BTC50 or more (1 billion USD)

* the top 29,000 people would have 5,000mBTC or more, a huge fortune comparable to 100 million of today's dollars.
* the top 1 million people would have 500mBTC or more, corresponding to 10 million or more dollars
* 29 million people have at least 50mBTC, which puts them among the most affluent 0.6%, previously called 'millionaires'
* the upper middle class of 350 million people worldwide, owns 5mBTC or more
* lower middle class consists of 1 billion people is characterized by ownership of 0.5mBTC or more
* the lower class of (3+ billion) owns less than 0.5mBTC including people who don't have any or have negative worth.

Notable is the size of BTC as the "basic" unit. It is a large unit, only applicable in displaying the total wealth of people who used to be called billionaires.

[Vycid]

So, in effect, you are advocating everyone to sell everything they own above 50,000 mBTC

Yes, most can do with 500mBTC very well No srsly, I added the very highest levels below, so that you can see that they are available. In the former world order (including your article), there is no "100+ billion USD" level, as you can see: it unmathematically mysteriously disappears from all lists and charts. This shows that the level should host about 30 people.


* top 30 would have BTC5,000 or more (100 billion USD)
* top 300 would have BTC500 or more (10 billion USD)
* top 3,000 would have BTC50 or more (1 billion USD)

* the top 29,000 people would have 5,000mBTC or more, a huge fortune comparable to 100 million of today's dollars.
* the top 1 million people would have 500mBTC or more, corresponding to 10 million or more dollars
* 29 million people have at least 50mBTC, which puts them among the most affluent 0.6%, previously called 'millionaires'
* the upper middle class of 350 million people worldwide, owns 5mBTC or more
* lower middle class consists of 1 billion people is characterized by ownership of 0.5mBTC or more
* the lower class of (3+ billion) owns less than 0.5mBTC including people who don't have any or have negative worth.

Notable is the size of BTC as the "basic" unit. It is a large unit, only applicable in displaying the total wealth of people who used to be called billionaires.

Here's the problem.

Anyone currently holding more than 5 BTC or so will decide to sell the excess when the proceeds (in dollars) from those excess coins will bring them financial security, since they can simply hold the remainder for the event in which BTC goes on to completely displace fiat.

This means we will see early adopters cashing out to the tune of trillions before any serious change-over will occur, and that means people must be convinced to put trillions of dollars into Bitcoin to actually propel it to worldwide adoption.

The people who will cash out first are those with thousands of BTC, since they can already buy total financial security in fiat and still have plenty of coins left over. Then those with hundreds... then you, the reader, who probably has less than 100.

Do you think the market can pay those trillions of dollars to the individuals with more coins with you? I think we're sitting on a time bomb here. The marginal utility of that first million is too great. 100k people times 1 million dollars equals oh fuck.

[rpietila]

- 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.

OK. I think for Mt.Gox, the "active" number 400,000 is what we should use. The total number possibly includes also accounts that have not been funded + the ones that have been emptied (and abandoned). The ratio of "active":"total" is about the same as in Silvervault.

Then we know that Localbitcoins has 120,000 accounts, with a growth rate of 2.5% per day. If you just buy from any of the merchants, you do not need to register afaik, so the total number of users could be larger. On the other hand, LB has quite many accounts with zero trades, since it has grown so rapidly. Perhaps 80,000 users would be a good estimate.  

Coinbase has 488,000 customer wallets. The number is probably "total", in which case about 300,000 would have a balance.

BTC China has to have quite many accounts, but I did not find the information publicly. Help!

Bitstamp ditto!

Number of Bitcoin clients downloaded is 4,350,000 over 5 years. How many of these is in use?

MyWallets (blockchain.info wallet) walletcount is 690,000.

Bitcoin network has used 11,462,000 addresses, of which 600,000 (exact) have non-dust (>1mBTC) balance.

Then there are other exchanges and wallet services, which you can add if you find nice figures.

In my understanding, the Bitcoin ledger (address usage and balance distribution), currently sets the upper limit for bitcoin number of users. Especially considering that 1mBTC only 2 months ago was only $0.13 or so, most of these accounts are not the sole acconts of bitcoin holders. On the other hand, most of the larger accounts

We need to evaluate, how many users should be added who only use exchanges for storing their bitcoins. This increases the total number.

On the other hand, there is a huge overlap in the numbers, since I alone have 8 accounts in the abovementioned sites only + several addresses with balance in the ledger.

Now, please try to keep this on-topic so that we get the december figures out.  

[rpietila]

so this would make the one single entity holding 1-2 million BTC what?

Satoshi has (at least) BTC980k

[rpietila]

fyi, based on rpietila's excellent analysis, I made a derivative post here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345228.0

nice post, btw long time no see

+1

[Siegfried]

This is my favorite thread, I am really looking forward to the updated numbers. Seeing where I rank on the list puts things in perspective.

[enquirer]

I just bought new winter boots for my wife with BTC profits. Next month I'm going to buy a car.

[Rassah]

I just bought new winter boots for my wife with BTC profits. Next month I'm going to buy a car.

Learn from my mistake and get a car loan 

[BitchicksHusband]

I just bought new winter boots for my wife with BTC profits. Next month I'm going to buy a car.

Learn from my mistake and get a car loan 

I did.  1.9% per year vs 6.3% per day...  Hmm...  Let me think about that one for a bit...

[Adrian-x]

I just bought new winter boots for my wife with BTC profits. Next month I'm going to buy a car.

Learn from my mistake and get a car loan 

Fiat (no pun intended) works better for debt based purchases, (provided you can afford the interest)

[rpietila]

December update for the table shows that 0.3 million BTC are distributed from the holders of BTC100 or more, to those having less. Also there is a great increase in the number of bitcoin users. Prior mistakes are corrected.

3. Dec 2013

#People	#Bitcoins	#TotalBitcoins
47	BTC10k+	3.5M
880	BTC1k-10k	2.6M
10k	BTC100-1k	3.0M
63k	BTC10-100	1.8M
210k	BTC1-10	0.6M
350k	BTC0.1-1	0.1M
350k	BTC0.01-0.1	0.0M
210k	BTC0.001-0.01	0.0M

Total: 11.6M bitcoins

1,200,000 people own bitcoins that are valued at more than $1 (BTC0.001 or more)
280,000 people own bitcoins that are valued at more than $1,000 (BTC1 or more), up from 120,000 last month
930 people own bitcoin that are valued at more than $1 million (BTC1,000 or more)
1 person owns bitcoins that are valued at more than $1 billion (Satoshi, estimated to be BTC980,000)

Changes from previous month:
- Bitcoin total number adjusted to account for increase in money supply
- Thoroughly re-engineered the number of bitcoin users from original data of the userbases of several services + blockchain usage. This shows that the last month estimate was probably too small, and perhaps 50% of the growth in number of users can be attributed to correction of a previous underestimate.
- Corrected the highest bracket a little bit (BTC0.6M ) upwards because it was over-corrected downwards last time. Number of holders in this category went down a little but we have better estimate of the holdings. As this is a base case model, we do not assume large, completely anonymous entities without at least circumstantial evidence of their holdings.
- Number of people in each bracket behaves according to binomial distribution as found in another data with the parameters: total=1.2 million users, highest bracket=fixed, #of_coins=fixed.

As a result:
- Bracket 1,000-10,000 saw the greatest loss -20%, bracket 100-1,000 lost 10%. Sub-BTC10 holdings gained a lot.

[Rassah]

So, you are saying we had 930 new millionaires created in the last 2 or 3 years, all of whom have a vested interest in seeing the currency succeed?

[bit-joker]

So a few hundred people could crash bitcoin price?

[Rassah]

So a few hundred people could crash bitcoin price?

If they all stupid, yes. Just like a few hundred people can crash USD price.

[FenixRD]

So a few hundred people could crash bitcoin price?

If they all stupid, yes. Just like a few hundred people can crash USD price.

I think most of us agree a few hundred people have actively been crashing USD for many years now, they're just friends with the people (or are themselves the very ones) responsible for controlling it and have successfully Enron'd it thus far.

I just bought new winter boots for my wife with BTC profits. Next month I'm going to buy a car.

Learn from my mistake and get a car loan  

I did.  1.9% per year vs 6.3% per day...  Hmm...  Let me think about that one for a bit...

So the loan offering for APR on the car loan was 1.9% I'm guessing? Pretty good rate. Did we project the "mean gain on BTC holdings, as appreciated against USD" upthread somewhere as 6.3% "DPY"? (Which means I assume you took a loan for the car and left the BTC as BTC, as Rassah was advising?)   Unitless figures confuse me. If I missed a comment that clarifies it I apologize.

[AnonyMint]

So a few hundred people could crash bitcoin price?

If they all stupid, yes. Just like a few hundred people can crash USD price.

That sounds like you are referring to the higher probability of collusion and working together given a smaller number of insiders.

Collectively crashing it to get the weak hands to sell and buying more wouldn't be stupid if one had an exit price where they think they can cash out for good or they think there is a never ending stream of buyers because they believe it will become a widespread currency.

I see I forgot to put you back on ignore. Rectified now.

[niothor]

You actually have somebody on ignore?
Sweet irony!!!!

[Rassah]

Crashing it to get the weak hands to sell and buying more wouldn't be stupid if one had an exit price where they think they can cash out for good or they think there is a never ending stream of buyers because they believe it will become a widespread currency.

Anony forgot about the prisoner's dillema, where such crashers would actually be competing against each other, and one trying to crash will likely get killed by the other simply buying up his cheap coins. Oh well. 

[Sava]

Big Thanks for this post !