<500,000 people actually own any bitcoins?

[Cassius]

http://bitscan.com/bitnews/item/how-many-people-really-own-bitcoins-and-why-does-it-matter argues 500,000 - probably a lot fewer because a lot of people have 5, 10+ addresses?

[trcwhale]

very interesting. I think it is even less than that.


Maybe 300k-400k users max.

[Cassius]

Maybe. I reckon even less. 1.2 million max, but lots of those will have forgotten addresses, not care about minimal amounts, plus you have some people with dozens of addresses.
But apparently exchanges, where people keep a lot of bitcoins, don't have an address for everyone? I think that's weird as I send my btc to a specific address for Bitstamp.

[keithers]

I posted the estimated distribution of btc amongst the wallet addresses. If you give it a search it shows the estimated chart as of beginning of February.

[rpietila]

How come Mt.Gox alone has more than a million accounts, coinbase has 700k, etc. Everybody has 5-10 accts?

Number of bitcoin owners is 2+ Million now.

[BldSwtTrs]

How come Mt.Gox alone has more than a million accounts, coinbase has 700k, etc. Everybody has 5-10 accts?

Number of bitcoin owners is 2+ Million now.

1- I know personally at least two guys who opened an account in an exchange but give up their project to buy bitcoins because of the KYC hassle.

2- I know 3 others people who opened an account, buy bitcoins, made few hundred of $, sell them, cash out and now don't have any bitcoin.

3- I have an account in 3 exchanges (Bitstamp, Gox and Btc-e) and I think a lot of people here are in the same case.

IMHO an analysis based on addresses is closer to the truth than an analysis based on account exchanges.

[keithers]

Here is the estimated distribution of bitcoin holdings per address as of February 2014

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=454184.0

[rpietila]

The Complete and Unadulterated Truth can as usual be found in my thread (please read ALL the thread - yes it is long - before commenting on methodology).

[Cassius]

rpietila, this is based on blockchain addresses. It's hard to argue with a 100% transparent source.

[rpietila]

No.

Blockchain has no 1:1 relationship with ownership of bitcoins, due to two factors:
- One owner may have multiple addresses.
- One owner may have zero addresses if he is a beneficial owner through eg. an exchange or a webwallet.

(please read ALL the thread - yes it is long - before commenting on methodology).

There is some actual research on the subject available. I have a paid analyst working on this matter even at the very moment. You are free to think what you want, but why would you, as others have already done the work? 

[WompRat]

I tend to agree with Risto here.  2 million is a much closer figure.  You only have to look at the Blockchain My Wallet numbers to see that 500,000 is well off.

[Cassius]

What, why would I think freely for myself, when I can dumbly take someone else's word for it?! Even when they're paid by someone else to tell them what they think...?
I have read that thread, all of it. I didn't like the methodology, or the conclusions, so I took a different route. It's one that makes sense to me, and a lot of other people too. That in itself doesn't make it more accurate, but neither does paying a researcher.
Thanks for the thread, anyway.
Point taken about the exchange addresses (for all who mentioned it). I imagine they complement other addresses, though - a handful of people might only have bitcoins in an exchange, but that must be more than compensated for by those with multiple addresses. Any serious bitcoiner is going to have at least one 'proper' address and probably more (current account, cold storage, etc).

[rpietila]

Let this serve as a reminder to never reply in anyone else's thread, (esp. if you have researched the matter in question longer than he's had an account) 

[Cassius]

Let this serve as a reminder to never reply in anyone else's thread, (esp. if you have researched the matter in question longer than he's had an account) 

I'll let that comment speak for itself.

Anyone else have anything useful to contribute? You know, in the interests of mutual furthering of knowledge through balanced discussion?

[pening]

The Complete and Unadulterated Truth can as usual be found in my thread (please read ALL the thread - yes it is long - before commenting on methodology).

As far as i can tell, your method is counting blockchain addresses and exchange accounts, right?  Not owners.  I mean, i don't see anything in the analysis that attempts to correlate the numbers of those address/account metrics to people.  

[Cyberlight]

C'mon , Big money!

[phr0stbyt3]

Even at $500-$1200 each its still a great time to become an early adopter.

[CryptoPanda]

from one side you have 1 person owning bunch of addresses
from the other you have thousands of people using shared web based wallets.

Conclusion, no one has any idea how many are the actual bitcoin owners.
Everything is massive, massive speculation.

[Akka]

I think that number makes sense. Maybe even lower. Of course it really doesn't count in all those people that just bought Bitcoin on an exchange and never transfered them to an adress they controll. This could indeed be millions.

But as you see right now, this people don't really have any BTC. All they have are BTC-IOUs from an exchange.

The Blockchain doesn't lie. So it's fair to say about 500.000 (probably lower) people own BTC.