How much bitcoin is "a fair share"?

[KonstantinosM]

Bitcoins per person... If you simply divide 21 million by 7 billion you get this:

0.003  It's currently around 25 dollars worth of bitcoin.

So as long as you have this, you have your share. If we divided by 1 billion it would be 2.1 bitcents

If we divided by the population of the United States it would be 0.064


The actual numbers are lower since not all bitcoin has been mined and a lot of bitcoin has been lost.
Also these numbers don't imply that you shouldn't strive to increase your holdings to any arbitrary multiple of that. More is definitely better.


I think these numbers are good to keep in mind to remind ourselves how scarce bitcoin actually is. A whole bitcoin is actually a whole lot of bitcoin. Kind of crazy that people are letting whole bitcoins go for less than 100,000 USD

[Astvile]

Im sure not everyone nowadays have 0.003 bitcoin in their wallet some doesnt even use bitcoin at all so that 0.003 bticoin per person isnt accurate at all.Not all people around the world uses bitcoin  I think not even half of the entire worlds population uses bitcoin.

[darklus123]

Im sure not everyone nowadays have 0.003 bitcoin in their wallet some doesnt even use bitcoin at all so that 0.003 bticoin per person isnt accurate at all.Not all people around the world uses bitcoin  I think not even half of the entire worlds population uses bitcoin.

Exactly, the computation is quite wrong because of adding certain people who actually don't use it. Therefore we should expect a higher amounts of fair share if we are only going to add those who are actually using it.

But obviously if all might have the same amounts being stored in their wallet bitcoin market might eventually die because it's nature is to be processed so that the economy will grow and basically that is why sometimes whale traders are good for the market.

[KonstantinosM]

Im sure not everyone nowadays have 0.003 bitcoin in their wallet some doesnt even use bitcoin at all so that 0.003 bticoin per person isnt accurate at all.Not all people around the world uses bitcoin  I think not even half of the entire worlds population uses bitcoin.

Exactly, the computation is quite wrong because of adding certain people who actually don't use it. Therefore we should expect a higher amounts of fair share if we are only going to add those who are actually using it.

But obviously if all might have the same amounts being stored in their wallet bitcoin market might eventually die because it's nature is to be processed so that the economy will grow and basically that is why sometimes whale traders are good for the market.

Notice I'm not making a claim on the actual distribution of bitcoin, although I suppose if I were, I'd assume a somewhat zipfian distribution (as in according to zipf's law).

My whole point is that bitcoin is extremely scarce as compared to the population. Take the example where every US Citizen having 6.4 bitcents would already add up to 21 Million.


The richest bitcoin entities have amounts of 100,000+ bitcoins leaving a lot less for the rest of us. It can easily be assumed that the top 10% of bitcoin holders hold more than 90% of bitcoin, where the supply of bitcoin is considered the number of bitcoin that can be used (disregarding lost and burnt coins).

[Adriano2010]

If all people can have it is good and this can't happen now because not all bitcoin is mined and old people will not use it or buy it, but if will happen bitcoin price will be much higher, but i think is not good that someone have a lot of bitcoin because if have 100k and sell this can affect the price for some period.

[Astvile]

Im sure not everyone nowadays have 0.003 bitcoin in their wallet some doesnt even use bitcoin at all so that 0.003 bticoin per person isnt accurate at all.Not all people around the world uses bitcoin  I think not even half of the entire worlds population uses bitcoin.

Exactly, the computation is quite wrong because of adding certain people who actually don't use it. Therefore we should expect a higher amounts of fair share if we are only going to add those who are actually using it.

But obviously if all might have the same amounts being stored in their wallet bitcoin market might eventually die because it's nature is to be processed so that the economy will grow and basically that is why sometimes whale traders are good for the market.

Notice I'm not making a claim on the actual distribution of bitcoin, although I suppose if I were, I'd assume a somewhat zipfian distribution (as in according to zipf's law).

My whole point is that bitcoin is extremely scarce as compared to the population. Take the example where every US Citizen having 6.4 bitcents would already add up to 21 Million.


The richest bitcoin entities have amounts of 100,000+ bitcoins leaving a lot less for the rest of us. It can easily be assumed that the top 10% of bitcoin holders hold more than 90% of bitcoin, where the supply of bitcoin is considered the number of bitcoin that can be used (disregarding lost and burnt coins).

Well bitcoin being scarce  in supply is the main reason why bitcoins price is so high,and yes top 10% of bitcoin holders hold maby 90% or more because there are no laws prohibiting the amount of holding a person can.This is how cryptomarket works so lets just accept it

[pooya87]

calling it "a fair share" may create a wrong idea in people's head that bitcoin is supposed to be distributed evenly among people like a charity! but that is not what bitcoin was meant to be like.

but your point about scarcity of bitcoin is valid. in fact the main reason why price is going to continue to rise until mass adoption is exactly this. of course mass adoption is not going to be anywhere close to 100% of people in the world using bitcoin but only a large percentage.

[avikz]

Bitcoins per person... If you simply divide 21 million by 7 billion you get this:

0.003  It's currently around 25 dollars worth of bitcoin.

So as long as you have this, you have your share. If we divided by 1 billion it would be 2.1 bitcents

If we divided by the population of the United States it would be 0.064


The actual numbers are lower since not all bitcoin has been mined and a lot of bitcoin has been lost.
Also these numbers don't imply that you shouldn't strive to increase your holdings to any arbitrary multiple of that. More is definitely better.


I think these numbers are good to keep in mind to remind ourselves how scarce bitcoin actually is. A whole bitcoin is actually a whole lot of bitcoin. Kind of crazy that people are letting whole bitcoins go for less than 100,000 USD

What's the bottomline of this thread?

What I understood is that you are saying, we should not sell off our bitcoins below 100,000 USD! If that is what you are trying to convey, then it is totally incorrect!

Unless and until we start using bitcoin as a currency, it will never reach to that price point ever. Mining and HODLing is never going to help unless those mined bitcoins are circulated within the economy! Bitcoin can only flourish to such an enormous level, only when it is used as a currency! That's the end use of bitcoin!

[CryptoBry]

I don't fully understand the point of "fair share" or if there is really such a thing. This is assuming that all people are interested with bitcoin and that everybody should be owning some. Unfortunately, bitcoin is not a like a communistic pie that we have to equally divide with all people... and in fact if you don't have the money to buy bitcoin and you are not ready to exert some effort to get some then at the end of the day even if bitcoin can go parabolic and reach $100,000 you will have zero. Okay, I might have been carried away with that statement. My point is that you can have as small or as big as you want because at the end of the day your fair share is what you can afford to have.

[xvids]

Im sure not everyone nowadays have 0.003 bitcoin in their wallet some doesnt even use bitcoin at all so that 0.003 bticoin per person isnt accurate at all.Not all people around the world uses bitcoin  I think not even half of the entire worlds population uses bitcoin.

I agree ,
We couldn't really compute it right now since not everyone is using it.
And besides even when we mined all the BTC and every people are using it we couldn't compute the right amount that everyone would hold because by that time,
There would be plenty of lost Bitcoin.

[davis196]

Bitcoins per person... If you simply divide 21 million by 7 billion you get this:

0.003  It's currently around 25 dollars worth of bitcoin.

So as long as you have this, you have your share. If we divided by 1 billion it would be 2.1 bitcents

If we divided by the population of the United States it would be 0.064


The actual numbers are lower since not all bitcoin has been mined and a lot of bitcoin has been lost.
Also these numbers don't imply that you shouldn't strive to increase your holdings to any arbitrary multiple of that. More is definitely better.


I think these numbers are good to keep in mind to remind ourselves how scarce bitcoin actually is. A whole bitcoin is actually a whole lot of bitcoin. Kind of crazy that people are letting whole bitcoins go for less than 100,000 USD

This is a pretty stupid calculation you are going.
Less than 10 million people on the planet earth are actually using btc.
You shouldn't divide the total supply only ,but the total btc supply times the btc market liduidity.

[stompix]

Im sure not everyone nowadays have 0.003 bitcoin in their wallet some doesnt even use bitcoin at all so that 0.003 bticoin per person isnt accurate at all.Not all people around the world uses bitcoin  I think not even half of the entire worlds population uses bitcoin.

Seriously?
You don't believe everyone has some bitcoins in their wallet?
Do you believe some people don't use bitcoin at all?
You don't believe even half of the population uses bitcoin?

No way....are you, Sherlock Homes, maybe? Can I have an autograph?

If we divided by 1 billion it would be 2.1 bitcents

&

example where every US Citizen having 6.4 bitcents would already add up to 21 Million.

Hmm, never thought trying to use bitcents would be so confusing.
Stick to the mBits

You shouldn't divide the total supply only ,but the total btc supply times the btc market liduidity.

Why?
He was trying to make a point what would happen if everyone would own a few mBits.
What has market liquidity to do with this? What has trade or exchange rate to dow with?

The point is pretty simple, just how we have 300 cars/1000 people or 1700 phones/people we can only have 3BTC/1000 people.

[Nadziratel]

I once read a post. In this article, it was stated that those who have 0.003 BTC will be rich. I think the theory was born of these calculations. This is how we look at today's values. But it is very difficult to predict what will happen in the future.

[traderethereum]

Fair share?
I think that will only happen if all people in all of the world are using bitcoin at the same time.
But now, many of them don't know bitcoin, and they don't want to know bitcoin so we cannot say that is a fair share.
Maybe it will happen in the future if all bitcoin was already mining and every people using bitcoin for the payment or anything else.

[CBANX2]

"A Fair Share" this term for Bitcoin is absolutely wrong! If we divide it on today's price, the share will be different and for tomorrows price share will be different and it will constantly going to change with its price change. In the Bitcoin market volatility are the only truth and real beauty of the crypto industry.

[serjent05]

Im sure not everyone nowadays have 0.003 bitcoin in their wallet some doesnt even use bitcoin at all so that 0.003 bticoin per person isnt accurate at all.Not all people around the world uses bitcoin  I think not even half of the entire worlds population uses bitcoin.

Seriously?
You don't believe everyone has some bitcoins in their wallet?
Do you believe some people don't use bitcoin at all?
You don't believe even half of the population uses bitcoin?

Well he is quite right in his assumption.  At least my neighbors don't own Bitcoin.  My mom don't use Bitcoin. From my circle of friends which is more than 50 people, I believe there is less than 10 of us who has BTC wallet, what more them using BTC.

You shouldn't divide the total supply only ,but the total btc supply times the btc market liduidity.

Why?
He was trying to make a point what would happen if everyone would own a few mBits.
What has market liquidity to do with this? What has trade or exchange rate to dow with?

The point is pretty simple, just how we have 300 cars/1000 people or 1700 phones/people we can only have 3BTC/1000 people.

I fully agree with your explanation here.

I believe OP is pointing out that in due time Bitcoin will be mass adopted, possibly will reached most corner of the world, which I also believe.

Notice I'm not making a claim on the actual distribution of bitcoin, although I suppose if I were, I'd assume a somewhat zipfian distribution (as in according to zipf's law).

Zipf Law got my attention so I called my bestfriend google to ask what it is then I saw this

The Zipf distribution, sometimes referred to as the zeta distribution, is a discrete distribution commonly used in linguistics, insurance, and the modelling of rare events. It has probability density function

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ZipfDistribution.html

[xSkylarx]

Bitcoin has a limited supply and can be traded to gain huge amount of profit. So having "a fair share" is impossible because rich people will buy how much they want. There is no law that limits an individual to only have a specific amount of bitcoin. If having "a fair share" is possible then manipulating the market won't be that easy.

[dothebeats]

And it will be cool if wealth would be evenly distributed like what you envisioned it to, though we all know that it will not happen in our lifetimes. Heck, even if a single person holds just a fraction of that 0.003 BTC, if deflation hits its peak, everyone will be well off. That's why most of us here is lucky enough to be in before everyone else, because we are ahead in some way over others. I just hope to see bitcoin being used and not just kept, by a lot of people in this world, and perhaps we can achieve that once more and more merchants decide to integrate bitcoin into their system.

[Pursuer]

I personally prefer my own 1 in a million target which is about having 21 bitcoins and since there are only a cap of 21 million bitcoin if you own 21BTC you will be one in a million! of course that target is going to become harder and harder to reach as bitcoin price rises every year but having that in mind motivates me to accumulate more before we reach mass adoption: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790863.0

[Beerwizzard]

The only fact that there is more people in the world than number of Bitcoins could be mined doesn't tell us that BTC is underpriced. THose numbers don't say that all those people should buy any amount of cryptocurrency.
This is a typical mistake of marketing students when at first they are making their project and they are sure that everyone needs this product while you need to classify its target audience.

My whole point is that bitcoin is extremely scarce as compared to the population. Take the example where every US Citizen having 6.4 bitcents would already add up to 21 Million.

No, It is not adding anything. To change the price those people have to use their BTC. Otherwise, it would be the same situation as it could be if lost bitcoins were now lost but only holded in someone else's wallets without any price moves.

[partysaurus]

I personally prefer my own 1 in a million target which is about having 21 bitcoins and since there are only a cap of 21 million bitcoin if you own 21BTC you will be one in a million! of course that target is going to become harder and harder to reach as bitcoin price rises every year but having that in mind motivates me to accumulate more before we reach mass adoption: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790863.0

thats awesome dude its a nice goal! always nice to be one in a million, Im going for 1 btc that feels like a realistic goal for now. maybe one day i can also reach for 21 btc

[KonstantinosM]

What I understood is that you are saying, we should not sell off our bitcoins below 100,000 USD! If that is what you are trying to convey, then it is totally incorrect!

Unless and until we start using bitcoin as a currency, it will never reach to that price point ever. Mining and HODLing is never going to help unless those mined bitcoins are circulated within the economy! Bitcoin can only flourish to such an enormous level, only when it is used as a currency! That's the end use of bitcoin!

I've used bitcoin in the past just for the sake of using it. To prove it's real to me and to the other person using it. I've bought baklava (a dessert) for 0.5 BTC among other things, most of my bitcoin (I was mining back in 2012-2013 went out that way.

If all of a sudden no-one was willing to sell bitcoin for less than 100k, the price would probably have to go up to 100k. Then again if no-one was willing to buy bitcoin at 1 cent, the price would eventually jump to 1 cent.

My argument here is that since bitcoin is really scarce AND it's proven to work, the former is actually reasonable. Of course the market is driven by how much people value bitcoin the inherent value of it is questionable. Bitcoin has value because it can be trusted as money. It can be trusted to store economic energy.

The dollar isn't scarce, therefore its value proposition is very shaky, therefore the usd to btc ratio should eventually go to 100k, even if bitcoin doesn't gain or lose any real value.

[Dapper]

Well, you have around 700-900 million people in the world without tapwater and/or electricity so I think they might have some other priorities before building up their crypto portfolio.   

 

[BitBustah]

As long as workers don't own the means of production there will always be great inequality.  Even if you divided all the bitcoins evenly among everyone in the world the same wealth inequality would happen over a short amount of time due to owning assets like companies.

[rdluffy]

Yes, it's scarce, no doubt
But the most important fact that makes BTC worthing something, is our belief
If anyone lose interest in BTC, and nobody change fiat money to BTC, BTC will value 0

[bitvalak]

Bitcoins per person... If you simply divide 21 million by 7 billion you get this:

0.003  It's currently around 25 dollars worth of bitcoin.

So as long as you have this, you have your share. If we divided by 1 billion it would be 2.1 bitcents

If we divided by the population of the United States it would be 0.064


The actual numbers are lower since not all bitcoin has been mined and a lot of bitcoin has been lost.
Also these numbers don't imply that you shouldn't strive to increase your holdings to any arbitrary multiple of that. More is definitely better.


I think these numbers are good to keep in mind to remind ourselves how scarce bitcoin actually is. A whole bitcoin is actually a whole lot of bitcoin. Kind of crazy that people are letting whole bitcoins go for less than 100,000 USD

Fair does not mean the amount is equal, the needs of each person will be different.
There are enough with 1 BTC and some are enough with 0.001 BTC. Whatever the price if bitcoin can provide value will definitely be fair.

[klaaas]

There are enough with 1 BTC and some are enough with 0.001 BTC. Whatever the price if bitcoin can provide value will definitely be fair.

Indeed. It should be a target to grow your stack since the fair share is a personal thing. The more time passes by the harder it will become.  Any share you can grab at the moment is a fair share.

[miropp]

But among these 7 billion people, there are still children and elderly people who do not need bitcoins. Also, there are some people who are simply not interested. Therefore, the division of bitcoin depends on the finances that we have.

[pushups44]

Bitcoins per person... If you simply divide 21 million by 7 billion you get this:

0.003  It's currently around 25 dollars worth of bitcoin.

So as long as you have this, you have your share. If we divided by 1 billion it would be 2.1 bitcents

If we divided by the population of the United States it would be 0.064


The actual numbers are lower since not all bitcoin has been mined and a lot of bitcoin has been lost.
Also these numbers don't imply that you shouldn't strive to increase your holdings to any arbitrary multiple of that. More is definitely better.


I think these numbers are good to keep in mind to remind ourselves how scarce bitcoin actually is. A whole bitcoin is actually a whole lot of bitcoin. Kind of crazy that people are letting whole bitcoins go for less than 100,000 USD

Breaking bitcoin down by supply and global population is an interesting exercise that brings perspective, but the fact that millions of bitcoin have been lost forever, as well as the filthy rich hoarding thousands of them, paints an even more optimistic picture. I'd like to see standard methods developed to measure bitcoin's fair value that take into account all of these factors.

[kamBlanV]

the reality is the mining of BTC is very difficult.  and difficulties in mining limit everyone to get BTC.  and the price of BTC always goes up.  so I think.  we cannot calculate BTC with certainty.  the amount of BTC is limited and demand will always be high every time.  so.  we better think of ways to get BTC.

[seoincorporation]

Bitcoins per person... If you simply divide 21 million by 7 billion you get this:

0.003  It's currently around 25 dollars worth of bitcoin.

So as long as you have this, you have your share. If we divided by 1 billion it would be 2.1 bitcents

If we divided by the population of the United States it would be 0.064


The actual numbers are lower since not all bitcoin has been mined and a lot of bitcoin has been lost.
Also these numbers don't imply that you shouldn't strive to increase your holdings to any arbitrary multiple of that. More is definitely better.


I think these numbers are good to keep in mind to remind ourselves how scarce bitcoin actually is. A whole bitcoin is actually a whole lot of bitcoin. Kind of crazy that people are letting whole bitcoins go for less than 100,000 USD

I do not agree with your data because when you do 21M/7B is the wrong equation, and i say this because the last bitcoin will be mined in 2140, and when that happens the world population will not be 7 billion, it should be bigger than that.

[KonstantinosM]

I do not agree with your data because when you do 21M/7B is the wrong equation, and i say this because the last bitcoin will be mined in 2140, and when that happens the world population will not be 7 billion, it should be bigger than that.

Well, it's not meant to be super accurate. I'd rather work with a round number. Notice that 21/7 is 3. I could adjust for bitcoin in circulation and an accurate population number but that is meaningless. Close enough is good enough in this case.

I see your point about using more accurate numbers, it would be fairer to assume the usable number of bitcoins is lower. However, most bitcoins will have been mined long before 2140.

97.5% of bitcoin will have been mined by about 2029 and 99% of bitcoin by about 2037
You can look at this chart for reference: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=130619.0 (scale looks to be 2.5% per line)

I also mentioned earlier that the actual distribution of bitcoin is probably a zipfian one (as in according to zipf's law). That means that if the richest bitcoin entity has about 6% of bitcoins than the distribution is probably something like this:

Rank               Bitcoins
1                    1,260,000
2                    630k
3                    420k
...
100                12,600
...
1000              1,260
1,000,000      1.26
...
7 Billion         0.00018

Edit: Cut unnecessary stuff out of the post.

[stompix]

I do not agree with your data because when you do 21M/7B is the wrong equation, and i say this because the last bitcoin will be mined in 2140, and when that happens the world population will not be 7 billion, it should be bigger than that.

Well, it's not meant to be super accurate. I'd rather work with a round number. Notice that 21/7 is 3. I could adjust for bitcoin in circulation and an accurate population number but that is meaningless. Close enough is good enough in this case.

I see your point about using more accurate numbers, it would be fairer to assume the usable number of bitcoins is lower. However, most bitcoins will have been mined long before 2140.

I think that trying to round the numbers to be more accurate at this point is meaningless.
We could argue that the population is actually 7.5 billion but  30% of it is under 18, cutting 2.1 billion, but again in some countries, the 18 yo age has no significance,  throw in the fact that some bitcoin are lost forever, probably a few have been lost just because the owners had little dust left like 1000-2000 sat in their wallets and decided it's not worth to keep it with a higher fee than value and so on and so on....

You've made the mistake of using the term "fair share" and that made a lot of people assume the topic is about something else.

As long as workers don't own the means of production there will always be great inequality.  Even if you divided all the bitcoins evenly among everyone in the world the same wealth inequality would happen over a short amount of time due to owning assets like companies.

Let me tell you what happens when the workers own everything, cause I've lived in such a society.
Indeed, we are all equal, we all lack food, heating, hot water, everything.
We all become equally dirt poor, staying for hours in line to get a litre of milk, one of oil and 250gr of butter.

So the moment we start dividing those equally, I have the feeling they will be worth zero.