Only 2% of addresses hold 1 Bitcoin or more — Is this true?

[lichig]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".

I found this to be quite surprising, since I always supposed longtime hodlers to be the larger segment of the Bitcoin ecosystem and not just a small fraction.

How accurate this data could be?

[iamsheikhadil]

I used to think similarly, but then again, these long time holders are very few in number when compared to today's number of people who knows about Bitcoin and holds it. In the early years, very few knew, but Bitcoin I would say grew up tremendously and introduced itself in mainstream in the 2017 bull run. Although I have known about Bitcoin since 2015 from some articles, I didn't really buy that time and many people like that exist. So, huge amount holders are really low in number as compared to today's Bitcoin population

[NeuroticFish]

How accurate this data could be?

There are places here and there offering lists with addresses that contain funds, so you can test for yourself.
However, this information doesn't mean absolutely anything, since some will keep all their funds in one address, while others will keep them spread in more wallets.

[cissrawk]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".

Based on https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html , there's more than 2%. Well, its on 2% range so its still count as on 2%.

How accurate this data could be?

Dunno, but you can take it as grain of salt.
Of course website that i mentioned above probably are not 100% accurate.

[lichig]

Ok — but, independently of the long-time hodlers, until very recently to buy 1 Bitcoin was a significant easy to access investment.

I'm surprised that not more people bought at the dip on 2019.

[stompix]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".
I found this to be quite surprising, since I always supposed longtime hodlers to be the larger segment of the Bitcoin ecosystem and not just a small fraction.

Why would that be surprising especially if you think logtime holders would have more coins?
The 2% is exactly a reflection of old addresses having a lot of coins while millions of new ones only a few satoshis, those 2% hold more than 95% of all coins.

Understand what "or more" means, it includes addresses with 140 000 coins, how could addresses with over 10 000 coins represent let's say 1%? Their maximum number would be 2 100, that being 1% of the total will bring the maximum possible number of addresses with a balance to be just 210 000!!!!!

The percentage is normal, just like people with over 10 million in assets represent a tiny fraction of the popualtion.

[lichig]

Why would that be surprising especially if you think logtime holders would have more coins?
The 2% is exactly a reflection of old addresses having a lot of coins while millions of new ones only a few satoshis, those 2% hold more than 95% of all coins.

I'm surprised that not more people bought at the dip on 2019 for example, when to buy 1 Bitcoin was a relative easy to access investment.

[cissrawk]

I'm surprised that not more people bought at the dip on 2019 for example, when to buy 1 Bitcoin was a relative easy to access investment.

Probably because of some news and fud spreading around at that time. This chart show some event that happen in certain month and year.

[zanezane]

I used to think similarly, but then again, these long time holders are very few in number when compared to today's number of people who knows about Bitcoin and holds it. In the early years, very few knew, but Bitcoin I would say grew up tremendously and introduced itself in mainstream in the 2017 bull run. Although I have known about Bitcoin since 2015 from some articles, I didn't really buy that time and many people like that exist. So, huge amount holders are really low in number as compared to today's Bitcoin population

It will be really rare to find a long time hodler, there are a lot of price peaks along the decade that bitcoin has been around, and the people's psychology will be calling out to sell it at those peaks because of the FOMO on the peak prices because they didn't know that it wasn't the last time that the prices peaked and if there ever was a long term hodler from 2010 then I do salute him/her for having the patience to just hodl. To be honest, it is not that surprising to find that only 2% holds 1 or more bitcoin because if this data is new, this means that it has a correlation with the recent increase of institutional investors in the market which means that there are less bitcoin to move around for the remaining 98% that are definitely not going to get one bitcoin because it is expensive so most of them are getting only fractions.

[jrrsparkles]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".

I found this to be quite surprising, since I always supposed longtime hodlers to be the larger segment of the Bitcoin ecosystem and not just a small fraction.

How accurate this data could be?

Even if this is accurate still it is completely normal though because number of crypto users increasing day by day but the total current supply is 18.5 Million even in that around 4 million bitcoins were lost due to the loss of private keys to their wallets then how can we expect everyone to hold more than one bitcoin.

[Fesatmas]

Maybe for the span of 2015 it applies, but from 2019 until now it has become invalid, where we see quite a massive adoption. bitcoin has been recognized by large investors, companies, and entrepreneurs. very hard to say 2% this time. well that's the usual bitcoin cycle we find from those who know what bitcoin is like, and how to get it. and even small traders have bitcoin balances in their wallets.

[stompix]

I'm surprised that not more people bought at the dip on 2019 for example, when to buy 1 Bitcoin was a relative easy to access investment.

Then don't look at percentages because they are misleading, there are 677288 addresses with a balance of over 1 BTC, and lower than 10 there are at least other 350k BTC in just three addresses that are cold wallets, it's highly possible to have a few tens of thousands of people with over BTC there also.
Percentages in this are misleading, I have over 1 BTC, but I also at least 7 addresses with early dust in it, I'm contributing to both numbers, the 2% over 1 and the 98% with less than that. If a shop received 50 orders and because of high fees it decided to wait a bit before batching all the coins into one new address there you have it, 50 addresses with small amounts that are inflating the numbers while representing just one user, and I could go on like this with examples like that till tomorrow.

Remember that in the end if everyone would start using bitcoins the number would be even smaller, probably gravitating towards 0.2 and then 0.02.

[saddampbuh]

wouldn't surprise me, an entire btc is worth more than most people's life savings

[pixie85]

It's nothing strange really.

(0 - 0.001) addresses are the largest group because those include change addresses. These addresses are made automatically when you spend coins from your main address. It means that if you had bitcoins for a few years and transacted many times time from that wallet you have a number of addresses with those leftovers within your wallet.

You are 1 person, but have many addresses that you did not intentionally make, some of which have 0.01, some with 0.001 and some with dust like a few satoshi.

wouldn't surprise me, an entire btc is worth more than most people's life savings

I read that in most countries about 50% of people have between 1 and 2 times their monthly wage saved up. It doesn't matter if the country is rich or poor.
Even in the USA a large number of people doesn't have any savings.

[philipma1957]

Where you live in the world matters.

In Manhattan having a 1-2 btc balance is nice but not a lot of money.

If you live in Vietnam having a 1-2 vtc balance is meaningful.

A penthouse apartment in Manhattan is 20k a month rent
Same style and size in Hanoi it is 2k a month rent.

But earning is less in Hanoi so I guess it is a balance.

[just_Alice]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".

I found this to be quite surprising, since I always supposed longtime hodlers to be the larger segment of the Bitcoin ecosystem and not just a small fraction.

How accurate this data could be?

As for me, it's not that surprising, considering that most people aren't that rich to afford various risky investments. Also, even if we take large investors - it takes nerve to see BTC drop in price and still keep it on the wallet, also, many people are greedy and they sell just as the price begins to drop.

So potential longtime holders are either very rich people who don't care if they lose money, but if they're rich and not interested in profit - why invest in the first place? Just for fun, I guess, so we can't expect the % of such people to be large. Or, it can be ordinary middle to upper-class people, but for this kind of people, it must be particularly hard to see their investments lose value as Bitcoin drops in price, so many of them eventually sell.

[philipma1957]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".

I found this to be quite surprising, since I always supposed longtime hodlers to be the larger segment of the Bitcoin ecosystem and not just a small fraction.

How accurate this data could be?

As for me, it's not that surprising, considering that most people aren't that rich to afford various risky investments. Also, even if we take large investors - it takes nerve to see BTC drop in price and still keep it on the wallet, also, many people are greedy and they sell just as the price begins to drop.

So potential longtime holders are either very rich people who don't care if they lose money, but if they're rich and not interested in profit - why invest in the first place? Just for fun, I guess, so we can't expect the % of such people to be large. Or, it can be ordinary middle to upper-class people, but for this kind of people, it must be particularly hard to see their investments lose value as Bitcoin drops in price, so many of them eventually sell.

I am 64 semi-retired and don’t earn huge money 💰.

So If I have a decent house in a decent town.
An income stream of x
A 401k of 4x

Having 4x more in btc is too much .



Lets pretend an example with even numbers.

100k income pretty much fixed.

400k  in a 401k in a moderately safe portfolio 💼

means having 400k more in btc is over investment in crypto for me. As I only have 100k income and cant save back losses very fast n my fixed income.

I would prefer

same 100k fixed income.

600k in 401k very safe portfolio 💼

200k in btc

A crash and burn 🔥 of crypto would not kill me in the second case.

But would really hurt in the first case.

[Cynthiajia0]

Checking the distribution of Bitcoin through the addresses provided by BitInfoCharts, there are 633,008 addresses with at least 1 BTC (a total of 1.68 million mined BTC), accounting for 2.18% of the total number of addresses. However, an address is not necessarily equal to a person, so a more in-depth study is necessary to obtain the true range.

[Theresajing0]

According to the distribution table, we can determine that there is at least 1 BTC between 500,000 and 1 million people.

What about the lost Bitcoin?

Yes-we should not ignore this aspect. If I hold 1 BTC and happen to lose the private key, do I still have the funds? not really. If we consider lost cryptocurrency funds, we should delete 20% of the estimated number. Chainalysis stated in 2017 that about 23% of circulating bitcoins were permanently lost

[sunsilk]

There is discrepancy for such data especially if it's about determining the percentage of addresses that holds this and that. An address will only be considered to be holding a bitcoin if it's publicly posted by anyone unless there really are researchers and companies who are good in digging data like unexposed addresses that hold from 1 bitcoin to more than that.

We only have 1 reference and it's bitinfo, I haven't any other reference that can give the same stat as them. They are including the wallets that have less than 1 bitcoin while the other websites that I've seen, they only are for the rich list.

[LoyceV]

I opened List of all Bitcoin addresses with a balance for this. At the moment, 829,324 of the 34,653,280 addresses in this 904 MB list hold at least 1 Bitcoin. That's 2.39%.

An address will only be considered to be holding a bitcoin if it's publicly posted by anyone

You do know the Bitcoin blockchain is public, right?

[Vishnu.Reang]

I opened List of all Bitcoin addresses with a balance for this. At the moment, 829,324 of the 34,653,280 addresses in this 904 MB list hold at least 1 Bitcoin. That's 2.39%.

An address will only be considered to be holding a bitcoin if it's publicly posted by anyone

You do know the Bitcoin blockchain is public, right?

Actually this is disappointing. If the total number of Bitcoin wallets with a non-zero balance is 35 million, then it means that the number of active users of Bitcoin may be much lower than that figure (because most of the users have multiple wallets). And that would also mean that the number of Bitcoin users is much lower than what is being claimed right now (100 million to 200 million). This is disappointing on many fronts. The less number of Bitcoin users we have, that much lower will be the collective bargaining power. So what is the real number? Somewhere around 10 million worldwide?

[LoyceV]

And that would also mean that the number of Bitcoin users is much lower than what is being claimed right now (100 million to 200 million).

I've seen similar claims, and I never believed them. If there would be that many Bitcoin users, the current block size can only handle about 2 transactions per person per year.
I'm not counting people who keep Bitcoin on an exchange or their Paypal account. They don't own the private keys, so they're not really using Bitcoin.

[Bamselk]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".

I found this to be quite surprising, since I always supposed longtime hodlers to be the larger segment of the Bitcoin ecosystem and not just a small fraction.

How accurate this data could be?

Firstly, most people have a new address for each transaction which is sent to them.  Therefore, most Bitcoin addresses would not have over 1BTC sent to them since people would get it in parts.

Secondly, since most transactions sent are quite small and most people don't have as much as $37,000 worth of Bitcoin, it's difficult for addresses to have so much money on them.

Hodlers are relevant in the Bitcoin ecosystem but they would control a small percentage of overall Bitcoin addresses even if they make up a lot of the people who have a large amount of Bitcoin.

[justdimin]

There is discrepancy for such data especially if it's about determining the percentage of addresses that holds this and that. An address will only be considered to be holding a bitcoin if it's publicly posted by anyone unless there really are researchers and companies who are good in digging data like unexposed addresses that hold from 1 bitcoin to more than that.

We only have 1 reference and it's bitinfo, I haven't any other reference that can give the same stat as them. They are including the wallets that have less than 1 bitcoin while the other websites that I've seen, they only are for the rich list.

Do not forget that someone who has 1+ bitcoin could basically have 10 different addresses with 0.1 bitcoins in it that makes it over 1 bitcoin as well. And all those people who do not have any wallet of their own but have 1+ bitcoin in their exchanges as well, think of all the people who have under 1 btc in their wallets but have over 1 bitcoins on their binance account and that is just binance. So, I think data definitely lacks a lot of information.

Of course majority doesn't have 1+ bitcoin, I wouldn't say 2% but it still is not 80%+ neither, that would be insane to think that many people having that much money, it is obvious that things are not like that. However it is also obvious that it is over 2% with all the data points I have pointed out, it is probably a lot more than we know but we can't check it since these are data we can't find anyway or shape without people confirming it themselves.

[Febo]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".

Think what you wrote. If there are a lot  of addresses s logical that only tiny number can have 1 btc. If there are 18 million addresses, then every address can have 1 BTC, but only if none have more then 1 BTC. It is not logical that no address would have more then 1 BTC since all BTC on exchanges is in one address.   My point is this is totally unrelevant data. What si relevant s why on earth we can see how much coins in n peoples wallets. Bitcoin ledger should be opaque as is in Monero. 

[Twentyonepaylots]

This may say a lot but honestly speaking, this percentage is misleading, it's not its fault however but it is very much erroneous at best. Why you ask? Because the percentage most probably didn't took into account the fact that a huge percentage of bitcoin investors, whether big or small, hold two or more addresses with less than one bitcoin, which when added up, adds up to one or more bitcoins. Let that sink in.

There is discrepancy for such data especially if it's about determining the percentage of addresses that holds this and that. An address will only be considered to be holding a bitcoin if it's publicly posted by anyone unless there really are researchers and companies who are good in digging data like unexposed addresses that hold from 1 bitcoin to more than that.

We only have 1 reference and it's bitinfo, I haven't any other reference that can give the same stat as them. They are including the wallets that have less than 1 bitcoin while the other websites that I've seen, they only are for the rich list.

Bitinfo has been a reputable source of bitcoin info for a lot of us, and I doubt the researchers who took on this study relied their information from this site. Or they probably just skimmed through the whole site and cherrypicked what would work best for them.

[aesma]

With what a BTC is worth nowadays, even if you have several of them you might as well spread them over many addresses for privacy reasons : that way nobody knows how much you own, when you cash some out you're not showing your big stash, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if many of these "richest" addresses aren't actually lost coins.

[Sithara007]

And that would also mean that the number of Bitcoin users is much lower than what is being claimed right now (100 million to 200 million).

I've seen similar claims, and I never believed them. If there would be that many Bitcoin users, the current block size can only handle about 2 transactions per person per year.
I'm not counting people who keep Bitcoin on an exchange or their Paypal account. They don't own the private keys, so they're not really using Bitcoin.

So we can safely assume that the total number of active users stand at anywhere between 5 to 20 million (including users who use only an exchange wallet). So this also means that the claims put forward by exchanges such as Coinbase is shady? They claim to have 43 million users worldwide. Even if they have that many users, I assume that the majority would have just made an account and never dealt with any crypto. And back in 2019, Changpeng Zhao claimed that there are 15 million Binance users.. Current numbers must be at least 100% higher.

[stompix]

And that would also mean that the number of Bitcoin users is much lower than what is being claimed right now (100 million to 200 million).

I've seen similar claims, and I never believed them. If there would be that many Bitcoin users, the current block size can only handle about 2 transactions per person per year.

Those claims are pure PR articles written by exchanges who claim millions of accounts and millions of users.
We had one article with 20% of Turkey's population owning crypto, one in 5 random guys you meet on the streets would be a crypto owner! Seriously? Who would believe this!

I'm not counting people who keep Bitcoin on an exchange or their Paypal account. They don't own the private keys, so they're not really using Bitcoin.

If we go by the private keys then we know the maximum possible number of users, that's the quoted before 34 624 737.
Assuming at least a median of 2 addresses per user (since we also exclude a lot of services with thousands of addresses) and we only count the ones with at least 30$ then the number drops to around 10 million, which is highly more probably than the 200 million.

Besides, there are only 600 million transactions in the blockchain, some of them are indeed batching transactions from exchanges sending coins to buyers but also 10 millions are just back and forth from satoshidice  

[aesma]

Sithara007 : I have accounts on many many exchanges (I don't mean several accounts by exchange, just one each), I leave crypto/fiat on few of them, if any. I'm still counted as a user of all these exchanges.

Interesting stat stompix, I figure I have done several hundreds transactions, I guess it's much more than the average.

[Kakmakr]

There is no "rule" that says long-term hoarders should store 1 Bitcoin per Address ... You can decide how you want to store your coins. I decided to split some of my coins on to paper wallets with increments of 0.5 BTC per address, because it just makes it easier to sweep, when you need smaller amounts.

It does not make sense to store 5 bitcoins on one paper wallet and then when you need say 0.5 BTC... you need to sweep all those coins and then transfer 0.5 BTC and then having to store 4.5 BTC again onto a new paper wallet.  

So it all depends on what strategy the owner of the bitcoins wants to use to store his or her coins.  

[Shasha80]

In my opinion it makes very sense that only 2% of addresses hold more than 1 Bitcoin, because the very expensive price Bitcoin is currently in.
Although there is a possibility that someone usually stores their Bitcoin at more than one address for security reasons. So if one wallet address
has been hacked successfully, there is still Bitcoin saved at a different wallet address. It's hard for me to collect 1 Bitcoin right now, even though
I tried hard to collect them. So it's normal for the data to be accurate, because it's not easy now to have 1 Bitcoin.

[SaShiRaJaVu]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".

I found this to be quite surprising, since I always supposed longtime hodlers to be the larger segment of the Bitcoin ecosystem and not just a small fraction.

I have no idea about the number of bitcoin addresses in existence and there are wallet where hundreds and thousands of coins are held and many use and throw the wallets they used in the public to safe guard their privacy and even if your statement is true, the long term holders will be holding their coins in offline wallets and they will be having huge amount of coins especially early adopters.

[Lorence.xD]

I think there are still many wallets that have 1 bitcoin or more in their wallets because the 2% percentage value is very small compared to the number of wallets in circulation and many wallets cannot be accessed anymore when the price of bitcoin is still around $ 1-100, many people forget about private the key, so the conclusion is more than 2%, maybe it can reach 10% if you carefully and correctly.

Maybe what the 2% refers to is the active wallets and it does not always equate that one person is using that one wallet or that a person only has one wallet. 10% is a lot of people considering that a lot of institutional whales and traditional whales are accumulating a lot of bitcoin resulting to the decrease of wallets that are owning 1 or more bitcoin, not to mention that for an average person, 1 bitcoin is a pipe dream.

[jaysabi]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".

I found this to be quite surprising, since I always supposed longtime hodlers to be the larger segment of the Bitcoin ecosystem and not just a small fraction.

How accurate this data could be?

The percentage of total addresses is pretty meaningless considering that there can be hundreds of millions of addresses created over time. Since there can only be 21 million bitcoins, this is the max amount of addresses that could potentially hold 1 btc.  A more meaningful metric would be the percent of addresses that hold 1 btc of the max possible.

Although even then, what's the point of knowing this? I don't see any valuable insight it provides.

[asia.zharova]

Judging from the information currently provided to us, it is correct, but this is the number of accounts, not the number of people, so it should be lower than this number, because someone will have multiple accounts larger than one Bitcoin

[Vishnu.Reang]

In my opinion it makes very sense that only 2% of addresses hold more than 1 Bitcoin, because the very expensive price Bitcoin is currently in.
Although there is a possibility that someone usually stores their Bitcoin at more than one address for security reasons. So if one wallet address
has been hacked successfully, there is still Bitcoin saved at a different wallet address. It's hard for me to collect 1 Bitcoin right now, even though
I tried hard to collect them. So it's normal for the data to be accurate, because it's not easy now to have 1 Bitcoin.

I am someone who is having multiple wallets to store my BTC. The idea of having multiple wallets is not to protect from hacking though. If you have multiple wallets, then you have additional sets of passwords and private keys to take care of, and it actually increases the risk of gambling. The reason why I am having multiple wallets is that if someone trace a particular transaction back to me, he will never get an idea about the total number of coins that I am holding. And this has become very important nowadays, as the government in my country is planning to make cryptocurrency ownership a criminal offense. So I guess it is better to split the coins in to several addresses, to reduce the risk of government officials confiscating all of them.

[tyz]

Well, this is not surprising. An address only appears in the blockchain once it has been used. That is, once a transaction has taken place. Today, almost every modern wallet software uses an address only once and transfers the remaining balance to a completely new created address during a transaction, so that the old address no longer has any balance.
This old address is also no longer used, so that it is included in the statistics as an address without balance. As a result, countless new used addresses without balance are added every day. As a result, the number of addresses without credit will continue to increase in the future and the percentage will decrease accordingly.

[beerlover]

I agree that it is definitely impossible that only 2% "people" hold more than 1 bitcoin, but you have to realize that there are soooooo many addresses created for nothing and gone. If you check how many "active" addresses there are, as in any address that had a movement in the past 30 days, and calculate how much of those addresses has over 1 bitcoins, you will realize that a lot larger amount will be owning bitcoins.

It is not about how many addresses there are, most of the addresses either have money in but haven't moved in years, or most addresses ever existed never had any money in, or maybe once or twice and never had any moves ever again after that, I probably created 100+ of my own over course of years, it is really not that simple. That is why I think it is quite important to calculate this again but with accounts that have money in them or active in the last 30 days.

[aesma]

The stats look at BTC present on addresses. It doesn't matter if the addresses are "active" or not. BTC that hasn't moved for a decade isn't necessarily lost, even if a lot of it probably is. I have used mixing services in the past to anonymise coins, that I've put on addresses, it's a lot of work, I don't plan to touch them for years. It doesn't mean the coins aren't "active".

[MCobian]

I really can't confirm that the data that says only 2% of addresses hold 1 Bitcoin is correct. But even though the data is proven correct,
maybe because some Bitcoin holders do store Bitcoin in more than one wallet. I also store Bitcoin in 5 different wallets, many things that
cause people to store Bitcoin in more than one wallet. I store Bitcoin in multiple wallets so as not to attract hackers, and until now I feel
safe doing that.

[samcrypto]

The stats look at BTC present on addresses. It doesn't matter if the addresses are "active" or not. BTC that hasn't moved for a decade isn't necessarily lost, even if a lot of it probably is. I have used mixing services in the past to anonymise coins, that I've put on addresses, it's a lot of work, I don't plan to touch them for years. It doesn't mean the coins aren't "active".

Looking at the volume of Bitcoin, it looks like every addresses are active since the market is getting better but of course some of the addresses are totally gone now and some are just holding their Bitcoin until it reaches their target goal.

1 Bitcoin is already a Million worth of Fiat money in my country so its really hard to see millionaire in my place who are holding Bitcoin, many are still small time investors that are hoping that Bitcoin can help us to become rich one day. No matter how much they are holding, as long as they adopt that can still affect the market.

[bryant.coleman]

It just means that the user base is increasing at a steady pace. 5-6 years back, the proportion of wallets holding 1 BTC would have been much higher. But many of the large-scale holders would have sold a part of their holdings and majority of the new users could not afford to purchase 1 BTC (the picture is a bit vague, because there are people who hold their coins in exchanges and third parties such as Grayscale). Even this 2% figure surprises me. In the coming years, it will definitely decrease.

[sujon5]

There are about 28 million non-zero Bitcoin addresses. Do you think 560k people holding 1BTC or more is a small number?

[_Miracle]

Back when I mined it was with at least 3 different pools at a time (each also serving as a failover to each other),
 each pool had a different address to send my payout to while using several different wallet types... and trying a half dozen exchanges.
For the person questioning Coinbase users: I’m not sure if it’s easier to set up an account now but when I did it (years ago) It was an effort, not something to do “casually” as opposed to using something like Cryptsy.

As an example for real use perspective: Coinbase created a new wallet address every time I spent from it so how many addresses are generated just as a one time transaction, or were created just for vanity generation are also interesting questions to add into the mix.

[justdimin]

It just means that the user base is increasing at a steady pace. 5-6 years back, the proportion of wallets holding 1 BTC would have been much higher. But many of the large-scale holders would have sold a part of their holdings and majority of the new users could not afford to purchase 1 BTC (the picture is a bit vague, because there are people who hold their coins in exchanges and third parties such as Grayscale). Even this 2% figure surprises me. In the coming years, it will definitely decrease.

I am not entirely sure if that is correct or not. I mean I do not refute the fact that there used to be a lot more whales and a lot of us had 1+ bitcoin, even I had 1+ bitcoin at a time I remember that and I wish I kept it and really not bothered by not keeping it but bothered by my lack of vision.

In any case the part where I am not really sure is if it is really 2% or not, we are talking about a period where even rich people are smarter now and divide their money because in crypto world everyone is equal and if you end up with a huge account with a lot of money in it, government will not protect you, there will be a million hackers trying to get in it. That is why I think it is quite obvious that we have a lot more than 2% who own 1+ bitcoins, but I do agree that it is still lower compared to 3-5-7 years ago which was a lot higher back in those days.

[qwertyup23]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".

I found this to be quite surprising, since I always supposed longtime hodlers to be the larger segment of the Bitcoin ecosystem and not just a small fraction.

How accurate this data could be?

I do think that such data is accurate.

Remember that the insurgency on the price of bitcoin happened only on the years 2020-2021, in which most people are just staring to join the hype train. Some users who were able to receive bitcoin as early as on its initial stage are the ones whose wallets have more than 1 btc. I do think that such data is accurate and it shows that earning btc can be a relatively difficult task to obtain.

There are about 28 million non-zero Bitcoin addresses. Do you think 560k people holding 1BTC or more is a small number?

This is also true.

While 2% may seem 'low' facially, but the fact that there are millions of addresses globally make 2% a pretty huge number of people who own 1+ btc inside their respective wallets.

[bryant.coleman]

It just means that the user base is increasing at a steady pace. 5-6 years back, the proportion of wallets holding 1 BTC would have been much higher. But many of the large-scale holders would have sold a part of their holdings and majority of the new users could not afford to purchase 1 BTC (the picture is a bit vague, because there are people who hold their coins in exchanges and third parties such as Grayscale). Even this 2% figure surprises me. In the coming years, it will definitely decrease.

I am not entirely sure if that is correct or not. I mean I do not refute the fact that there used to be a lot more whales and a lot of us had 1+ bitcoin, even I had 1+ bitcoin at a time I remember that and I wish I kept it and really not bothered by not keeping it but bothered by my lack of vision.

In any case the part where I am not really sure is if it is really 2% or not, we are talking about a period where even rich people are smarter now and divide their money because in crypto world everyone is equal and if you end up with a huge account with a lot of money in it, government will not protect you, there will be a million hackers trying to get in it. That is why I think it is quite obvious that we have a lot more than 2% who own 1+ bitcoins, but I do agree that it is still lower compared to 3-5-7 years ago which was a lot higher back in those days.

Both the cases may be true. It may be true that the whales are dividing their holdings to smaller wallets. At the same time, there is no doubt that the user base has increased tremendously over the years. So the average holding per user can't be the same, because there is a limit on the circulating supply. Even if we assume that the old users are holding on to their coins, the overall proportion of such users will go down as more and more new users enter the market. And with the exchange rates about to touch the $50,000 mark, how many of them can afford 1 BTC?

[jerry0]

This doesn't take account of change addresses like in electrum right?  When i had btc there, i think btc was spread out between multiple addresses?  But with nano ledger s, its much different?

[amishmanish]

This is a quite a figure if you go by the number of addresses. The distribution looks completely insane. If you go by the bitcoinchartsinfo links, it is a disappointing picture.

This glassnode report circulating for the last week shows the distribution among holders too. According to it the shrimps, i.e., addresses that hold less than 1 BTC together hold just 4.9% of the total supply. The report then classifies holders into increasing BTC categories and shows how much of the total supply is held by the big fish.
So according to that. 52% of total coins are held by people who have 50 or more BTC. So whatever way you look at it, BTC clearly has a long way to go before real distribution. It may never really reach those levels.

[barbara44]

Not entirely sure about the legitimacy of the data but there is a common technique investors now use, which is to split their coins into multiple addresses and different wallets to ensure the safety. It is never the best idea to keep all your funds within the same address because although Bitcoin address is the last thing hackers would want to hack but in case they are somehow able to gain access they can empty it within minutes.

Also, with more Bitcoins in a single address means that there will be eyeballs on your address all the time and unwanted attention is always bad. I know a few guys in real life who invested heavy in Bitcoins a few years back and now they claim to not hold much but I know they have a lot of coins split among separate addresses.

[Mauser]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".

I found this to be quite surprising, since I always supposed longtime hodlers to be the larger segment of the Bitcoin ecosystem and not just a small fraction.

How accurate this data could be?

I don't think all the data is avaliable for the general public. So there should definitely be some form of guessing and estimating be involved in determining who holds the most bitcoins. There might be some fund who show their bitcoin holdings but this is only a part of the overall market. Also there could be some rich families who are very keen on holding bitcoins but don't share their holdings publicly.

[SquallLeonhart]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".

I found this to be quite surprising, since I always supposed longtime hodlers to be the larger segment of the Bitcoin ecosystem and not just a small fraction.

They might be right although I cannot prove that to you, but it’s possible that only just 2% are holding up to 1 BTC and above that, and I don’t see nothing wrong with it, because that even shows that Bitcoin is well spreading out and lots of people have their hands on it. There should be more people holding fractions of Bitcoin, than there are those holding big numbers, because when there are many of those holding in fractions it will help the market to stay more stable as the buying and selling wouldn’t be making it fluctuates that much.

But imagine that is the opposite, when those people actually decides to dump it the market will be affected too much. It’s mostly all these big institutions that holds huge amount, like that of Greyscale that is holding for investors and so many of them. I don’t even hold too much of it, because I am mindful of the risks.

[darewaller]

I really can't confirm that the data that says only 2% of addresses hold 1 Bitcoin is correct. But even though the data is proven correct, maybe because some Bitcoin holders do store Bitcoin in more than one wallet.

Another thing is that some investors keep their funds into exchanges like Binance and hence it is really impossible to track who holds how many bitcoins.

There are about 28 million non-zero Bitcoin addresses. Do you think 560k people holding 1BTC or more is a small number?

Not at all and actually I believe 2% is a massive number because if I would do a survey online and ask how many bitcoins they hold right now there would be like 1 answer among 100 who would say they have more than 1 bitcoin in a single address.

Note when we make transactions we don't send full amounts and the remaining amount in our wallet is then sent to another address. I mean the balance gets spread among several addresses quite quickly.

[Snappycoco]

I believe its inaccurate. I guess no one has data on how many have 1BTC in their address specially that some have their own storage. I think the 2% is just an speculation due to transactions recorded.

[Webetcoins]

I'm curious about some publications mentioning that "only 2% of the addresses holds 1 Bitcoin or more".

I found this to be quite surprising, since I always supposed longtime hodlers to be the larger segment of the Bitcoin ecosystem and not just a small fraction.

The less bitcoin rich people there are, the better, because we need equal wealth for everyone if possible, I understand that sounds like communism for many people but the reality is that I rather have communism instead of having billionaires who joke about meme coins during a pandemic that killed over 400k people and bankrupted over 10 million people, does that "capitalism" sounds better to you?

Having 10+ million people bankrupted and nearly half a million all dead while some jack ass rich guy jokes around every day without a worry? How is that an alternate for anything in the world?

I really do not get why people think that is fine, but I want bitcoin to bring that wealth gap a bit closer, don't know how much closer but closer nevertheless. That is why I believe there should be less than 1% people with 1+ bitcoins and everyone should have some, but there should be zero that owns more than 10k+ bitcoin as well yet that fails so far.

[uneng]

Two points to note:

• In December 2018 there were about 460 million bitcoin addresses (that was the most updated result I could find);
• So far we have 18,627,756 btc in circulation (including the lost ones);

So it's pretty normal you won't see a high percentage of addresses holding funds superior to 1 btc, as there are many addresses compared to the number of existing bitcoins. Furthermore, not all bitcoin investors will let their coins idle on the wallet. They invest their coins in different sites offering interest income over btc, reinforcing the services or businesses wallets which hold larger sums of bitcoin.

This 2% calculation isn't parameter for anything besides the fact bitcoin guarantees privacy (not anonymity) for its enthusiasts.

[oHnK]

This 2% calculation isn't parameter for anything besides the fact bitcoin guarantees privacy (not anonymity) for its enthusiasts.

I also see another reason that Bitcoin is owned by many people, not for long term investment where they have to hold onto their BTC for investment reasons. With very high price volatility, it does not make BTC a long-term type of investment but rather a short-term investment. They make BTC only as part of their speculation, so it is only natural that only 2% percent of people actually hold BTC. Because the rest makes this one of the reasons.

[uneng]

This 2% calculation isn't parameter for anything besides the fact bitcoin guarantees privacy (not anonymity) for its enthusiasts.

I also see another reason that Bitcoin is owned by many people, not for long term investment where they have to hold onto their BTC for investment reasons. With very high price volatility, it does not make BTC a long-term type of investment but rather a short-term investment. They make BTC only as part of their speculation, so it is only natural that only 2% percent of people actually hold BTC. Because the rest makes this one of the reasons.

That is true, there is also those investors who don't take the risk for a long period of time and I believe some early adopters thought this way, exchanging considerable amounts of their btcs to fiat after huge increasements in bitcoin price. Just imagine someone who invested or even claimed free bitcoin at faucets in 2013 or so, when it was pricing 13$ dollars.
After only 4 years this person would be millionaire by selling his bitcoins for 17,000$ or 18,000$. I think many here would do the same if they had the chance of doing so.

Events like this helped spliting bitcoin among different hands, especially new investors, instead of concentrating too many coins in few hands. That is a good thing.

[wxa7115]

It just means that the user base is increasing at a steady pace. 5-6 years back, the proportion of wallets holding 1 BTC would have been much higher. But many of the large-scale holders would have sold a part of their holdings and majority of the new users could not afford to purchase 1 BTC (the picture is a bit vague, because there are people who hold their coins in exchanges and third parties such as Grayscale). Even this 2% figure surprises me. In the coming years, it will definitely decrease.

We have known for a very long time that this was coming, if you divide all the supply of bitcoin that will ever exist by all the population around the world you get that on average each person will only hold a few mBTC, and this is just a reflection of that, people that have now more than one bitcoin are either people that bought bitcoin when it was cheaper and long term holders or relatively wealthy investors, the time in which a normal person could buy a significant portion of a bitcoin are over and those days will never make a comeback.

If anything things are going in the opposite direction, we should expect that each passing year the amount of bitcoin that each of us holds keeps getting lower, this is why for years in the forum people recommended others to hold their coins no matter what but some people never listen and now they are regretting not following that advice.