Bitcoin Distribution

[laredo7mm]

What do you think by seeing this bitcoin distribution chart? According to this chart whales and humpbacks are controlling over 31% of total bitcoin and retail investors are holding 23% of bitcoin. The price of BTC could be less volatile if more retail investors accumulate bitcoin or we could see more market manipulation by whales to shake out retail investors from the market? Which one is good for bitcoin in the long run?

update:

chart source: https://insights.glassnode.com/bitcoin-supply-distribution/

[jackg]

What does the M mean on the charts?

It can't be million but I don't know what it could be 0.87 of otherwise...

A lot of whales will probably lose their funds, get bored, sell their coins or have something else happen to dethrone them as whales I think retail and institutions will become among the largest holders (there are probably a lot of whales that just sit watching their funds in their wallet or who actively participate in crypto - either via development or discussions in the community and those are probably well invested to see bitcoin prosper).

[bitmover]

What does the M mean on the charts?

It can't be million but I don't know what it could be 0.87 of otherwise...

It is million.

The sum is 18.61 million, which is nearly all circulation coins (probably the total coins in circulation when the image was created).

What do you think by seeing this bitcoin distribution chart? According to this chart whales and humpbacks are controlling over 31% of total bitcoin and retail investors are holding 23% of bitcoin. The price of BTC could be less volatile if more retail investors accumulate bitcoin or we could see more market manipulation by whales to shake out retail investors from the market? Which one is good for bitcoin in the long run?

This is not only a bitcoin problem. The concentration of wealth is a big problem, and it always was

1% of the top people has more than 60% of world resources.

[laredo7mm]

What does the M mean on the charts?

It can't be million but I don't know what it could be 0.87 of otherwise...

A lot of whales will probably lose their funds, get bored, sell their coins or have something else happen to dethrone them as whales I think retail and institutions will become among the largest holders (there are probably a lot of whales that just sit watching their funds in their wallet or who actively participate in crypto - either via development or discussions in the community and those are probably well invested to see bitcoin prosper).

M means millions and it's the total number of BTC in that certain category. Here is the full news you can check by yourself.

I saw a guy's account who brought 40k BTC with an average price of 4k and still holding till now. He didn't book profit at 60k nor panic sell at 30k. It looks like he is enjoying the show and I am thinking what this man could do to the market if suppose BTC goes above 500k after 10 years from now. This is a smart investment by predicting the future or long-term market manipulation by building the future.

[gantez]

I don't expect this distribution to remain like this during the next bull and halving. We see more hands sharing part in the distribution and manipulation by the whale will reduce. Bitcoin getting to the corners of the world.

This is not only a bitcoin problem. The concentration of wealth is a big problem, and it always was

1% of the top people has more than 60% of world resources.

This is going to change soon. The few that are hodling wealth both fiat, gold or bitcoin will expound with time because the world now has many ways to reach that level not only by birth.

[RapTarX]

I'm wondering how does this chart exactly defines "Miners BTC" vs "Others BTC excluding Exchanges". A miner can be a whale, humpback, or any one of the lists other than exchange. How did the chart owner separate miners BTC from a whale BTC? This is strange & really doubt the chart maker would come with a valid explanation' though I don't know if it can be defined/separated.

[seoincorporation]

It's important to mention Satoshi coins. they should be part of that graphic, and should have their own category because he owns 5% of the network with his 1M bitcoins.

And the lost coins are an important fact too that should be part of that graphic:

Code:

Data analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that about a fifth of all coins mined to date (somewhere between 2.78 and 3.79 million) are lost.

Source: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/12/08/bitcoins-lost-coins-are-worth-the-price/

[laredo7mm]

It's important to mention Satoshi coins. they should be part of that graphic, and should have their own category because he owns 5% of the network with his 1M bitcoins.

And the lost coins are an important fact too that should be part of that graphic:

Code:

Data analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that about a fifth of all coins mined to date (somewhere between 2.78 and 3.79 million) are lost.

Source: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/12/08/bitcoins-lost-coins-are-worth-the-price/

I think that chart is only showing those BTC that are in circulation. We do not know those 1M BTC from satoshis wallet will ever be active or not and that lost BTC is out of circulation permanently so they can not have any impact on the market at all.

I'm wondering how does this chart exactly defines "Miners BTC" vs "Others BTC excluding Exchanges". A miner can be a whale, humpback, or any one of the lists other than exchange. How did the chart owner separate miners BTC from a whale BTC? This is strange & really doubt the chart maker would come with a valid explanation' though I don't know if it can be defined/separated.

The chart just categorized BTC owners. Miner and exchange are not individual so it separates them into different categories.

[longlostkingdoms]

It's important to mention Satoshi coins. they should be part of that graphic, and should have their own category because he owns 5% of the network with his 1M bitcoins.

And the lost coins are an important fact too that should be part of that graphic:

Code:

Data analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that about a fifth of all coins mined to date (somewhere between 2.78 and 3.79 million) are lost.

Source: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/12/08/bitcoins-lost-coins-are-worth-the-price/

Which would lower the % of the whale-wallets by quite a bit. Or the very least, give precedence to the wallets that are, for all intensive purposes, inaccessible.

[RapTarX]

The chart just categorized BTC owners. Miner and exchange are not individual so it separates them into different categories.

How do the chart author know that Miners own this amount of BTC & how even he knows these miners aren’t the humpback, whale, shrimp or anything your list has? What's the procedure of collecting data? Well, I must have to believe this as this is mostly true & IRL this is pretty true; there's no different with bitcoin either.

[franky1]

chart is not that accurate..

exchanges(in chart) are the tagged known addresses of cold wallets.
but exchanges also have hot wallets which are confused and compounded into both the 'humpback' and 'whale' categories
so "exchanges" "humpback" and "whale" numbers are inaccurate.. in short exchanges hold more then you think

as for the other lower categories.
me, just me. has some coin in all categories of  shark, dolphin, fish, octopus, crab and shrimp

again people/businesses/organisation can have multiple addresses meaning different people fit into multiple categories and multiple categories dont explain different people

or maybe im just a sh-olph-fi-shrim-pusoc-rab

[tippytoes]

chart is not that accurate..

exchanges(in chart) are the tagged known addresses of cold wallets.
but exchanges also have hot wallets which are confused and compounded into both the 'humpback' and 'whale' categories
so "exchanges" "humpback" and "whale" numbers are inaccurate.. in short exchanges hold more then you think

as for the other lower categories.
me, just me. has some coin in all categories of  shark, dolphin, fish, octopus, crab and shrimp

again people/businesses/organisation can have multiple addresses meaning different people fit into multiple categories and multiple categories dont explain different people

or maybe im just a sh-olph-fi-shrim-pusoc-rab

First, the OP needs to include the reference link where he got the chart - https://insights.glassnode.com/bitcoin-supply-distribution/.

Yes, it is not accurate as it is also stated under the discussion part of the article -



The author knows that he is talking estimates only on this discussion. Maybe, just to have some sort of reference where we are at btc market but not to be taken as ultimate reference. He also pointed out some considerations to take note of.

[wxa7115]

I don't expect this distribution to remain like this during the next bull and halving. We see more hands sharing part in the distribution and manipulation by the whale will reduce. Bitcoin getting to the corners of the world.

I do not really see how this is going to change, whales have no incentive to sell their coins, and if we take into account their wealth then it is likely they have also a lot of fiat around which means they can endure any drop in the market without any problem.

This is not true for small holders which either invested all their money in bitcoin or simply they are more easily scared by the volatility of bitcoin, in which case I think we are bound to see the opposite and we will see bitcoin being hoarded by less and less hands as time passes.

[Maslate]

As expected, whales hold the highest percentage, and I think they'll continue to increase as they are very effective in manipulating the market. There are investors but some of them are not gonna hold long as they will easily panic once they see a huge dump.

[odolvlobo]

The largest whales are blue whales. Humpback whales are about in the middle.

[franky1]

As expected, whales hold the highest percentage, and I think they'll continue to increase as they are very effective in manipulating the market. There are investors but some of them are not gonna hold long as they will easily panic once they see a huge dump.

dont worry so much
these false tallying of addresses into groups sends bad signals
take this topic recently where it went viral saying a whale moved 40,000+btc out of an exchange
yet the actual analysis was just an exchange moving its 40,000 out of cold, to hot then back to cold wallet (of the same exchange)
meaning it was an exchange account shuffle not a whale withdrawal

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5383921.msg59133433#msg59133433

[hatshepsut93]

As expected, whales hold the highest percentage, and I think they'll continue to increase as they are very effective in manipulating the market. There are investors but some of them are not gonna hold long as they will easily panic once they see a huge dump.

Whales are simply the people who have a lot of fiat, they don't even need to manipulate the market to own the largest share of Bitcoin. It's entirely reasonable to expect that if a small number of people own the majority of wealth in fiat system, then the same will be in Bitcoin, because Bitcoin was not designed to be more equal, and there's an easy bridge between fiat and Bitcoin in the form of exchanges.

[mk4]

Fun fact: Bitcoin doesn't really solve wealth inequality. People with lots of money will obviously be able to buy/invest more into a certain asset than most retail. But at the very least, people(or at least, most) have access to investing in bitcoin(and cryptocurrencies) from the get go; compared to most traditional financial assets where you'd actually need to be in certain jurisdictions, and sometimes even need to have certain certifications.

[pooya87]

It is not quite right because for starters it is categorizing whales (generally speaking) and exchanges into different categories where all they have to work with is the balance of addresses. In other words a lot of the "whales" are simply big custodial services such as exchanges that don't own any bitcoins themselves.

So we can't call this chart a "bitcoin distribution chart" it is more like "address balance distribution" which means very little. For all you know there are whales who own 1000x addresses each with 1 bitcoin in them. Or you have an address with 1000 bitcoin that belongs to 100k people.

This is not only a bitcoin problem. The concentration of wealth is a big problem, and it always was
1% of the top people has more than 60% of world resources.

I disagree, the distribution or concentration of wealth is not the problem, how it got like that is a problem. For example the 1% you are talking (which is a US thing, I believe) about accumulated their wealth by infiltrating the government and changing the laws in their own favor. They ended up paying little to no tax at all while the middle class was squeezed out of their last penny. Many of them also acquired a large part of their wealth through illegal and immoral ways. And that's the problem.

[franky1]

It is not quite right because for starters it is categorizing whales (generally speaking) and exchanges into different categories where all they have to work with is the balance of addresses. In other words a lot of the "whales" are simply big custodial services such as exchanges that don't own any bitcoins themselves.

So we can't call this chart a "bitcoin distribution chart" it is more like "address balance distribution" which means very little. For all you know there are whales who own 1000x addresses each with 1 bitcoin in them. Or you have an address with 1000 bitcoin that belongs to 100k people.

yep,
tagging in names like whales makes the simple "address balance distribution" then emotionally provoking into suddenly being thought of as some elitist/minimalist propaganda

but the tags are the error, because the tag names mean nothing and describe nothing about the holders. thus promote a false idea of who and how certain people hold value.

you cant even gather any kind of informative thing EG, since pool mining began properly in 2014. meaning from a starting point of ~12mill circulated coins already mined (now 19m). meaning these still active pools only had chance to gather 7mill coins, and the chart shows miners are still hoarding 1.8m of the 7mill 2014-2022 which could be falsely seen as 25% of coins mined were hoarded by active miners.

but we all know satoshi stash of 1mill coins from 2009-2010, so you cant even say that active pools have 1.8m coins hoarded
sorry but if anything 1mill of the "miners" hoard should be put into a humpback or a 'lost' category, because satoshi would now be humpback or 'lost' ..not a miner now(he doesnt mine now)

[Poker Player]

What do you think by seeing this bitcoin distribution chart? According to this chart whales and humpbacks are controlling over 31% of total bitcoin and retail investors are holding 23% of bitcoin. The price of BTC could be less volatile if more retail investors accumulate bitcoin or we could see more market manipulation by whales to shake out retail investors from the market? Which one is good for bitcoin in the long run?

What I believe is that Bitcoin has been a fairly free market since its inception and whoever has wanted to has been able to buy. All this wealth distribution stuff ends up trying to justify a politician to come along and redistribute, which in its extreme versions we already know how it ends, with hunger, misery and millions of dead people. And in the case of Bitcoin it is no different. The good thing is that Bitcoin is much more difficult to confiscate by a politician and redistribute.

[Tony116]

What do you think by seeing this bitcoin distribution chart? According to this chart whales and humpbacks are controlling over 31% of total bitcoin and retail investors are holding 23% of bitcoin. The price of BTC could be less volatile if more retail investors accumulate bitcoin or we could see more market manipulation by whales to shake out retail investors from the market? Which one is good for bitcoin in the long run?

Manipulation can never be good for the market, I fully agree with your second statement, for fear of manipulation, retail investors are afraid to invest in the bitcoin market.

Bitcoin's stability will increase as more retail investors enter the market, and the value of Bitcoin will continue to increase at a compounding rate as retail investors grow. But these whales and manipulations have existed since the creation of Bitcoin and their removal is not an easy task.

Another issue is that current retail-investors/Hodlers will turn into whales if the price of Bitcoin rises in the future, so it is not possible to break this cycle.

[pooya87]

meaning these still active pools only had chance to gather 7mill coins, and the chart shows miners are still hoarding 1.8m of the 7mill 2014-2022 which could be falsely seen as 25% of coins mined were hoarded by active miners.

Mining pools, like exchanges, are custodians of bitcoins not the owners. They have to pay their miners and only get a very small fraction in commissions, part of which they definitely sell to cover their costs. So there is no way for them to own 7 million!
Also that payment to miners from pools, breaks the calculation used here so they end up with a wrong estimate of how much bitcoin miners have held on to.

[franky1]

meaning these still active pools only had chance to gather 7mill coins, and the chart shows miners are still hoarding 1.8m of the 7mill 2014-2022 which could be falsely seen as 25% of coins mined were hoarded by active miners.

Mining pools, like exchanges, are custodians of bitcoins not the owners. They have to pay their miners and only get a very small fraction in commissions, part of which they definitely sell to cover their costs. So there is no way for them to own 7 million!
Also that payment to miners from pools, breaks the calculation used here so they end up with a wrong estimate of how much bitcoin miners have held on to.

im saying since 2013 only 7million coins were mined. where the stats show 1.8m are still "owned by miners"
im saying out of the 1.8m "owned by miners" is not even 1.8m
1m of it is practically declared as 'lost' plus as you say some of the 0.8m are just custodian held coins yet to be paid out to individual miners mining on pools.

so the number "owned by miners" is way way lower than 0.8m. i would say. most "miner" linked coin that still remain after 2 year is probably what the pool gets to keep as most users would have claimed their wins regularly(weekly/monthly/6monthly) and those over 9 years are probably "lost".

it seems that chart was done via basic "bitcoin richlist" data. without much analysis on deciding which grouping of x-xx coin allotment is for which category.. in short just taking 0.X-X and give it a ocean based name, X-XX and give it another ocean based name
and thats all they done.

as said before majority of the humpbacks are not rich investors but are exchanges hot wallets. where the chart creator just put exchanges cold wallets into an exchange category. and put anything large but not known cold wallets into a humpback/whale category without much thought or analysis again to not realise that majority of humpback is stil exchange category.
meaning not really any analysis done. but even then those that are humpback and exchange categories are not owned by the exchange. they are just custodian housed funds for all the shrimp, crab, fish, octopus, sharks that cant be bothered to use their own wallet
thus making all the shrimp, crab, fish, octopus, sharks appear to be lacking funds because its again confused into the hunchback/exchange category

in short, the numbers become meaningless as they dont represent anything in reality

[TheGreatPython]

What do you think by seeing this bitcoin distribution chart? According to this chart whales and humpbacks are controlling over 31% of total bitcoin and retail investors are holding 23% of bitcoin. The price of BTC could be less volatile if more retail investors accumulate bitcoin or we could see more market manipulation by whales to shake out retail investors from the market? Which one is good for bitcoin in the long run?

That's a lot of aquatic animals you got there and I never thought there's more than the whales and the fish. All the time I thought we only have two kinds of specie? Where whale means the large group of investors and they are the ones that manipulate the market while the fish means us regular investors.

I think the price of btc can be more volatile if most investors compose of regular individuals because they are the ones that likes to sell but big investors are mostly going for long term. There is no need for the whales to make an effort of shaking the market because regular investors are naturally doing it by themselves.

[franky1]

That's a lot of aquatic animals you got there and I never thought there's more than the whales and the fish. All the time I thought we only have two kinds of specie? Where whale means the large group of investors and they are the ones that manipulate the market while the fish means us regular investors.

then you will look forward to your next lesson. its not actually the whales manipulating the price

imagine you want to move the price from $40,000 to $40,100
whales on the buy side putting a wall up of 10btc of $40,001
                                                               10btc of $40,002
                                                               10btc of $40,003
                                                                ...
                                                               10btc of $40,100
takes alot of coin. (set walls or buy up 10,000coin($400m) to get the price moving to $40.1k)
what if i told you that you can move the price instead with smaller amounts(if conditions are right)
                                                           0.001btc of $40.01  (=$40,010/btc)
                                                           0.001btc of $40.02  (=$40,020/btc)
                                                           ...
                                                           0.001btc of $40.10  (=$40,100/btc)

as you can see. you dont need to set walls or buy up 10,000btc.. you can(if conditions are right) ping the market signals into an upward direction for 0.01btc($400) (lots of little orders of $40.x0)
..

whales that offer coin at 10coin for market rate+100. get ignored because people just add orders below that
but if you keep setting orders for small amounts in small increment prices, small enough people dont notice the increments. your orders fill and ping in a new market price.

dont fear a whale. fear the shrimp feeding frenzy
a whale gulp may take out many shrimp in one go, but thats just temporary... persistent shrimp feeding frenzy has more and longer lasting affect

[DaveF]

I look at charts like that and laugh. I know a whale with ~ 125 coins.
Most are in paper wallets with about 3 to 5 coins in each. No way to link any of them to each other.
How many big holders are out there with their coins like that.

Same question, how many 2011 wallets with large amounts of coins that have had their private key lost, never to be used again.

It's an interesting chart, but in the end meaningless.

-Dave