90% of bitcoin is owned by 2% of user base

[tryingtolearn]

Price discovery is impossible with the whales controlling 90% of all bitcoins minted.  The original intent of bitcoin as a neutral asset disappeared long ago.  Those at the top are trying to get more users in to keep it's price (and their investment) stabilized.  

Bitcoin kind of reminds me of the push for solar energy to replace engines using fossil fuels.  Big marketing push by those who benefit from it's adoption even though it doesn't have the value advertised.

Two 1.5 hour videos on the subject on streaming TV interviewing early adopters and investors who have made and lost money.  

[1714283253]

1714283253

[darkangel11]

90% of bitcoin is owned by 2% of user base

That's a bold statement. How do you know this?
How is it possible to calculate how many bitcoins a single person owns?

[The Cryptovator]

It would be nice if you share the source where did you find only 2% of a circulation controlled by normal users and 90% controlled by whales? I haven't seen such news anywhere. So I am curious to know more. Don't forget Bitcoin is a truly decentralized cryptocurrency. Anyone can accumulate whatever they want by availability. Not a centralized that can mint whatever they want. Regarding loss and profits, it's a highly volatile cryptocurrency, so people take advantage. Nothing wrong with that.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Price discovery is impossible with the whales controlling 90% of all bitcoins minted.

And it's ridiculous to seriously make this assertion without providing some hard evidence that prove so.

The original intent of bitcoin as a neutral asset disappeared long ago.

The original intent of bitcoin was to be used as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, with no intermediaries, no suspended accounts, no chargebacks, no bailouts, no weeks of transaction confirmation, no monetary monopolies. And, adoption-wise, it's working better than ever.

Those at the top are trying to get more users in to keep it's price (and their investment) stabilized.

There are no tops and bottoms. There are those who own more and those who own less, both of which obviously want financial gains.

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

Price discovery is impossible with the whales controlling 90% of all bitcoins minted.  The original intent of bitcoin as a neutral asset disappeared long ago.  Those at the top are trying to get more users in to keep it's price (and their investment) stabilized.  

This is a good topic of discussion, but it's quite unfortunate as you weren't able to back up your statements with concrete proof, source, or image which justifies that 90% of Bitcoin is actually owned by 2% of its user base because I and other members of the bitcointalk forum love fact, and we would have been very pleased having you dissect this allegation of yours with facts. However, thou Bitcoin transaction is transparent and can be seen by anyone on its blockchain, I doubt if it is possible to see a hierarchy of users with the highest amount of Bitcoin, as a criterion for you to have come up with this statement of yours.

[Anonylz]

It is true that the whales are in control of the market but it is not clear if they control up to 90% of current supply. The original intent of btc still stays the same the only thing that change is the people interacting with it.
Btc was not created for the whales only,   they have the large amount today because they were early and have the funds to accumulate.
Anyone can still buy as much btc as they want as long as they can afford it.

[casinotester0001]

However, thou Bitcoin transaction is transparent and can be seen by anyone on its blockchain, I doubt if it is possible to see a hierarchy of users with the highest amount of Bitcoin, as a criterion for you to have come up with this statement of yours.

by bitinfocharts

[goldkingcoiner]

Price discovery is impossible with the whales controlling 90% of all bitcoins minted.  The original intent of bitcoin as a neutral asset disappeared long ago.  Those at the top are trying to get more users in to keep it's price (and their investment) stabilized.  

Bitcoin kind of reminds me of the push for solar energy to replace engines using fossil fuels.  Big marketing push by those who benefit from it's adoption even though it doesn't have the value advertised.

Two 1.5 hour videos on the subject on streaming TV interviewing early adopters and investors who have made and lost money.  

I am not sure of where you you got your numbers and facts from but they are way off and have absolutely nothing to do with reality. You make it sound like there are only a few owners of Bitcoin and that somehow, Bitcoin has become decentralized. This is complete BS and this entire thread is another bear FUD thread which has the sole purpose of scaring newbies and shaky hands into selling.

[Hamza2424]

Well bro thats a bitter reality as it put me into the criosity why these 72% are holding there can be many reason that put me into Doubt still i belive on BTC. It can be a ponzy scheem on some point it is store of value on some point it is what it is but BTC is our passion so lets see how seniors watch it. Is it can be thread or just a market flow because 72% WANT TO SELL but is there any buyer for those sellers.

[darkangel11]

However, thou Bitcoin transaction is transparent and can be seen by anyone on its blockchain, I doubt if it is possible to see a hierarchy of users with the highest amount of Bitcoin, as a criterion for you to have come up with this statement of yours.

https://i.ibb.co/k9ctPz9/Bitcoin-Rich-List.png

by bitinfocharts

This doesn't show users but addresses.
Some people own multiple rich addresses, some big rich addresses include multiple people (exchanges).

There's still nothing in this thread that would support OP's statement.

[cryptosize]

tryingtolearn from... Varoufakis?

[Kelvinid]

Two 1.5 hour videos on the subject on streaming TV interviewing early adopters and investors who have made and lost money.  

But you never think how many investors and holders are still quiet and anonymous. Well, should we have to believe that numbers? Not really.
Don't just rely upon those numbers that have been should on television, they are not accurate. Perhaps you can also analyze it, 90% of Bitcoin is owned by 2% of the user base, I'm not sure where you get that but that is definitely wrong.

You are just talking about early adopters but how about the new adopters/investors as they are even more?

[Welsh]

Ultimately, even when attempting different ideologies, the rich, and powerful are going to have a head start. There's no real way of reducing that, in terms of introducing a newer currency. That doesn't mean it's not a better system mind you.

The original intent of bitcoin was to be used as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, with no intermediaries, no suspended accounts, no chargebacks, no bailouts, no weeks of transaction confirmation, no monetary monopolies. And, adoption-wise, it's working better than ever. 

Right, which is the frustrating part about threads like these ones. They fully focus on the perceived value of Bitcoin, but the real value has already been achieved. We now have a more decentralised currency, that doesn't have the typical drawbacks that you outlined above that you have with fiat currencies.

It already achieved its purpose many years ago. The effects of that, is the perceived value that everyone seems to be obsessed about. While, I do somewhat believe Bitcoin was implemented to be deflationary, and combat traditional ideas, I don't think it was it's primary objective.

[uneng]

These are bad news for bitcoin, and it is indeed a fact most bitcoins are centralized in few addresses, even though some or most of them must belong to exchanges. On the other hand, some owners of wealthy addresses might have died already, lost private keys, hardwares or simply won't move/sell their coins for ideological reasons.

So we can't say exactly how many of those bitcoins are circulating or have chances of circulating on the market.

[Welsh]

These are bad news for bitcoin, and it is indeed a fact most bitcoins are centralized in few addresses, even though some or most of them must belong to exchanges. On the other hand, some owners of wealthy addresses might have died already, lost private keys, hardwares or simply won't move/sell their coins for ideological reasons.

So we can't say exactly how many of those bitcoins are circulating or have chances of circulating on the market.

Even if the OP's assumptions were correct, which they aren't; Bitcoin can be scaled. While we'll always have the wealthy elite as some like to describe them, it doesn't mean they have influence over you. Any moves they make in the market could have short term effects, but beyond that it doesn't really matter all that much. For example, them selling a very large amount of Bitcoin could cause a small panic among other users, resulting in more sales, and pushing the price down. Although, ultimately we'll recover from that, and the effects are only short term.

The real centralisation issue right now would be mining, which is somewhat unavoidable to an extent. By that I mean, it requires a significant amount of money to remain in profit with mining, so it's only reserved to those that have the initial funds to mine. That could potentially become a problem in the future, but I don't think it's a huge problem. As for the market share of coins, that's almost irrelevant to me personally.

[uneng]

These are bad news for bitcoin, and it is indeed a fact most bitcoins are centralized in few addresses, even though some or most of them must belong to exchanges. On the other hand, some owners of wealthy addresses might have died already, lost private keys, hardwares or simply won't move/sell their coins for ideological reasons.

So we can't say exactly how many of those bitcoins are circulating or have chances of circulating on the market.

Even if the OP's assumptions were correct, which they aren't; Bitcoin can be scaled. While we'll always have the wealthy elite as some like to describe them, it doesn't mean they have influence over you. Any moves they make in the market could have short term effects, but beyond that it doesn't really matter all that much. For example, them selling a very large amount of Bitcoin could cause a small panic among other users, resulting in more sales, and pushing the price down. Although, ultimately we'll recover from that, and the effects are only short term.

The real centralisation issue right now would be mining, which is somewhat unavoidable to an extent. By that I mean, it requires a significant amount of money to remain in profit with mining, so it's only reserved to those that have the initial funds to mine. That could potentially become a problem in the future, but I don't think it's a huge problem. As for the market share of coins, that's almost irrelevant to me personally.

It is true that on long term the influence of wealthy adopters is decreasing and I see that by the fact volatility isn't so intense on the market like it was in years ago (especially in 2018). We are in a bearish market, but the price of bitcoin hasn't been completely crashing.

I hope it continues happening, so whales drop their coins on the market and new/small investors purchase those coins, balancing the number of coins held by every adopters and consequently decreasing volatility even more.

It is a slow process, although a very promising one.

About bitcoin mining I guess you are right.

[Cryptomiles1]

Did you just randomly guess the percentage or you heard from somewhere else there is a link maybe a source link were we could get to know how the percentages are being discribed more?
Well concurrently, we can just assume or randomly guess what your not sure of, here we deals with accuracy being that many individual source for data over here. So before giving out information it is best advisable to get it from a reliable source.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Considering that over 19million have already been mined I have no doubt that yes, there are some entities that are holding or controlling vast amounts of BTC. Thing is, using terms such as "2% of user base" is meaningless without also stating what the (estimated) size of that user base is.... In other words - it is pure meaningless marketing spin speak that is worded just for shock value.

Even using a ridiculously small user base of say, 1million users, 2% of that means 20,000 users. Not exactly a small number.
Consider there are considerably more than 1 million BTC users, well...  

[Baofeng]

Price discovery is impossible with the whales controlling 90% of all bitcoins minted.

Proof or this is just fake news. We even don't know how much Satoshi holds.

 The original intent of bitcoin as a neutral asset disappeared long ago.  Those at the top are trying to get more users in to keep it's price (and their investment) stabilized.  

Depends, there are still user like me who treated bitcoin as as a payment system. Although I used 3rd party services, still though I used my bitcoin this way. Or course I will agree that it has evolved as well, but it doesn't mean that it will stabilized, bitcoin still and will be a volatile asset.

Bitcoin kind of reminds me of the push for solar energy to replace engines using fossil fuels.  Big marketing push by those who benefit from it's adoption even though it doesn't have the value advertised.

I disagree, bitcoin is not being advertised by anyone, not even Satoshi in the beginning or the early adopters.

Two 1.5 hour videos on the subject on streaming TV interviewing early adopters and investors who have made and lost money.  

Too bad for, you lost 1.5 hours of your time watching those interviews when you can spend that in the forum and learn so much from the creator itself and maybe to some early adopters not willing to have interviews in TV.

[arcmetal]

However, thou Bitcoin transaction is transparent and can be seen by anyone on its blockchain, I doubt if it is possible to see a hierarchy of users with the highest amount of Bitcoin, as a criterion for you to have come up with this statement of yours.

https://i.ibb.co/k9ctPz9/Bitcoin-Rich-List.png

by bitinfocharts

This doesn't show users but addresses.
Some people own multiple rich addresses, some big rich addresses include multiple people (exchanges).

There's still nothing in this thread that would support OP's statement.

To take your point even further. If I look at one of my own wallets I can see around 50 or so receiving addresses, each one containing a small amount of btc, which represents a small amount of bitcoin I received from some past transaction.  Therefore, my wallet alone represents about 50 data points, spread out, in that Bitcoin Rich List.

I do follow the data within the Bitcoin Rich List, just to see how bitcoin is moving about.  But to form any real conclusions with what is happening with the rich list, it would require further research, and correlations with other types of bitcoin's data.

Bitcoin kind of reminds me of the push for solar energy to replace engines using fossil fuels.  Big marketing push by those who benefit from it's adoption even though it doesn't have the value advertised.

Taking aside, the OP's distorted views of bitcoin, this above must be one of the most nonsensical comments I have ever read on the internet.

Not understanding who can benefit from solar panels, nor understanding what is meant by "value" will produce gibberish.

Maybe the problem here is a result of having a general disgust of "decentralization":

Decentralization of power.  (solar panels)

Decentralization of money.  (bitcoin)