Are the Whales Control bitcoin price?

[Not your key not your BTC]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

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[mk4]

but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?

A "whale" can move the markets to a certain extent, but it doesn't give them overall control over the markets. Take note that even "whales" that attempt to manipulate markets can also lose money.

Also, no "whale" owns 51% of the total supply. Most of the wallets with huge bitcoin holdings(though definitely nothing close to 51%) are exchange cold wallets.

if happen, does decentralization not exist?

Bitcoin is proof of work, not proof of stake. So even if a single person held a huge chunk of Bitcoin, that wouldn't give him special powers over the protocol.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/proof-stake-pos.asp

[franky1]

price discovery has nothing much to do about the so far 19m supply
  2012 had 11m supply
  2022 has 19m supply. yet more supply did not mean less price
  (some believe scarcity/supply drives price the most)

price discovery has nothing much to with the average 500k coins in a exchange custody per average exchange of high public awareness
   coins sat in custody(cex) or in self custody private key do not set prices

what does change prices is only balance on active market orderbooks
   and its only the currently processing order price that matters

looking at the average order yield
in 2012 was 1btc-1000btc per order
in 2022 is 0.001btc-1btc per order

when there is lack of buyers wanting to pay more fiat for a decimal allotment of btc. the top of the market is reached
when there is lack of sellers giving away more decimals for an allotment of fiat. the bottom of a market is reached.

what you find out is at the bottom of the market a seller would rather hand out less decimals. and its this decision that causes prices to move volitally and quickly to become new ATH

imagine buyers for a whole year only trade in say $400 amounts
at start of 2020 they got 0.04btc (1btc=$10k)
sellers simply only offered 0.039btc (1btc=$10.256k)
                                       0.03btc (1btc=$13.33k)
                                       ...
                                       0.01btc (1btc=$40k)

those holding alot of btc are not going to be stupid and sell coins for less the the most efficient mining costs on the planet(the cheapest way to acquire bitcoin) by throwing alot of coin into a market without caring about price

however giving out less coin to a market can cause alot of market rise without needing the buyer to spend more

[Z-tight]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?

Nobody or group of people can own more than half of the BTC circulating supply, whales can try to manipulate the price of BTC by moving their coins in and out of exchanges, but that kind of manipulation can't last for too long, and because it is only for a short time it cannot be called 'control', nobody controls anything in the BTC network.

if happen, does decentralization not exist?

Decentralization would perish if a mischievous miner or pool own and controls 51% of the hash rate, and not depending how much BTC one owns, owning 51% of the hah rate will give the miner or pool the power to do so much damage to the network which will affect decentralization. But a 51% attack is never likely to happen.

[alexandr1115]

I think there are definitely those who buy Bitcoin in very large volumes! it's hard to say how accurately they are called whales, dolphins or small fish, but there is definitely a lot of money here! it's hard to say how accurately they are called whales, dolphins or small fish, but there are definitely those who enter the market in large volumes.

[Findingnemo]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

Whales may own more than 51% too but they can never control the price, all they can do is manipulation like buying few thousands BTC for higher rate than actual market rate which lets the price to swing around the region for a while but the whale is actually losing money when buying for high price but they can make it up too by dumping when the market is high.

So they can manipulate not complete control which both different when it comes to intensity level.

[Merit.s]

I think there are definitely those who buy Bitcoin in very large volumes! it's hard to say how accurately they are called whales, dolphins or small fish, but there is definitely a lot of money here! it's hard to say how accurately they are called whales, dolphins or small fish, but there are definitely those who enter the market in large volumes.

The whales control BTC price because of their huge investment in btc,so the price demands on the whales for it to go up and down. Whales can't own upto 51% of BTC,if not it is going to mess the purpose of BTC which is decentralized system,they can own like 10-15%. That's is why they can control the price at that moment because if they choose to sell,the price drops and if they are buying more to their investment it can lead to increase in BTC price.

[Fullcoinese]

if there is Bitcoin ownership of that size by one person, of course, it can easily move or monopolize the market. but the biggest ownership I think belongs to the exchange wallet. and of course, it does not belong to one person.
for now, I believe that no one can control the market price. even if it's a pope with the largest current holdings. the market only responds when a large amount of Bitcoin from the wallet is transferred to the exchange. and that raises sentiment toward market prices.

[boyptc]

Whales no doubt has the influence to move an inch of the market but they can't have that whole control on it. It will be a huge expenditure to them if they want to have that much control to the market.

So, if calculating the whole 51% of bitcoin based on the current of supply that it has got in circulation. Then, that will be around 9,806,694 BTCitcoins. I don't think someone has that.

Calculation:

Current supply in circulation based on coinmarketcap.com = 19,228,812 * 51%(0.51) = 9,806,694BTC

Satoshi's holdings are even estimated just around 1M of bitcoins.

[Solosanz]

Assuming there's a whales own 51% of total Bitcoin supply, it doesn't mean decentralization not exist anymore because those whales will hold their Bitcoin and not sell it. It make Bitcoin circulation become less and if the demand is same, it will boost Bitcoin price since it's make Bitcoin scarcer. That's similar like people who lost their private key, no one can withdraw the coins, actually it make Bitcoin price more valuable.

Satoshi's holdings are even estimated just around 1M of bitcoins.

It's just a speculation, there's no proof if Satoshi is really hold that's coins.

[LittleBitFunny]

Assuming there's a whales own 51% of total Bitcoin supply, it doesn't mean decentralization not exist anymore because those whales will hold their Bitcoin and not sell it. It make Bitcoin circulation become less and if the demand is same, it will boost Bitcoin price since it's make Bitcoin scarcer. That's similar like people who lost their private key, no one can withdraw the coins, actually it make Bitcoin price more valuable.

What makes you sure they'll hold those bitcoins and not sell them? We're all here for the money and whales just like us. If they can control half of the bitcoins, then bitcoin is no longer decentralized, and it will be easy for them to manipulate the bitcoin price in their favor.
If that happens, it will jeopardize the market as a whole rather than something good to boost the market. Like we're talking about ETH becoming so centralized because sharks largely hold it.
Currently, despite not owning 51% of the total supply, some whales can still manipulate the price of bitcoin but that may not last long but enough for them to make a profit.

[Husires]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

it is POW crypto not POS, you mean hashrate?!
There is no absolute decentralization, there is centralization and decentralization and between them there are currencies, Bitcoin is more decentralized than all currencies, and so on.
As for the effect, if it is in the hash rate, more people can join or stop using the network, but it will affect the currency.

[buwaytress]

What's your definition of decentralisation? If it's concentration of supply in a few, then a shitcoin I could create right now and airdrop to 100 million active wallets so no single holder has even 0.001% of supply would be decentralised?

Like Husires says, there is no absolutes, only relatives. And you really would have a hard time finding a less centralised coin in any aspect.

[Dunamisx]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

The whales alone are not the ones that determines the market since they only have the bitcoin in large amount deposited in their wallets, what they do is to hodl and sell when they needed to, also consider the large numbers of whales we have distributed across the world, they are many and the rate at which each of them hodl is different from each other, but the daily transactions we made in relation to the demand and supply of the available bitcoin determines the price push and some certain occasions that marks events with bitcoin.

[Yatsan]

They don't entirely control Bitcoin's market value but definitely, they investment movement will create a 'wave' motion in the market either upward or downward price movement. If their actions affect the market price, then doesn't that mean they control the market price? Still a no. simply because that effect is just temporary not unless small investors would follow their movement or if they would ride with the wave which will make the wave to last longer, which happens in this industry a lot. Such thing can be explained by the concept of market volatility itself as well as the relationship of price and demand. So what controls the market price of cryptos? Demand, and that includes the whole community not only whales.

[joniboini]

but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

If by decentralization you mean the ability to push the price down by dumping the coins on the market, you don't need to own 51% of the total supply to do it, considering the market liquidity is not even that deep. I think you have to separate between price movement and coin distribution to some extent if you want to talk about market manipulation. You also need to specify what kind of decentralization are you talking about since the network is definitely not controlled by some whales.

Back to market manipulation. Even if you only control 5% of the coins but the market is not that liquid, you can still manipulate the price to your own liking. I sold some shitcoin in the past, and the price move nearly 50% after I did that. If the volume/demand is high, that might not happen. Can this happen to Bitcoin? Probably. Even if it does, as long as the network is still fine, you should not worry too much. Unless of course what you really focused on is the price and you want to get profits asap

[fuguebtc]

Bitcoin price depends on many factors, such as demand or world economic factors that also affect bitcoin price and whales can still manipulate bitcoin prices but they won't last but only for a specific time.

The total market capitalization of the entire market has not exceeded 1 trillion dollars, it is smaller than the capitalization of apple or microsoft companies, it can be said that bitcoin is still very small, so manipulation is inevitable.

Currently, we have no regulations, so the big guys will take advantage of this loophole to manipulate the market, so many people think that chart analysis is not effective.

[boyptc]

Satoshi's holdings are even estimated just around 1M of bitcoins.

It's just a speculation, there's no proof if Satoshi is really hold that's coins.

Yeah, it's said that it's around on that quantity and it's just a rough estimation. Whether it's for real or not, one thing for sure is that there have been burned bitcoins forever although that's not the narrative.

But, the thought of OP about whales having that much of 51% of total supply of bitcoin which I've given the estimation on how many a whale should have to have that percentage of holding which is unlikely.

[JohnBitCo]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

For sure, the whales will have money to buy bitcoin and anyone with money can buy the majority of the coins but it is different from fiat whales.
In the fiat system, the whales (the government themselves) can print as much money and keep on increasing their wealth while when it comes to the bitcoin whales they can't produce it, they need to buy bitcoin and hence its value is ever increasing.

[rhomelmabini]

we all know no one can controls the bitcoin price because bitcoin isn't like bank, stock and valas. but if the whales owned 51% of bitcoin, can do it?. if happen, does decentralization not exist?

Lot of talks before already and no way these whales could control the Bitcoin price unless they really are that many. I think there's a possibility to be controlled if it wasn't decentralized, since it's not then bad luck for those who want to control and just thinking of monopolizing it.