Under capitalism eventually 1% own 99% of BTC, 1% have 99% of power?

[LoyceV]

I think, @LoyceV had a data of all addresses that hold bitcoin, he may sort it and confirm whether that information is true or not.

I have, and it's sorted already. See blockchair_bitcoin_addresses_and_balance_LATEST.tsv.gz.
Out of 46 million funded Bitcoin addresses, the top 1% holds 1728674692971682 out of 1933935229497096 sats. That's 89.4%.
This data doesn't mean much though: many Bitcoin users own more than one funded address, and many people (think they) own Bitcoin held on an exchange, while the exchange owns one or more addresses with large amounts of Bitcoin.
On the other end of the list there are many addresses with dust amounts of Bitcoin.

[1714616857]

1714616857

[un_rank]

A percentage divide would always exist with the more wealthy filling up the higher percentage holders. The ration could be:

• 1% - 99%
• 10% - 95%
• 20% - 80%

But the reality is there would be an uneven distribution of an asset between the wealthy and the masses.The depth of an investor's pocket determines how much Bitcoin they can purchase or mining equipment they acquire, effectively meaning that wealthy individuals would own more of Bitcoin and with time the divide would widen. You can choose not to sell yours to the whales and hodl through, there would be others that will.
 
Take a look at the early days of Bitcoin and you notice something curious, early birds who adopted it early, started mining and investing early would have a chunk of Bitcoins now, without being particularly wealthy at the time. Would you classify them to be among the 1% or the 99%?

- Jay -

[Mate2237]

I think I understand that the BTC blockchain can't be corrupted, because it would be too difficult to do.  But can't the 99% be exploited the 1% that own 99% of BTC?  BTC is a transfer of wealth to a different system.  Won't the 1% be able to exploit the 99%?  Capitalism centralizes wealth

Tks!  

Op your thread is confusing, where did you get all these percentages to analyze  the exploitation in the Capitalist Economy? From economics perspective your analysis with the percentage is wrong. What does the 1% stand for? Is it the bourgeoisie or the lower class? That 1% must stand as a person to control the 99% and the same goes to the 99% as well. Who are the 99%?  BTC is not own by 1%. And the 99% you are talking about is over populated the 1% so they can't control it.

[South Park]

Sorry - assumed a few wallets held most BTC, I see now I was wrong.  However, doesn't the point still stand?  Under capitalism wealth centralizes, won't the same happen with BTC?

Thanks

Mention any system that does not centralize wealth, do not worry I can wait, if your answer is socialism or communism that is false, they centralize wealth on even a smaller number of hands while everyone else lives on absolute poverty, at least under the capitalist system those which are not at the top have better living standards and the possibility of joining those at the top, is it perfect? No, but if given the choice I prefer to live under a meritocracy.

[Gyfts]

I think I understand that the BTC blockchain can't be corrupted, because it would be too difficult to do.  But can't the 99% be exploited the 1% that own 99% of BTC?  BTC is a transfer of wealth to a different system.  Won't the 1% be able to exploit the 99%?  Capitalism centralizes wealth

Tks!  

The top earners will always generate the vast majority of income in a free market. Bitcoin doesn't have anything to do with that. If there's exploitation by the 1%, that's an indictment of the political system, not the economic system. The political system comes first and will always dictate the economic system, not the other way around. Bitcoin doesn't cause wealth inequality nor does it inherently solve wealth inequality. Free market capitalism solves wealth inequality.

You could solve wealth inequality in a Bitcoin economy under communism and everybody would still suffer despite crypto currency.

[pooya87]

BTC is a transfer of wealth to a different system.

This seems to be your mistake, you are making a wrong assumption!
Bitcoin is NOT a distribution of wealth system. Bitcoin is simply a decentralized payment system, how it will be used and how this currency is going to be distributed has nothing to do with the design and it was never the goal of bitcoin.
The goal was to create an alternative currency that can not be censored. And bitcoin does that well.

[slaym]

BTC is a transfer of wealth to a different system.

This seems to be your mistake, you are making a wrong assumption!
Bitcoin is NOT a distribution of wealth system. Bitcoin is simply a decentralized payment system, how it will be used and how this currency is going to be distributed has nothing to do with the design and it was never the goal of bitcoin.
The goal was to create an alternative currency that can not be censored. And bitcoin does that well.

A video that says that switching to a BTC based economy would stop war.  https://www.bitchute.com/video/AWGB6rfMmYKt/  I haven't watched the video/I want to believe, but I'm skeptical.  There was a system previously backed to a finite asset - gold - + there wasn't an effect on war.. 

[kryptqnick]

Sorry - assumed a few wallets held most BTC, I see now I was wrong.  However, doesn't the point still stand?  Under capitalism wealth centralizes, won't the same happen with BTC?

Thanks

Yes, I think you are correct on this one. While it may not be 1% to 99%, those who have more wealth are more capable of investing a lot of money to generate even more wealth, which means that there's a small minority that is very wealthy and capable of getting more wealthy, while the vast majority are not. Of course, this could be mediated in some ways by very high taxes for the very rich and/or other programs that motivate or require those who are really wealthy to give some of their wealth to those who aren't wealthy at all. This could be done in general and with Bitcoin as well, and that could help make a less centralized system where wealth is more dispersed, but we're not there yet and many people won't even agree we should be getting there.

[tranthidung]

This seems to be your mistake, you are making a wrong assumption!
Bitcoin is NOT a distribution of wealth system. Bitcoin is simply a decentralized payment system, how it will be used and how this currency is going to be distributed has nothing to do with the design and it was never the goal of bitcoin.

Bitcoin can be used for many purposes, a payment method, a method for storage of value and more. Basically and initially, it is a mean of payment and I agree with you that it is a most important use case of Bitcoin. Other use cases are like derivatives from the initial one.

The goal was to create an alternative currency that can not be censored. And bitcoin does that well.

By design, it is decentralized. In reality it is decentralized too and Marathon Miners Have Started Censoring Bitcoin Transactions and failed, is a good example that censorship attack on Bitcoin network and transactions can not be successful.

Great job from Satoshi Nakamoto and great practice from Bitcoin miners globally.

[usekevin]

Uhhh 1% does not own 99% of Bitcoin. No idea where you got that idea from.

He tried to define some other things,but described with different tone is my opinion.Thd correct tone is huge amount of bitcoin in the circulation was hold by the whales.He tried to define thd whales here,but his emotions over write his words  

Yes, I think you are correct on this one. While it may not be 1% to 99%, those who have more wealth are more capable of investing a lot of money to generate even more wealth, which means that there's a small minority that is very wealthy and capable of getting more wealthy, while the vast majority are not. Of course, this could be mediated in some ways by very high taxes for the very rich and/or other programs that motivate or require those who are really wealthy to give some of their wealth to those who aren't wealthy at all. This could be done in general and with Bitcoin as well, and that could help make a less centralized system where wealth is more dispersed, but we're not there yet and many people won't even agree we should be getting there.

This have some good sense of describing the exact key point.The capitalism plays huge role in the crypto currency trading too.The world population had little amount of the rich people,So they hold huge amount of bitcoin by quantity based on their wealth resources.The whale still act like secret society and manipulating the price of bitcoin with huge variation.Because we know the price of bitcoin had raised to 68k dollars and fall back to 20k dollars.Then the market price of bitcoin circulated below 20k and now the same price of bitcoin back to 28k dollars.This may be due to the first financial quarter of 2023.Now the taxes was made on crypto currency all over the world.It’s additional reason for the stagnation of crypto currency market now.

[Faisal2202]

But can't the 99% be exploited the 1% that own 99% of BTC?

That's true about BTC not being corrupted but to some extent only, as you mentioned the one with more BTC supply has more power in the market and they can manipulate the market in their own favor, Some thoughts of it is impossible as I thought Like i covered a topic on Four Sentiments we should avoid saving our BTC, and one of them was Pump and Dump Scheme, Many members said, P&D schemes are not applicable on BTC and I was also satisfied.

But think about it for a second, If big authorities and celebrities can not P&D BTC then why BTC always shows high spikes whenever a celebrity like Elon Musk shares news of buying BTC as a payment method why when he sold that BTC while saying we can not accept BTC as payment method the price of BTC fell from $69k to lowest of around $16k. Is it not a P&D scheme?

So overall, it is possible to manipulate the market as I also recently covered another topic on this query here, in which i asked again the same question Is BTC P&D Free really? while I represent some of my points and many of the members replied positively. So yes, Capitalism is everywhere but it can be decreased if BTC remains on POW as it has effects but lowers than POS protocols.

[hZti]

This data doesn't mean much though: many Bitcoin users own more than one funded address, and many people (think they) own Bitcoin held on an exchange, while the exchange owns one or more addresses with large amounts of Bitcoin.
On the other end of the list there are many addresses with dust amounts of Bitcoin.

The exchange addresses basically make it impossible to tell how bitcoin wealth is spread. Adding to that are addresses that are owned by financial investors, that sell paper bitcoins and other certificates. In general I feel that bitcoin wealth is spread more evenly around the globe then other wealth. This may be because bitcoin is rather new, and can however change in the future.

[trendcoin]

This is difficult but not impossible for the distant future because we are in a free market and anything is possible here. So we have to ask ourselves: What do we need to do to get inside the 1%?

- We should get more Bitcoin while everyone is creating FUD about Bitcoin.
- We should see altcoins as a tool to have more Bitcoin.
- With our savings, we should buy Bitcoin little by little every month.

Of course, even if we do these, we may not be in the 1%, but we can approach them and gain status in every field. Of course, there is another option like crying and complaining all the time, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. :)

[Jawhead999]

1 person doesn't only have 1 Bitcoin address and 1 Bitcoin address doesn't mean it's owned by 1 person.

You, me and everyone else can create Bitcoin address as much as we want and there's no limit from the wallet.

A Bitcoin address which have a lot Bitcoin doesn't controlled by 1 person, it could be a centralized exchange hot wallet where it's a funds of a lot customers.

There's no evidence until someone sign a message from those rich addresses.

[Who is John Galt?]

1 person doesn't only have 1 Bitcoin address and 1 Bitcoin address doesn't mean it's owned by 1 person.

Indeed, one person can have many bitcoin addresses, but if there is an owner of some bitcoin address that stores not only his bitcoins there, then he still controls them and, thus, can influence the system as if they were his . We all know that not your keys means not your bitcoins.

However, I don't expect anyone to grab too many bitcoins and endanger the existence of the coin.

[stompix]

Uhhh 1% does not own 99% of Bitcoin. No idea where you got that idea from.

It's actually way worse if you count on the number of users compared to the world!

I don't understand why everyone is focused on the number of coins being distributed amount addresses, this is the wrong approach if you compare it to the current wealth distribution. If in the current fiat world, we say 1% hold 99% of the wealth we do include in the 99% of the rest of the population the ones that have a big flat zero, because otherwise we would say that the 1% have more money than the 45% that have something and 54% have nothing. When analyzing Bitcoin the same way we should do the same, because at no point in our lifetime will there be a moment when everyone holds at least one satoshi, some will never have a single unit of it!

So, applying the same metrics we should look at how many own 99% of the BTC compared to the world population.
And if we bring that 1% here it means that to match evil capitalist wealth hoarding we would need 80 million people to hold 99% of the current Bitcoin supply, which is more than possible!
So, is 1% of the world population holding close to 99% of the total Bitcoins ever mined? Highly possible!

Just because right now 13981 addresses hold 59.37% of the total coins it doesn't mean that with x100 more users those numbers will also split by 100 and all the coins will be distributed equally!

[cryptosize]

Equal distribution is a myth.

Ever heard of Pareto principle?

[pooya87]

BTC is a transfer of wealth to a different system.

This seems to be your mistake, you are making a wrong assumption!
Bitcoin is NOT a distribution of wealth system. Bitcoin is simply a decentralized payment system, how it will be used and how this currency is going to be distributed has nothing to do with the design and it was never the goal of bitcoin.
The goal was to create an alternative currency that can not be censored. And bitcoin does that well.

A video that says that switching to a BTC based economy would stop war.  ~  I haven't watched the video/I want to believe, but I'm skeptical.  There was a system previously backed to a finite asset - gold - + there wasn't an effect on war.. 

Also it sometimes feels like they want to turn bitcoin into a solution for everything so I wouldn't be surprised to see someone claim that "bitcoin cures cancer" too! Basically people have been making weird claims like this for nearly as long as bitcoin has existed. Whoever made the claim about Bitcoin stopping wars has no idea how the world works and has probably never read history.

[so98nn]

Uhhh 1% does not own 99% of Bitcoin. No idea where you got that idea from.

OP was merely illustrating a hypothetical situation in which, yes, Bitcoin would have failed if 99% of the supply is HODLed by 1% of the total participants of the network. I also brought up a shower thought before, and asked that "If there's enough Bitcoin under the custody of centralized entities, and the only way to use Bitcoin is through their services/applications, would Bitcoin have failed"?

Nahh, I don’t think that hypothetical situation is even possible in dreams. It’s just does not fit the maths. How can 1% have all the 99% bitcoins? If they own it then eventually the value will decrease a lot. Considering the demand is not getting fulfilled there would be no one left to buy it anyways. Who would invest on something which can not be possessed smoothly AND most important which should have been DECENTRALISED asset. That changes everything for the bitcoin. The current market is moving with billion dollars volume all the time throughout the globe and that’s why it has value, it has that liveliness. I think what said in OP or above just doesn’t make sense.

[beerlover]

I think I understand that the BTC blockchain can't be corrupted, because it would be too difficult to do.  But can't the 99% be exploited the 1% that own 99% of BTC?  BTC is a transfer of wealth to a different system.  Won't the 1% be able to exploit the 99%?  Capitalism centralizes wealth

The difference is that there is no more btc printed over 21 million, whereas there are more fiat printed everyday. The logic of OP is that the rich always gets more money, and when they get more money they can spend it on getting more BTC and that means they can buy all the btc available on sale and they can own most of it.

But the truth is that we have only 21 million, even leaving aside all the burned and gone bitcoins, the rich can't buy them all because we just wouldn't sell it to them. Right now, they can get more because more money is printed and even if you do not give your dollars to them, they can print more and make yours less valuable and own more, but with bitcoin they have to buy yours, and if you don't sell, they can't.