"Why haven't the earliest participants sold their Bitcoin, and some haven't even

[OgNasty]

I’d say when looking at the blockchain a lot of early participants haven’t sold their coins because they likely lost the information to be able to access their coins. You hear about it all the time on the news. Then there’s the people who got into Bitcoin for the tech and not the money, and those folks often need their BTC for projects they may be working on.

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[AndrewWeb]

but the point is of the first 100,000 blocks with 5 million coins in them over 500,000 coins have moved.

So most of the guys alive  in years 1 and 2 of mining moved what they needed to move.

One day maybe in 2059 old unmoved addresses will be forfeiting the coins unless they move them.

Much Like a bank declares bank accounts to be abandoned.

I wonder if the USA or a few big ass countries will start to do that. Force the stale addresses to show they are not lost or abandoned.

I wish I was only 30 and not 66 as I likely won't live till 2059 to see what they do.

If that's true ? Then 4.5 million coins have not moved 

I don't think there's that much uncirculated bitcoins ?

[glendall]

"Why haven't the earliest participants sold their Bitcoin, and some haven't even touched the coins in their addresses, considering the high price of Bitcoin?"

there are many reasons why they don't sell their bitcoins, the most common reason is that they lose their phase .  they think btc is worthless so they forget it  and they realize when btc is as valuable as it is now and they forget where to save their seeds
one thing is impossible if BTC owners never sell their BTC especially since they have already made a 1000x profit from when BTC was first introduced.

[mirakal]

 Well, for those who have been hodling for a decade might have been living a very good life these days after they have sell their bitcoin and enjoy their massive profits. While for those who are only hodling a little amount and still hesitant to sell most probably they want to maximize their bitcoin accumulation, then they will definitely continue to hold onto their bitcoin.

However, for those who have been hodling bitcoin without performing with caution, their seed phrases or their wallet keys might have been forgotten and that until now they are still in the process of recovering their wallet keys especially that bitcoin price has become too expensive compared to the time they bought it first. And lastly, others might have prioritized altcoins over bitcoin, and they chose to neglect the potentials of bitcoin because they are too busy collecting altcoins.

[zaim7413]

"Why haven't the earliest participants sold their Bitcoin, and some haven't even touched the coins in their addresses, considering the high price of Bitcoin?"

I hope the person you mean is not Satoshi Nakamoto, because he will never touch the Bitcoin in his wallet ever. Different cases may happen to the people you mean, many events that were never expected before can make them no longer able to touch their Bitcoins. Common cases occur due to loss of access to open the wallet and death of the original owner.
If the wallet with Bitcoin stored in it can no longer be accessed by anyone, then the circulation of Bitcoin will decrease. It is necessary to educate traders or investors who are just starting to invest in Bitcoin to always protect or store their private keys in a safe place, because if they lose access to open their wallet, their assets will be frozen forever in that wallet.

[Mauser]

"Why haven't the earliest participants sold their Bitcoin, and some haven't even touched the coins in their addresses, considering the high price of Bitcoin?"

There can be many explanations for very old untouched crypto wallets. The easiest explanation is probably that the investors don't really need the money and believe in the long term growth of Bitcoin. The bitcoin price had a good recovery in the last few weeks and some people could be interested in taking profits now. But if you have been around since the beginning of crypto currencies, you have seen the bitcoin price close to 70,000 USD. When you didn't sell at the ATH, why should you be selling today? Also with the halving coming up next year it makes a lot of sense to wait longer before selling. Another explanation why the coins in these wallets are untouched could be that the investor lost access to them, or the investor died in the worse case and nobody from the family knows about it. There are quite a few stories about people losing their keys and all their bitcoin.

[SmartGold01]

Not everyone are in the side of selling their bitcoin or have that passion of selling their holding due to either wanting to take profit by selling their total holdings while there are other who are sole traders and they sells whenever they noticed every little changes in the market and would want to utilize every given opportunities to increase their profitability. Those wallet with thousand of bitcoin in them that hasn't made a transaction for long time could be as a result of misplacement of keys hardware wallet, lot of people faces this challenges because of war or flood victims especially fire incident can likely cause wallet to be entirely dead and not being active.

Well, we are all speculating but I believe that we can't have another bitcoin out of this bitcoin we already had and again Satoshi won't come revealing themselves. Who knows if they are company or groups of persons that comes together to create bitcoin, so in my opinion we can have only central bitcoin though any other coin can be created but not as exactly as Bitcoin because bitcoin has already taken the place as the number one currency that can never be beaten by another coin out there.

You didn't missed anything single moment, you can still buy bitcoin hold as little as you can, maybe who knows what tomorrow would give birth to?
Tomorrow's we can find Bitcoin worth a half million or almost a million and the fraction you managed to accumulate today will worths hundred of thousands tomorrow, so take the bold step and start your bitcoin journey.

[KingsDen]

"Why haven't the earliest participants sold their Bitcoin, and some haven't even touched the coins in their addresses, considering the high price of Bitcoin?"

• The likely most relevant answer is, most people must have forgotten their keys to access the coins  
• Another most relevant answer could be that most bitcoin hodlers are dead, especially after the COVID 19 out break  
• Another relevant answer could be that some are very much wealthy that they don't need bitcoin money. Maybe they are waiting to see if bitcoin will turn to a tool to control the work  
• Another relevant reason could be that bitcoin price has not gotten to what they want. While many people are speculating and waiting for $100k, don't forget that there are people waiting for $1M. That is the truth, no matter how weird or ridiculous this might sound.  

[AnonBitCoiner]

Most the time people forget their password so their tokens remains saved in wallet forever so they cannot use it neither for profit nor for uses. BUT their is also another reason for this like some people have set a goal due to which they are unable to sell their coins before they reaching to that price. There are different reasons but it will depends on a person's mind that why he is not using his saved coins. In my opinion people often want to wait for four years of duration and sell their coins only at the time of Bull market. Some people are too rich that they don't require selling of their coins so that's why they wants to hold bitcoin for years.

[Bushdark]

I’d say when looking at the blockchain a lot of early participants haven’t sold their coins because they likely lost the information to be able to access their coins. You hear about it all the time on the news. Then there’s the people who got into Bitcoin for the tech and not the money, and those folks often need their BTC for projects they may be working on.

Even though it might look like the earlier participants have sold their Bitcoin which I don't think so, we should learn the habit of holding and not selling just for little profits. We can make good profits from the market if we learn to hold for a long time.
There is better profits in holding and those that have the mentality of selling after the market had moved slowly from a particular price to another price within a small price difference, we should not know that we are not a good holder and profits will be less.

[SatoPrincess]

I think many of them didn’t backup their private key and have lost access to their wallet. People were careless with wallet security back then, the value of bitcoin was not high so it wasn’t really a big deal to lose sleep over. Once in a while, we see a dormant address suddenly become active and moves coins out the wallet. Another reason would be death, the owner of the wallet may have died and did not make provisions for his family to inherit the bitcoins.

[AmoreJaz]

I’d say when looking at the blockchain a lot of early participants haven’t sold their coins because they likely lost the information to be able to access their coins. You hear about it all the time on the news. Then there’s the people who got into Bitcoin for the tech and not the money, and those folks often need their BTC for projects they may be working on.

Even though it might look like the earlier participants have sold their Bitcoin which I don't think so, we should learn the habit of holding and not selling just for little profits. We can make good profits from the market if we learn to hold for a long time.
There is better profits in holding and those that have the mentality of selling after the market had moved slowly from a particular price to another price within a small price difference, we should not know that we are not a good holder and profits will be less.

just think of what early holders felt when btc was just very cheap. of course, they won't think of holding it for years and years as they didn't know yet that this will become big in the future. so at that time, they would sell their stash if there's value in the market. i don't think everyone was already thinking that this currency has bright future. this is why the story of buying papa john's pizza for 10k btc was very famous. if hanyecz knew that btc will be worth thousands of dollars, do you really think he will spend it on buying pizza?

[Casdinyard]

Cause the market's looking promising. We got the halving at the cusp of happening next year, some serious uptrends in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with no real signs of ever slowing down, and a pretty thriving crypto industry that's continuously expanding. So it just makes sense for newbies and older participants in this industry to not sell their cryptocurrencies this early.

Although if you're talking about bitcoin's earliest adopters, beats me really. For the most part some of them have ludicrous amounts of bitcoin that they can't just cash out on a whim or it would cause panic buy on everyone below the ladder. So they time their buys, slow their transaction processes, and make moves that don't startle the market so as to not risk devaluing their cryptocurrencies.

[flyingcarpet]

Cause the market's looking promising. We got the halving at the cusp of happening next year, some serious uptrends in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with no real signs of ever slowing down, and a pretty thriving crypto industry that's continuously expanding. So it just makes sense for newbies and older participants in this industry to not sell their cryptocurrencies this early.

Although if you're talking about bitcoin's earliest adopters, beats me really. For the most part some of them have ludicrous amounts of bitcoin that they can't just cash out on a whim or it would cause panic buy on everyone below the ladder. So they time their buys, slow their transaction processes, and make moves that don't startle the market so as to not risk devaluing their cryptocurrencies.

There's a crypto market that's getting better and better every day. The vast majority of people have positive expectations for the future and I think that number is growing every day. When you look at what Bitcoin has been through and what it's accomplished, not selling is the right move.

What the early adopters and Bitcoin holders have accomplished is tremendous. It must be great to buy Bitcoin in anticipation and watch all the phases that Bitcoin has gone through over the years.

[philipma1957]

Apologies to be blunt, but I believe the answer falls something along the lines of:  "None of your business".

When it's your money, you can wonder about what to do with it.  If it's not yours, then what the owner is or isn't doing with it is of no concern to you.

I disagree as anyone owning BTC has a vested interest in those coins.

One) they could be consider abandoned and confiscated.
Two) If we wake up tomorrow and 1,000,00 are liquidated over night btc would crash like mad.
Three) everyone needs to realize the power those 1,000,000 plus coins 50 in 20,000 blocks or so wield over btc in general.

[AndrewWeb]

Apologies to be blunt, but I believe the answer falls something along the lines of:  "None of your business".

When it's your money, you can wonder about what to do with it.  If it's not yours, then what the owner is or isn't doing with it is of no concern to you.

I disagree as anyone owning BTC has a vested interest in those coins.

One) they could be consider abandoned and confiscated.
Two) If we wake up tomorrow and 1,000,00 are liquidated over night btc would crash like mad.
Three) everyone needs to realize the power those 1,000,000 plus coins 50 in 20,000 blocks or so wield over btc in general.

If someone would have had the 20,000 private keys to the 20,000 addresses. They would have spent the coins, by now.

The earliest participants did not generate coins to become millionaires. They just participated in an experiment.

experimental software >

At some time in the future, the private keys corresponding to the addresses will be found and the coins will be spent.

[ajiz138]

Why haven't the earliest participants sold their Bitcoin

Do you care about that? There are many reasons behind it and you never know the truth, so it's none of your business.

There are various reasons
Most fall under the category of been unable to access their coins
Either through loss of password or death
While the minority are still holding.
In all I can only speculate since i am not one them.

You could say this is the right reason.
We heard some news from them losing bitcoins because they lost their initial phrases, passwords, dead people that are mentioned does make sense but indeed we all just speculate on their bitcoins at the beginning not moving maybe because of the above reasons mentioned.

[EluguHcman]

Has there been prof that none of those firstly investors that invested in the Bitcoin since when it was introduced and was rated at $0 rate and $.01?
I think they must have sold atleast a fraction out of their Bitcoin ever since then.
Although there could be every of its possibilities but by OPs nature of thread it sounds like there is a proof to argue about it.
However, if I can literally or otherwise convinced that there are certain of such earlier investors who hasn't sold any of their Bitcoins since it was established til date then such must be financially stabled investors who likely are not financially bothered and has diverses of investments and doesn't see their Bitcoin incomes generations as one of the means to solving their financial problems instead they want to keep accumulating more and more. Maybe they likely want to see the elastic volatility end of Bitcoin.

Such investors could be the  inspirational point of contacts whom the investors of today is deriven its courages to hodl for a long-term goal of investment despites how tempted they could be to seel out their coins in both solving their financial problems and the depreciations of Bitcoin even after appreciated values.

[Japinat]

Op might wonder why there are too many untouched Bitcoins on different old addresses, it's given an earlier post answer, it could be the real owner can't access it or is stuck there because they are dead.  I don't think there's a real long-term holder now, it might be a few of them, but the majority will sell Bitcoin in a short period of time when they see a small profit.
-snip-

It's like a kind of Bitcoin graveyard on an address that can't be accessed anymore.
The Bitcoin is motionless and cannot be opened by anyone.
The initial holder must have sold his holdings and if any of them are able to withstand until now, of course he is very great and not tempted by the millions of dollars he can make.

Like Davinci Jeremie, a software developer from Chile who was an early Bitcoin holder who bought Bitcoin in 2011-2013 and still cost $1 at that time.
He can make $10m in just 10 years holding Bitcoin.
But some people also can't hold back too long and sell it at a very cheap price.

Hodling bitcoin for 5 to 10 years is not easy as it is. Those who have succeeded hodling this long might have very deep faith on bitcoin, and luckily their fiat funds are stable and sufficient enough that they won't even think and get tempted to sell even a portion of bitcoin. While others have still faith on bitcoin but due to emergency events that rise all of sudden, no matter how much they want to prolong hodling, they have no choice but to forcely sell their coins early.

Bitcoin gets even more valuable and highly expensive every year. That's why some have chose to hold for their future retirement, while some bitcoin have no trace of transactions probably because the owner has forgotten it or has definitely lost his seed phrase while its still worthless at the time he first purchased it.

[dezoel]

I think many of them didn’t backup their private key and have lost access to their wallet. People were careless with wallet security back then, the value of bitcoin was not high so it wasn’t really a big deal to lose sleep over. Once in a while, we see a dormant address suddenly become active and moves coins out the wallet. Another reason would be death, the owner of the wallet may have died and did not make provisions for his family to inherit the bitcoins.

Can't imagine the regret those people have, especially if they have a significant amount of Bitcoins back then. Even if they didn't have, they can always buy more. Those dormant address who suddenly came to life might be from the lucky and knowledgeable pioneer hodlers. It is also possible that some where recovered, and some are from the hacker. They think the public will get tired of tracking them if they keep silent for a long time.

A lot of Bitcoin are lost and out of the circulation because the owner have died. This is why it's important to not be selfish and find a trusted person that we can share our private keys or seed phrases with.