78 percent of Bitcoin currency stashed under digital mattress, study finds

[Quantus]

 
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/78-percent-of-bitcoin-currency-stashed-under-digital-mattress-study-finds/
Is this report accurate and how mite this affect price swings?

And why would some one try to hide owner ship of an account like they one that showed up in the report.

[hazek]

No, it's not accurate because it's based on a flawed premise that coins not moving for a long time are owned by a small minority ignoring that this small minority might just be cold storage of a service and a custodian for many many clients and their balances deposited with that service.

[BlackHeartFund]

might just be cold storage of a service and a custodian for many many clients and their balances deposited with that service.

btcsl?

[Saturn7]

On the other hand if everybody just kept moving their coins to different addresses everyday that would show an artificial movement of money.

[crazy_rabbit]

Does it also discount "lost" coins? Of which if I remember, there are about 2 million.

[Saturn7]

Does it also discount "lost" coins? Of which if I remember, there are about 2 million.

They did not say so i'm assuming it does not.

[Littleshop]

Does it also discount "lost" coins? Of which if I remember, there are about 2 million.

From what I read they are counting lost coins as 'stashed' or 'horded' as well.  Considering that the lost and 'stashed' coins add up to nearly half, that means that the other half is generally in use.  Basically the report draws some pretty flawed conclusions from good data.

[Etlase2]

Where is this concrete data on lost coins?

[Littleshop]

Where is this concrete data on lost coins?

There will never be concrete data on lost coins.  It is a guess.  Even when someone says they lost coins we do not know that to be true.  Every single bitcoin ever created could move again, it is just very unlikely. 

There are many people who created coins and forgot about them and in the end lost the wallets.  There are others who lost coins due to mistakes such as wiping drives or cloud knowledge failures. 

[jgarzik]

This thread duplicates this thread (discussion of paper) and this thread (discussion of Ars article).

[hazek]

This thread duplicates this thread (discussion of paper) and this thread (discussion of Ars article).

And with that, I'm locking it.