We are starting to see the diffusion of Bitcoins into the mass populace but a large amount are still either in the hands of technocrats or innovators.
From a 100% concentration when Satoshi first held them to a more diverse set of users.
Could you please name those technocrats who have publicly claimed their bitcoin holdings?
I would love to but that is what pseudo anonymity is we can't really know who they are and they won't reveal themselves publically since that is what a crypto anarchist is
That said we do have a rough idea of it
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321265.0https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321265.msg3440829#msg3440829https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=316297.0Chart note 2013* could have changed
http://www.businessinsider.com/927-people-own-half-of-the-bitcoins-2013-12The list is dynamic and it does change hands now and then example Karpeles and Tim Draper are examples of this but there are still a fair amount in the hands of these technocrats if you look at the names on the list.
But the gamblers are weaker than the technocrats and the ones who want to innovate Bitcoin.
I agree that the gamblers are weaker and slower, and they won't be able to run along with the development.
But the technocrats aren't obsessed about Bitcoin, that is a specific product represented by a specific brand name, and that has a specific unit value. Bitcoin is not important, what is important is the idea and the technology that bitcoin brought forward. Bitcoin is like the first popular Apple's personal computer model, it had it's importance in history, but the entire idea brought forward a new wave of improvements in the form of new and improved examples. Cryptocurrencies in general is the future of this idea. A world where the dominant coin will be decided by it's technical qualities and by fair competition.
The bitcoin fanatics are mostly dreaming that the world would be stagnant and the field wouldn't evolve past bitcoin. They do that because they are afraid that they can't keep up with the changes, so no easy riches for them. True technocrats aren't these kinds of fanatics.
That and the fact that the gamblers will likely speculate and sell their fortunes before they become significantly large impacts this metric as well
Consider the movement from 90 to 250 if the speculators sold at 250 and re-bought at 90 they would have made a profit and nearly tripled there coins. However on the inverse the ones who bought at the previous peak likely sold their coins at a loss and took a burn for it only to have those coins rebought again by new speculators.
The same can be said of those who bought bitcoins over 1000 dollars and still have not broken even yet if you don't have a large capital base to rely upon it still is possible to burn yourself at the same time if you go on a buying spree the market will also push the price up unless you buy at a steady rate so it does impact the power of speculators. Without a contract for difference or an efficient shorting mechanism its harder to leverage without owning any coins unless your willing to take a large spread.
As for Bitcoin being the first of many I agree it could become napster but it likely has a good 10 to 20 years before it gets superseeded by another technology or it could be longer if the developer team is still strong and able to keep Bitcoin up to date with competing ideas and currencies that said the idea of a digital payment system is here to stay and we need one to succeed before we can build up others. That is why Bitcoin will likely still be around for at least the medium term to prove to the world that a digital payment system based on cryptography is useful convenient and an alternative payment system that people can use.
The bitcoin fanatics are mostly dreaming that the world would be stagnant and the field wouldn't evolve past bitcoin. They do that because they are afraid that they can't keep up with the changes, so no easy riches for them. True technocrats aren't these kinds of fanatics.
Not true one technology can connect to another those same cryto anarchists are not known to leave projects alone they tend to develop other things example some are looking at Ethereum or Darkcoin and Bitcoin 2.0 protocols its just a movement forward.
One can look back at Hal Finneys development of PGP which helped lead to Adam Backs hashcash then see that it was that idea of a payment system that uses proof of work that leads to Bitcoin which added cryptography and a ledger to it, the future is full of connections to the past its just how we make them that matters.
As long as it develops privacy and open new usages for technology people will move to develop it and it is the policy of the cypherpunks.
Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn't want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.
These lists don't show anything when a person can have unlimited amount of different addresses. As far as we know, the majority of top500 addresses could belong to only one person, right?
It is possible there are large holders we do not know of that keep small balances in multiple wallets but in answer to your question if they all belong to one person, we can say no to that since we at least know there are 50 unique users with balances and those balances are not connected to other large accounts.
Re this one
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321265.msg3440829#msg3440829
