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Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners

techspot.com

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Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners

#111

Post by kolinko »

nuerow wrote: post #93
sb057 wrote: post #6

Money is largely controlled by a small group of investors and central banks. [citation needed]

> Money is largely controlled by a small group of investors and central banks. [citation needed] There are an estimated 40 trillion dollars in circulation alone. The US government debt is currently close to 30 trillion dollars. The world's richest person has an estimated value of around 180 billion dollars, less than 1% of the US debt alone. I'm talking about projected value, not cash. In contrast, it was already rep…

You need to compare the relative numbers. Bitcoin is being held by 1000x fewer people than the US dollar.

If 100 people control 13% of Bitcoin, then the question is how much Dollar top 100,000 people hold.

Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners

#112

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

Owners of coins have absolutely no control over bitcoin. They can't "vote" with their coins for any change in the protocol. Miners can, but to a very small degree. The real control lies in the hands of those who hold keys to Bitcoin GitHub repository, bitcoin.org web site and /r/Bitcoin subreddit. They can do whatever they want - increase block size, change mining algorithm, increase Bitcoin supply etc.

Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners

#113

Post by Hermel »

nuerow wrote: post #94
McGuive7 wrote: post #91

Soooo. . . you're saying a tiny fraction of the population controls the vast majority of the resource? You mean just like every other major resource on the planet? :)

> Soooo. . . you're saying a tiny fraction of the population controls the vast majority of the resource? You mean just like every other major resource on the planet? :) I understand the need to try to dismiss this problem, specially from those who have a dog in the race, but the dream of having a magical pseudo-currency that solves all problems and unexplainably makes everyone richer and richer just falls out flat if…

If you think the article provides evidence for any of what you are saying, you should read it again. Do you really believe the 1000 top holders of Bitcoin that control together about 15% of the supply somehow conspired together to manipulate the price?

Yes, there is a lot of small scale shenanigans with crypto currencies, but Bitcoin has become very hard to manipulate due to the sheer size of the market.

Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners

#114

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

Hermel wrote: post #109
YossarianFrPrez wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting quotes from the first section of the paper: "We first document that 90% of transaction volume on the Bitcoin blockchain is not tied to economically meaningful activities but is the byproduct of the Bitcoin protocol design as well as the preference of many participants for anonymity." "We show that the Bitcoin mining capacity is highly concentrated and has been for the last five years. The top 10% of miner…

The top 1000 investors hold 15% of the supply? That’s not “highly centralized” if you compare to the stock market. For Tesla, one single shareholder holds 17% of the whole company.

But isn’t the dream to have some distributed system that no one can control? As an outsider looking in and comparing to the perceived values, this is yet another reason crypto is not worth your attention.

Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners

#116

Post by paisawalla »

YossarianFrPrez wrote: post #102
jonas21 wrote: post #25

The Techspot article is a summary of this Bloomberg piece: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-25/bitcoin-s... which is itself reporting on this paper from the NBER: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29396/w293...

Interesting quotes from the first section of the paper: "We first document that 90% of transaction volume on the Bitcoin blockchain is not tied to economically meaningful activities but is the byproduct of the Bitcoin protocol design as well as the preference of many participants for anonymity." "We show that the Bitcoin mining capacity is highly concentrated and has been for the last five years. The top 10% of miner…

As someone who's read the paper, do you know how they account for ownership by exchanges? There's got to be a large amount of BTC that is held in Coinbase's wallets, but actually owned by many more individuals.

I.e. isn't the BTC I have parked at Coinbase is in the same wallet as many of their other customers' BTC, and shows up on the blockchain as one owner by this analysis?

Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners

#117

Post by frankbreetz »

anonporridge wrote: post #96
arcticbull wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is it expends unbelievable quantities of resources pretending otherwise.

Where are people pretending that bitcoin will fix wealth inequality?

I hear this presented as a by-product of bitcoin all the time. People also say it will create world peace.

Here are the first two google searches:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/martinrivers/2021/06/15/how-bit...

https://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-how-bitcoin-can-end-...

Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners

#118

Post by m0zg »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #107
m0zg wrote: post #76

Thing is, though, USD is controlled by an even smaller group. Between BTC and fiat, BTC seems like a safer choice at the moment - at the very minimum you can't just go ahead and double the supply. Obvs, not financial advice and all that.

> Thing is, though, USD is controlled by an even smaller group You can't "control" a currency as widely used as the USD. The Fed (and other countries, and large enough institutions) can try to influence it. The chair of the Fed doesn't just wake up one morning and say "you know, I think I'll do X to the value of the USD." US monetary policy in the very simplest sense is controlled by a small group (governors of the f…

You do you, man, no one is stopping you if that's what you believe. Just don't be surprised when hundred trillion dollar notes enter circulation.

https://www.thehoopsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Zimb...

Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners

#119

Post by Gustomaximus »

Hermel wrote: post #109
YossarianFrPrez wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting quotes from the first section of the paper: "We first document that 90% of transaction volume on the Bitcoin blockchain is not tied to economically meaningful activities but is the byproduct of the Bitcoin protocol design as well as the preference of many participants for anonymity." "We show that the Bitcoin mining capacity is highly concentrated and has been for the last five years. The top 10% of miner…

The top 1000 investors hold 15% of the supply? That’s not “highly centralized” if you compare to the stock market. For Tesla, one single shareholder holds 17% of the whole company.

A company is very different from a currency. Apples and oranges comparing those in terms of centralisation.

Re: Bitcoin is largely controlled by a small group of investors and miners

#120

Post by nuerow »

Hermel wrote: post #113
nuerow wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Soooo. . . you're saying a tiny fraction of the population controls the vast majority of the resource? You mean just like every other major resource on the planet? :) I understand the need to try to dismiss this problem, specially from those who have a dog in the race, but the dream of having a magical pseudo-currency that solves all problems and unexplainably makes everyone richer and richer just falls out flat if…

If you think the article provides evidence for any of what you are saying, you should read it again. Do you really believe the 1000 top holders of Bitcoin that control together about 15% of the supply somehow conspired together to manipulate the price? Yes, there is a lot of small scale shenanigans with crypto currencies, but Bitcoin has become very hard to manipulate due to the sheer size of the market.

> Do you really believe (...) conspired together to manipulate the price?

> Yes, there is a lot of small scale shenanigans with crypto currencies, but (...).

There are no buts. Either the market is manipulated, or it isn't. You already acknowledged it is manipulated, but somehow the degree of difficulty to pull it off is of any relevance? Why do you feel this matters?

Meanwhile, here's an interesting read.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-14/research-...

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