Chainanalysis is a well-known cryptocurrency analysis firm which recently showed that over one-third of all the Bitcoin in the world is in only 1,600 wallets. The news was reported by The Express later on – and surprised many of the Bitcoin aficionados.
What’s most interesting is that the aforementioned 1,600 wallets all have more than 1.000 BTC each – and 100 of these have over 10.000 BTC, according to the report. At current market prices, 10.000 BTC is equivalent to $75 million USD which is by no means a figure to scoff at.
The Chainanalysis chief economist, Phillip Gladwell, has stated the following:
“This concentration of wealth means that bitcoin is at risk of volatility as the moves of a small number of people will have a large price effect.”
This statement led to many worries, mostly because of the Mt. Gox trustee which has been dumping thousands of Bitcoin on public exchanges, fueling Bitcoin’s short-term bearish trend. However, further analysis has also shown that some of these ‘whales’ have not moved their BTC in years, leading many to believe that a few of these wallets are owned by unlucky individuals who have lost access to their Bitcoin.
In addition to this, the analysis showed that the amount of Bitcoin held by long-term holders has been decreasing, mostly because of the volatility of the leading cryptocurrency. This basically means that there has been a shift in power dynamics.
Still, Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency ‘suffering’ from this trend. According to an analysis done by Reddit users, the top 10 EOS wallets hold around 50% of all the EOS coins (496.735.539 coins).
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