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Alternative Market Briefing

Less than 1% of crypto wallets hold 87% of all Bitcoins: Study

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia:

The vast majority of Bitcoins (BTC) are being held by a minority of investors and the Bitcoin circulating supply is controlled by cryptocurrency whales, finds a new study.

"Over 87% of Bitcoins are stored in wallets that are above 10 Bitcoins ($60K+) - the total value just shy of $100bn of the total market capitalization. These coins sit in only 0.7% of all Bitcoin addresses," reveals a recent report by cryptocurrency research publication Diar.

Accounting for wallets with over 100 coins ($640K+), this number drops to under 0.1% of all addresses, but represent 62% of all outstanding Bitcoins.

The Diar report says that 55% of bitcoins are currently kept in wallets that are valued over $1.3 million, constituting balances of more than 200 BTC.

The top-heavy ownership of Bitcoins of course does not indicate a select number of wealthy individuals solely however, as the largest wallets are owned by cryptocurrency exchanges that are holding the coins on behalf of clients.

In fact, 3.8% of the total Bitcoin supply is currently sitting in the top 5 wallets that are known to be managed by major exchanges - approx. $4.2bn in value.

An amazing 42% of Bitcoins held in such investment wallets (above 200 BTC) made no outgoing movement during the price peak in December 2017 - and sat in wallets before the markets saw the near $20k BTC. And 27% of these Bitcoin wallets have continued to add more coins to their stash since th......................

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