Who owns all the bitcoin? Whales, Dolphins or Minnows? Who is selling? Who is buying?` Revealed below.
Let's start with a definition of what we mean by Whales, Dolphins and minnows:
Definition
Whales: Addresses containing more than 15 bitcoins
Dolphins Addresses containing between 0.01 bitcoins and 15 bitcoins
Minnows Addresses conataining less than 0.01 bitcoins
This is a picture of a minnow counting his bitcoin:
Below you can see how the number of wallets have changed over time, and how the number of bitcoins have changed over time.
Conclusions
Whilst the umber of whales has increased, they collectively own less bitcoin. Recently they have been selling. Since they hold the largest number of bitcoins their actions could heavily influence the price.
The number of dolphins has consistently been rising and the number of coins owned by them has also been rising. Based on the most recent period the number of bitcoin they own is increasing at an annualized rate of over 100%. Dolphins are the typical man-in-the-street who owns more than $65 worth of bitcoin, but less than $100'000.
Currently there are 4.8 million dolphins. The number of adults on the planet is roughly 4.8 billion. Barely 1 in 1000 currently have more then $65 of bitcoins.
Minnows own less than $70 of bitcoins on average per address, so their actions have little impact.
i had not realized those specific numbers. i thought i was a minnow...turns out im a dolphin. hmmm what does that mean...should i start eating minnows now or something.
The vast majority of the adults on this planet - (70%-80%), have a net worth of less than $10’000 including, home, land, animals and financial assets. So 80% of the world’s population are “minnows”.
It is thus not surprising to see that 80% of bitcoin holders are also minnows (holding less than $70 in bitcoin).
i had never heard the minnows, dolphins, whales before steemit. I had actually thought it had more to do with your reputation number. I mistakenly referred to @barrydutton as a whale in a comment. his rep was in the 70's.... i thought over 70 meant a whale... a sort of untouchable big beast in the ocean.
some how the 80% of bitcoin holders having less than 70$ worth of bitcoin seems a high percent. Everyone i know who has bitcoin has over 70$. i only know one whale personally...but i guess i know a good chunk of dolphins. i appreciate the upvote by the way @swissclive. 😎 I have been upvoting a lot today so my voting power has gotten weak...but i gave you back my 100% love.
Thanks for this engaging post. I kick myself constantly for not getting more BTC early this year. I was far too loyal to Ethereum, which set me up very well, but it is stalled while BTC is the freight train now. I still can't get myself to sell any ETH after taking my initial investment. I should swap to BTC for the free 2X coins, but just don't want to deal with short term tax liabilities as a result when I could use that fiat to diversify more over time instead of giving it to the gov't. You post helps me feel like I'm still well ahead in the BTC game, even though I'm heavier into ETH. Thanks.
It was almost obvious that the most of Bitcoins are held by whales. This is why their actions have influence on the market, while people like me (I don't know for sure about you) are only trying to get the dust left after they are finishing transactions. I didn't know the actual numbers, so it was a good information for me :D
I’m a dolphin who wishes he was a whale. LOL.
Well, I'm a minnow who wishes he was a dolphin. So I guess people are never satisfied with what they have :)
Look at the good-side. Minnows, with less than $70 of bitcoin, won't lose more than the $70 if they ban bitcoin.
Haha, thanks, this almost makes me feel better:))
I love that baby minnow, I think I'm also his colleague, greetings and kisses and hugs for his beautiful son.