Just 376 People Found to Own a Third of All Ether Cryptocurrency (bloomberg.com) 62
Just 376 people hold a third of all Ether, the cryptocurrency that powers the Ethereum blockchain, according to new research by Chainalysis. From a report: Large holders are known in the crypto market as "whales," which Chainalysis defines as individuals who hold their assets in digital wallets and not on an exchange, Kim Grauer, a senior economist at the company, said in an interview. By comparison, 448 people own 20 percent of all Bitcoin, she said. Chainalysis also looked at the effect Ether whales have on price, and found that large holders don't move their cryptocurrency often. "The majority of whales aren't traders," she said. "They're mostly holding."
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Pretty much yeah, and Bitcoin accelerated it. I have a neighbor that lost some money in a 'crypto' scam that wasn't even actual crypto. It was a blatant mockup of a cyrpto-currency/ICO thing ran by a Bulgarian convicted white collar criminal, and I found this out in less than 10 minutes of Googling. It was setup as a basic pyramid where you made 'money' by getting other people involved, except it was even more obvious cause you didn't even make money, you were p
Of course they don't trade... (Score:5, Funny)
The whales are whales because they are early wallets with lost keys.
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Can they really tell unique individuals? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Can they really tell unique individuals? (Score:5, Funny)
You insensitive clod.
The count was verified by blockchain.
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Probably all of them since the most likely reason for these massive accounts (and especially the whales on Bitcoin) is that they are no longer accessible.
Re: Can they really tell unique individuals? (Score:1)
Also, how many are exchange wallets where the coins are owned by thousands of people?
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You would if that wallet was from when bitcoin was a joke and you could mine values like this with your cpu in a few hours. You would because you almost certainly haven't retained the keys needed to access it and probably don't even realize your old key pair is out there somewhere sitting with all that bitcoin on it. That is where these are from. That's why they have no activity.
Of the ones I can remember I've lost better than $500k worth of Bitcoin at today's prices playing around showing people what I tho
They lost their accounts (Score:4, Insightful)
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and to find keys to these old lost wallets.
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Does anybody wonder why the current President can lie repeatedly to his followers, and yet they never question him?
I used to, until I compared it with religion.
Granny survives cancer? God is great, he answered our prayers!
Granny dies of cancer? God is must have a bigger plan we don't know about, praise Jesus!
Given that the prices is 1/5 it's peak (Score:2)
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People don't stop trading just because the price is lower than the peak.
Same problem as regular currency (Score:5, Interesting)
In the non-tech world, most of the money is owned by the rich 1%.
In the crypto-currency world, that 1% is all the geeks.
Same problem, different tech.
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huh? ok, i'll bite, even though it may be trolling....
this is socialism, and it's what makes America great:
we all pool our money with taxes, then we build a library with the money. any citizen who pays taxes is free to use the library to learn and enrich their life. nobody has to buy ALL the books, because we can all share the library. so a few dollars of your taxes is given to the group, and you don't have to spend millions of dollars on books in order to become smarter. again: in the end, you spent a
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Not a problem, geek denotes intelligence which seems like the best system for distributing wealth. The problem in the fiat world is that it is concentrated mostly among a handful of geeks who came from rich sociopathic families.
Whoa, weird (Score:1)
It's almost like economic systems naturally tend toward the hoarding of resources by a powerful few unless regulated in such a way as to prevent that outcome.
"Whale"? (Score:2)
I only have a tiny amount of bitcoin, but I keep it in my own wallet because I don't trust the exchanges over the long term - initially, because they were unknowns, and since then, because too many of them have proven to be unreliable/insecure. I only use an exchange for the short period I need to do the occasional trade.
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Why should the Pareto principle surprise anyone? (Score:3)
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Because the value proposition of blockchainism is "decentralization." The only thing blockchain is supposed to accomplish that a traditional centralized equivalent does not, is ensure that the agency of a great majority of its userbase is not beholden to the whims (or fortunes) of a tiny minority of that same userbase.
Blockchain "tech" (regardless of the flavor) has not only failed to deliver on its core promise of decentralizing control, custody, cost and responsibility over the technical aspects of a va
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as long as it's private individuals defrauding you, and not The State, you shouldn't have a problem with it unless you're an irrational commie.
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Welcome to reality. Perhaps you should do some research on the Pareto principle, it applies, even in Communist countries like the USSR, Venezuela, Cuba and China, it applies in nature, it applies everywhere just like the number e shows up in random distributions and pi shows up in set theory.
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The blockchains are public.
(and that's the entire point)
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let's not pretend that fiat currency is completely different.
No need to pretend - It really is different!
If I want to trade a cryptocoin the first step is usually to convert it into Yankee dollars. I can spend a Yankee dollar anywhere, it's backed by a large economy and an even larger government, etc., etc.
Why not just cut out the middle man and keep Yankee dollars in your wallet?
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if you're upset that your parents mortgaged their properties and gambled it on the stock market, maybe you should just blame them instead of a bogeyman?
Premined (Score:4, Informative)
Ether premined 72 million. 12 million were allocated to developers, 60 million for ICOs.
It appears the premined allocation isn't being traded yet. I'd imagine the 20% quoted in the article was allocated.
https://www.cryptoglobe.com/la... [cryptoglobe.com]
When you consider . . . . (Score:2)