[noncoml]

At the moment 50% of all Bitcoins are controlled by less than 2,000 people(assuming 1 wallet per person).

It is becoming exponentially more difficult to mine them, and there is only a finite number of bitcoins in that can be mined.

Buying bitcoins is making these 2000 people richer.

I really don't understand people who put money into Bitcoin. Actually I don't understand anyone that puts money in a cryptocurrency that is supposed to have "intrinsic value".

[trophycase]

It isn't making them richer unless they sell, at which point the wealth is further distributed. Also exchanges and custodial wallets skew the distribution numbers.

[noncoml]

> It isn't making them richer unless they sell,

Jeff Bezos is not the richest person in earth unless he sells.

> at which point the wealth is further distributed.

They basically exchange Monopoly money for real money. If that’s what you mean by wealth being distributed, then you are right.

[runeks]

> At the moment 50% of all Bitcoins are controlled by less than 2,000 people(assuming 1 wallet per person).

This seems like an unreasonable assumption given that many people own bitcoins through custodians, such as exchanges and funds.

[noncoml]

> This seems like an unreasonable assumption given that many people own bitcoins through custodians, such as exchanges and funds.

Have a look for yourself:

https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses....

[nonbel]

Interesting. A lot of those were already "zombies" years ago:

https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/rise-of-the-zombie-bit...

You probably need to exclude those for your calculation... but how would you know for sure? If we filter the top 100 for only addresses created or used in the last 2 years, then 26% would get dropped. This amounts to 867,448 out of 2,958,041 coins gone, or ~30%.

I'd like to see how that distribution at the top of the page changes according to various filters like that. Is there a site where I can get a list of current addresses without needing to scrape, or do I need to download the entire blockchain?

[waytogo]

Some of those whale addresses are exchanges themselves.

[waytogo]

> It is becoming exponentially more difficult to mine them, and there is only a finite number of bitcoins in that can be mined.

This was planned and one of the greatest features (for a store of value): Limited supply. With limited supply you won't have inflation but deflation which is good for storing value but not good if you want to use it as a cash system. But for p2p cash use cases newer system like Stellar/XLM which integrate controlled inflation (1%/yr) are better.

> Buying bitcoins is making these 2000 people richer.

Guess you are confusing matters. Running a local wallet as a full node doesn't mean you make tons of money. You can run 20 nodes but your friend who is BTC trader could still have 100 times more BTC than you (so, running a node != holding a shitload of BTC).

> Actually I don't understand anyone that puts money in a cryptocurrency that is supposed to have "intrinsic value".

From another post: Bitcoin is a store of value. Moreover, it's one with a high liquidity, strong brand, limited supply, available in 180 countries, without banks involved and super reliable (gold doesn't have that features and please show me any other asset that has these features). So, it has a use and value.

[halamadrid]

Please don’t compare gold with bitcoin and make bitcoin look good.

How is bitcoin super reliable? Someone could buy it for 20k$ and next thing he is getting only 5k$ for it because of a crash. Or someone has hacked the exchange and it’s all gone.

How can it ever be reliable?

[waytogo]

I mean technically reliable.

(Really) everybody knows that you should not keep your money on an exchange.

Gold can also crash and btw is a volatile asset as well.