According to a new survey by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the top bitcoin holders own more of the cryptocurrency than the majority of wealthy Americans own dollars.
According to the study, the top 10,000 bitcoin holders own a total of 5 million bitcoins, valued at nearly $232 billion. This indicates that 0.01 percent of owners’ control 27% of the total 19 million bitcoin in circulation.
The research was carried out at the London School of Economics’ MIT Sloan School of Management. Finance professors Antoinette Schoar and Igor Makarov led the group.
For the first time, it considered every transaction in bitcoin’s more than 13-year history. Before coming to a resolution, each transaction was meticulously plotted and evaluated.
The researchers discovered that only two activities account for 90% of all bitcoin transactions. The first is derived from the way the bitcoin network processes transactions.
The second stems from individuals attempting to remain anonymous by transferring funds across wallets.
Only 10% of the money comes through trading, which the researchers refer to as “real volume.” The majority of this was made up of trades between trading desks and exchanges.
Scams, gambling sites, and other illegal activities accounted for less than 3% of the entire volume.
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