Does Bitcoin have a better distribution of wealth than the current system?

 As the number of addresses with more than one bitcoin (BTC) continues to grow, we will try to determine if the distribution of bitcoins is fairer than the distribution of wealth in today's world.

How are the bitcoins in circulation distributed?

2 years ago we wrote an article that took stock of the distribution of cryptocurrencies. We learned that, according to Bitinfocharts, the 1000 richest addresses owned 35.08% of bitcoin coins. Currently it is just over 34% of the bitcoins in circulation owned by the 1000 largest addressesso little change?

Yes and no. Among these 1000 largest addresses, many belong to exchanges, fund managers, entities (companies) that manage bitcoins on behalf of other people. While knowing that the addresses linked to the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, accumulate nearly 1 million bitcoins which have never moved (and which will probably never move, which can be considered lost).

The number of addresses that own 1 bitcoin (BTC) keeps increasing. He even exceeded 900,000 a few days ago.

number of addresses that hold at least 1 bitcoin

So this is rather good news. It is still important to keep in mind that the same person can have several addresses.

Do we have a better distribution of wealth on Bitcoin than in the current financial world?

According to a Forbes article, released in June 2021 and based on research by Boston Consulting Group, the financial wealth of millionaires would be equivalent to 25% of the total wealth of the whole world.

There are 56,000,000 millionaires in the world according to a study by Credit Suisse. These millionaires represent 0.71% of the population. Indeed, the world population is estimated by the UN at 7.94 billion people in mid-2022. 0.71% of the population owns 25% of the world's wealth.

If we relate this to Bitcoin, we see that 2.11% of addresses have at least 1 BTC. We based it on the number of addresses that have a bitcoin balance (addresses that have been used), this number is 42,726,352 as of September 3 according to Glassnode.

Thus, reported to its users, the percentage of addresses with at least 1 bitcoin is higher than in the percentage of millionaires in the world with respectively 2.11% and 0.71%.

However, due to the fact that many individuals delegate the management of their bitcoins and that several million bitcoins are blocked or lost (impossible to recover them, the addresses are no longer "accessible") then these 900,000 addresses own nearly 94% of the bitcoins in circulation.

distribution bitcoins according to holding bitcoin addresses

With a maximum of 21 million bitcoins, it will not be possible for every millionaire in existence to own a full bitcoin each. Fortunately bitcoins are divisible and it will be possible for them to afford a few thousand or millions of satoshis.