Bitcoin is sometimes criticized for being a type of money with a very unfair distribution. We will examine that criticism today by taking a closer look at the ecosystem, or the sea of Bitcoin. We are going to map how many plankton, shrimp, crabs, fish, sharks, whales and humpback whales there are right now.
The Sea of Bitcoin
In the graph below you see a legend, in which you can see what all those terms mean. We speak of a humpback whale when it comes to a wallet with 10,000 Bitcoin or more, a whale with 1,000 to 10,000 Bitcoin, a shark with 100 to 1,000 Bitcoin, a fish with 10 to 100 Bitcoin, a crab with 1 to 10 Bitcoin, a shrimp with 0.1 to 1 Bitcoin and a plankton with less than 0.1 Bitcoin.
What is particularly striking about ‘the sea of Bitcoin’ is that more and more shrimps and crabs are added and that the amount of plankton is also steadily increasing. This shows that there is an increasing group of relatively small Bitcoiners who continue to buy. That is ultimately what it takes to take adoption to the next level.
Difficult situation
At the time of writing, it is a bit against the price. After a strong start to 2023, the price has fallen back extremely, but that seems to be mainly due to the macroeconomic conditions. The interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve are starting to show their effect on the economy and several entities are having a hard time with that.
Certain banks in the United States, Silvergate Bank and Silicon Valley Bank, are particularly affected. The shares of many major Western banks have also fallen considerably in recent days. It will be very interesting to see how the Federal Reserve reacts to that, because we could just end up in a recession, which would be the first in Bitcoin’s history.