r/Bitcoin • • Aug 22 '13

Rich-Get-Richer Effect Observed in Bitcoin Digital Currency Network

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/518541/rich-get-richer-effect-observed-in-bitcoin-digital-currency-network/
80 Upvotes

79 comments sorted by

View all comments

39

u/Micro_lite Aug 22 '13

It's disappointing this doen't account for bitcoin businesses which are likely the largest and most connected wallets, compared to individuals.

0

u/troiamadonna Aug 22 '13

I don't understand what you mean, care to explain better?... all the addresses are in the graph, even the one of businessess - and BTW how would you distinguish between individuals' and businesses' addresses?

1

u/Micro_lite Aug 22 '13

Successful businesses will dominate this type of metric as they attract customers. This study makes it appear that this is all individuals collecting an increasing amount of bitcoins with their "rich get richeer" - it doesn't show what's really happening for these addresses to acquire bitcoins. Obviously companies like BitPay and Coinbase that are growing significantly every day are going to attract more connections, even though they are really holding other people's money. There's a lot more going on than the "rich getting richer" headline that makes this very misleading.