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To me, the greatest revelation in this article was the Gini coefficient of bitcoin, which, according to the author, " makes a sub-Saharan African kleptocracy lo
by donquichotte 13y ago
To me, the greatest revelation in this article was the Gini coefficient of bitcoin, which, according to the author, " makes a sub-Saharan African kleptocracy look like a socialist utopia".
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=51011.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=51011.0
EDIT: Plot of the wealth distribution in bitcoin: http://postimg.org/image/hzjmgepa3/ http://postimg.org/image/hzjmgepa3/
- gwern 13y agoThis pseudo-Gini is meaningless, since addresses!=people. It is perfectly possible for the pseudo-Gini to increase even as the real Gini decreases: simply have Bitcoin further democratize and the new users keep their coins in convenient web wallets! Since web wallet services tend to consolidate their coins onto a very few addresses for their own convenience.
- FatalLogic 13y ago>This pseudo-Gini is meaningless, since addresses!=people. It is meaningless but not really for that reason. The estimation of Gini Coefficient that Charlie Stross links was calculated by the Bitcoinica exchange from their client list. It's meaningless because it was calculated in 2011, when the number of Bitcoin owners and users was a tiny fraction of the current figure, and the network was less than 2 years old and practically unknown to the wider world. He first cites that out-of-date estimate, and then claims that it is getting worse, without providing evidence for that claim.
- jrells 13y agoComparing the Gini coefficient of wealth in a country to the Gini coefficient of bitcoin is comparing apples to nonsense. Addresses aren't people and bitcoin wealth is not wealth. I wouldn't guess that most bitcoin users store a significant amount of their wealth in bitcoins, so I wouldn't even expect significant correlation to wealth.