"Significant skewness in ownership" of bitcoin suggests future wealth will fall "disproportionately to a small set of participants," researchers said.
Those top players represent a mere 0.01% of all bitcoin holders and yet they control 27% of the digital currency, the Wall Street Journal reported. That compares to the old-fashion dollar, where the top 1% controlled 30% of total U.S. household wealth, according to Federal Reserve data.
You know, that 30% figure is already enough to make it hard to express the value and power that the 1% control in terms of money - the numbers just don't seem real. In practice they will never face a financial obstacle and can treat money (or their stuff as valued in money) as worth whatever they want it to be at the time.
In that sense the fact that Bitcoin valuations are basically made-up by whales and exchanges is pretty obvious to understand.