A third of all bitcoins in circulation belong to 10 thousand investors, and half of the global computing power is controlled by 0.1 percent of miners, the US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found. Scientists warn that such an uneven distribution of currency and power in the world makes the bitcoin market vulnerable.

Using special algorithms, the authors of the study tracked the forms of ownership of cryptocurrencies by addresses. It turned out that at the end of 2020, the third part of all issued bitcoins (5.5 million) belonged to intermediaries, for example, exchanges. Almost the same amount of currency (5 million) was found in 10 thousand of the largest investors. The total number of bitcoins owned by individual investors was about 8.5 million.