Quote from: MatTheCat on July 31, 2016, 10:37:17 AM

Quote from: European Central Bank on July 23, 2016, 11:09:02 AM

Do they exist? How many are there? Who are they?

Are they still gonna be 'accumulating' in 2030? What happens when a new breed of whale accumulates from the old ones?

Do they have a big red button that releases bitcoin when they're ready?

Hit us with your wildest thoughts.

Biggest most active whales are those behind the Chinese mining scene. China by now owns Bitcoin and runs the market as it's own personal cash cow, and as Bitcoin continues to grow and the network resource demand becomes increasingly bloated, miner politics are posing a grave danger to the future viability of the whole project, which in turn renders Bitcoin increasingly unappealing for Western based whales.

A Western based whale can own as many Bitcoins as he likes, but with 80% of mining capacity in China, he is invested in phenomena that is fully at the mercy of a culture that Western finance simply does not trust to act honourably nor reliably (towards outsiders).

There are addresses containing massive numbers of coins that haven't showed any activity for years. The coins in them are so old that they were probably acquired by Westerners. China might have 80% of mining capacity now, but it didn't in the early days when there were more Bitcoins in rewards. I don't think China has all the biggest whales, the West probably has the biggest and oldest whales.