Bitcoin has become centralised
Bitcoin makes the promise, that
[…] its design is public, nobody owns or controls Bitcoin and everyone can take part (from bitcoin.org).
But new research shows that only 10'000 bitcoin holders control 5 million bitcoins out of 19 million coins in circulation. According to crypto.com there are 114 million bitcoin holders in total. This makes the most wealthy 0.01% of bitcoin holders owning 27% of all bitcoins. At the current bitcoin price of $46'000 this is equivalent to $230'000'000'000.
As a comparison, in the U.S. 1% of households control about 30% of all wealth according to the Federal Reserve. This means the the wealth distribution of bitcoin is much worse than the wealth distribution in the U.S. where wealth inequality is at its most extreme in decades.
The claim that nobody owns or controls the network is theoretically true, but in practice a tiny group of bitcoin holders controls a large share of the network. This makes the cryptocurrency prone to systematic risks. Also with the broader adoption and the rising prices the majority of gains goes to a tiny group of holders.
With the raising popularity of the cryptocurrency, the difficulty of bitcoin increased and with it the costs of mining. Mining has become so expensive, that only a small group of big minors can afford it. Currently the top 15 mining pools contribute 99.89% of new blocks.
In practice, bitcoin has become highly centralised.
