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So, as of Dec. 3., using a price of $1,000 (which is basically where we are now), and assuming 12 million Bitcoins in circulation, here's the breakdown: 47 individuals own 28.9% of the approximately 12 million Bitcoins in existence so far. Another 880 own 21.5%, meaning 927 people control half of the entire market cap of the digital currency. Another 10,000 individuals control about a quarter. And the rest of us (around a million of us) get the crumbs (500,000 are out of circulation, whether through government seizure or people losing their passwords).
Buried somewhere under four feet of mud and rubbish, in the Docksway landfill site near Newport, Wales, in a space about the size of a football pitch is a computer hard drive worth more than £4m.It belonged to James Howells, who threw it out when he was clearing up his desk in mid-summer and discovered the part, rescued from a defunct Dell laptop. He found it in a drawer and put it in a bin.And then last Friday he realised that it held a digital wallet with 7,500 Bitcoins created for almost nothing in 2009 - and then worth about the same."You know when you put something in the bin, and in your head, say to yourself 'that's a bad idea'? I really did have that," Howells, who works in IT, told the Guardian. "I don't have an exact date, the only time period I can give – and I've been racking my own brains – is between 20 June and 10 August. Probably mid-July". At the time he obliviously threw them away, the 7,500 Bitcoins on the hard-drive were worth around £500,000. Since then, the cryptocurrency's value has soared, passing $1,000 on Wednesday afternoon.