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IntoTheBlock has documented what percent of each cryptocurrency is held in the richest addresses. What they found shouldnt surprise anyone.

Its difficult to assess the extent of inequality within cryptocurrency ecosystems. After all, they could be exchanges or custodial groupsbut, in some cases, a few whales really do own a large portion of the circulating supply of some cryptocurrencies.

IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) decided to do some digging and find the actual numbers. Heres what they found.

Concentrations of ownership over cryptocurrencies are not surprising. In a decentralized system, some will get advantages and hold more. However, there are limits to how sustainable extreme concentrations of wealth are in a decentralized system. These are the numbers for some of the top altcoins and how concentrated they are.

The standouts in IntoTheBlocks findings are Litecoin and Tether. Both seem to have higher concentrations of wealth than the rest of the cryptocurrency industry. How this will impact the trajectory of these projects remains open to debate.

Some people may scoff at the insinuation that high concentrations of cryptocurrency assets in just a few addresses is even a problem. After all, if you are using a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin Cash, it may not even matter. This is because Bitcoin Cash and other proof-of-work currencies do not have a governance model.

Ethereum and Cardano, on the other hand,do.So, concentrations of wealth could very well end up impacting the ecosystem at largeand may even lead to decisions against the majority of Ethereum users.

So, the impact of high concentrations of assets depends on the respective cryptocurrencys ecosystem. Governance can seldom work if there is oligarchic-like control of a large portion of a decentralized system. Its an issue that developers will have to keep in mind as theyre building these governance models. We cant let cryptocurrencies fall into the same issues that currently plague traditional fiat marketplacesthese concentrations of wealth should definitely be up for discussion.

Images are courtesy of Twitter, Shutterstock.

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Heres How Much of Each Major Altcoin Is Owned by Whales - BeInCrypto