Certainly, but most of us have limited choice about what investments to make -- same for any of the non-1000 that's participating in Bitcoin. It's not apples to 747s as far as their money goes.

Which means Bitcoin proponents should really save the store-of-value label for later on down the road when it looks and behaves more like a store-of-value.

    > The top 1000 holders of gold
    > don't have anywhere near 40%
    > of the market.

You're right, they have a lot more than that. Total world gold reserves are around 30K tons. The US alone has 8K tons, Germany 3K, IMF 3K, Italy 2.5K etc.

So just the to 2 holders of Gold have almost 40% of the market, and the top 10 have 80%.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve

I guess you didn't read the article you posted as evidence. In that article it says all the gold ever mined is 187,200 tons. Percentage of reserves != percentage of gold market. That would have the USA at ~5% and that is a country of 300+ million people. This is a lot different than 1000 individuals.

In the context of this discussion, which is gold holders hypothetically pumping & dumping the market it's pretty much only the big reserve holders that matter.

How do you think someone who's gold holdings are 1 kg in a warehouse embedded in motherboards is going to extract that to dump it on the market? Most gold by weight is effectively illiquid, while every Bitcoin is equally liquid.

As the source the article uses[1] discusses the breakdown of those 187,200 tons is:

* Jewellery: 89,200 tonnes, 47.6%

* Private investment: 40,000 tonnes, 21.4%

* Official sector: 31,500 tonnes, 16.8%

* Other: 26,500 tonnes, 14.2%

* Below ground stocks: 57,000 tonnes

So around 50% of the number you're quoting is gold still in the ground. To repeat your snarky remark: Did you read the article?

I guess counting the official sector and private investment the top 10 official holders "only" have around 30% of the liquid market, which is way more distorted than Bitcoin, and very comparable in this context of a few owners of large liquid assets being able to distort the market.

1. https://www.gold.org/about-gold/gold-supply/gold-mining/how-...

> it's pretty much only the big reserve holders that matter

We're talking about the entire BTC ecosystem. You can't compare that to a 16% sliver of the entire gold market because that fits your argument better.

> Most gold by weight is effectively illiquid, while every Bitcoin is equally liquid.

Which was basically my point, is that BTC-to-gold is an apples-to-airliners comparison and is at best a strained analogy.

If you add up all those numbers you just gave besides the gold in the ground one, they add to exactly 187200. So no that is not gold in the ground. That is the estimated gold existing that has been mined. You may be reading the articles but not getting the right thing from them. Also gold in the ground does not count as being in the market because well it is still not mined, it is just known to exist.

Also you omitted the direct quote "Total above ground stocks: 187,200 tonnes" from the site you posted. So no that does not include gold that has not been mined.