re: My faith in Bitcoin just went out the window

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but does that give you access to the current number of users? I assume that you could potentially see the number of wallets, but I think you also mentioned that users can spoof or create multiple wallets so I guess that would be inexact.

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right. creating new key pairs is a trivial task that can be done in a single click. it is entirely possible for a single individual to have billions upon billions of bitcoin addresses if they so choose

so looking at the blockchain (i.e. the ledger) would not give an accurate estimate of users. i'm sure there are people out there trying to estimate that, but i don't know of any figures out there that are highly respected.

transaction volume, however, can be easily tracked. and i'd link you to that chart but blockchain.info is down right now for a server upgrade.

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Regarding the mining operations, IF (and I'm not saying they are, I'm just wondering if it is possible) one one the founders were inclined to game the system, couldn't they sporadically award their personal wallets with successful mined bitcoins and have it go unnoticed? Ending up with 5% of awarded bitcoins would net them around $40M at the current value.

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It just wouldn't be possible because it wouldn't be accepted by the network. if that was attempted, what it would essentially do is fork the blockchain and create a whole other currency, which of course no one would value, while leaving the existing bitcoin blockchain untouched.