Bitcoin Donation Address Analysis

An Analysis of Bitcoin Addresses Posted on Twitter

Have you ever wondered how much someone stands to receive by making their bitcoin address public for donations? Perhaps you’ve been considering posting your address on Twitter and want to project what you could expect in return for your lost anonymity. The Bitcoin Who’s Who research team analyzed a large sample of bitcoin addresses posted on Twitter accounts in mid-2015 to find out what kind of success these people were enjoying. What is a representative average total received balance of an address on Twitter? Who is having the most success in attracting donations? How many have had no success? Are there famous people with a bitcoin donation address on twitter?

We identified 137 Twitter accounts with bitcoin addresses posted in the account description area, not in a tweet itself, for the analysis on or around 22 June 2015. We found many surprises in the resultant data. There was far more success and far fewer empty cups than originally anticipated. Only 21.58% have never received any bitcoins, providing some encouragement to those considering seeking donations. However, as is the case with most communities, there were clear winners and losers. For instance, while the average total received was 10.20 BTC (~$2,600 USD), the median total received was .045 BTC (~$11 USD) indicating a large skew in the holdings at the top.

In fact, the averages of the sample size are greatly skewed by just the two top addresses. The @FreeRoss Ulbricht donation campaign address (715 BTC) dominates the list along with the second highest @EliciaWesson (355 BTC) representing 75% of the Total Received BTC balance.

Once we throw out these outlier addresses the Total Received average falls from 10.20 BTC to a still respectable 2.48 BTC. But hold on, there is still an uneven dispersal to account for. Even after removing the top two addresses from the sample, there is still a disproportionately small number of addresses that control most of the bitcoins. 33.09% of addresses have over a .5 BTC Total Received balance. 8.63% have over a 10 BTC Total Received balance. If we therefore consider median numbers as being the most representative, the amount you might expect to receive in donations is about .035 BTC or roughly $9 USD (based on the June 2015 exchange rate). Still not bad just for posting your address on Twitter!

52.52% of the sample currently have a zero balance. Further, over 50% that have received at least one satoshi now have a zero balance, suggesting a common practice is to move your balance off a public address.

15.82% have never touched their balance.

Key Statistics

Average Current Balance: .075 BTC

Median Total Received: .035 BTC

Average Total Transactions: 55.25

Median Total Transactions: 4.0



Current Balance Transactions BTC Received Average (Including Top 2 Addresses) 0.082 64.03 10.20 Median (Including Top 2 Addresses) 0.00 4.00 0.045 Average (Excluding Top 2 Addresses) 0.075 55.25 2.48 Median (Excluding Top 2 Addresses) 0.00 4.00 0.035