The Nakamoto Coefficient for Memecoins: How Few Wallets Control a Token
2026-10-08
The Nakamoto coefficient is the smallest number of parties that together control a majority. Applied to a token, it answers a plain question: how many wallets would have to agree to move the market? The Nakamoto and Whale Tiers tool computes it for 33%, 51% and 80% of the sampled supply, plus the Gini coefficient and a tier table.
Definitions used
- Nakamoto 33 / 51 / 80: wallets, largest first, needed to reach that share of the non-pool supply sampled.
- Gini: 0 means every holder has the same balance, 1 means one holder has everything.
- Tiers: wallets with 5% or more, 1 to 5%, 0.1 to 1%, and under 0.1%.
A small example
Take nine sampled holders at 40, 20, 10, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 and 5 percent. One wallet controls a third, two wallets control 60% so the 51% number is 2, and five wallets reach 80%. Gini is about 0.43. All nine sit in the 5%+ tier. Spread the same supply across 50 wallets at 2% each and the 51% number becomes 26 with a Gini near 0.
Why pools are excluded
A liquidity pool or burn address is not a decision-maker, so its balance would make every token look centralised. The tool reports the excluded share separately so you can see how much of the sample it removed.
An important honesty rule
The sample is the top holders we could read, not every holder. If the sample never reaches a threshold the tool shows the number with a plus sign, for example "10+", and the real figure is higher. It also never claims a token is decentralised from a partial view.
API: /api/lab/concentration?chain=robinhood&address=0x....
Pricing and limits
Runs are metered. Hindsight tools cost $0.002 a run, Token Lab holder tools $0.01, and Social Pulse or the AI analyst $0.05, taken from account credits. Paid plans include a monthly allowance and then fall back to credits. Anonymous visitors get a few free hindsight samples a day, and any result someone has already computed is free to view for a few minutes. Daily and monthly spend caps apply to every account.
The worked example uses an invented token to show how the score moves; it is not a real project. Run the tool on a real contract to see observed data. Holder data is a sample, linked wallets are observed transfers rather than proof of one owner, and nothing here is financial advice.