A number of months ago, I wrote a piece, built out of some frustration, but with some important logic underpinning it, as the UK moves into an ever more precarious position, with global bond markets beginning to think; “Are they still good for that debt?”. Unfortunately, the country has moved beyond its illustrious history of a global empire and even beyond the remnants of where the promise of future economic growth could offset the ever-increasing pile of national debt. Where the UK is now requires more severe action, (or a productivity miracle, if the politicians could imagine and support such a thing), so the idea of not simply taxing the billionaires but taxing anything that moves (weirdly similar to a recently unearthed Peter Mandelsson comment) may plug the immediate hole in public finances, but will ultimately destroy the nation. At which point the rate of increase of the national debt will approach exit velocity, while the value of the once great British pound will tend to zero.

As an individual who lives very much within their means, saves where he can, works hard, apart from writing potentially too many Nostr Reads, I’ve attempted to accumulate assets so that once I’m no longer prepared to educate students with AI at their fingertips and an unwillingness to think critically, I’m able to set away. However, what this means is that if those in power, or at least able to change the law at will may see my savings as their saviour for their economic conundrum. But at which point, you may think that surely a beautiful New Zealand Huntaway cross could never be classed as rich, he could never be classed in the top 10% of the most wealthy in the nation. Why 10%? Well, initially it might be the billionaires to get started (0.0003% of the population), but the Green party suggests a 1% wealth tax on people with more than £10 million in assets (0.1% of the population). As has been seen in recent months and years, while this may be viewed as a small proportion of the population, it unfortunately leaves 99.9% of the population who think it isn’t such a bad idea and free money for them (without understanding the concept of unintended consequences).

From this position, it is neither the pursuit of billionaires nor decamillionaires that need to be the primary concern, because to the honest, while they already contribute their fair share of the tax income, their wealth also provides them with surprising mobility. Combined with this, the evil, greedy eye of Sauron of poorly educated (economically illiterate) politicians while telling you that they are always focusing upon “the other” who can afford it, are already targeting the have nots, through the pernicious pursuit of inflation fuelling deficit spending, in order to target that magical 2% target, that keeps their debt Ponzi a float. Between these two disparate groups, one hot footing it out of the country, the other selecting ever cheaper slop to feed their children, are what were once referred to as the sensible individuals that represent “middle England”. From a distance, one would hope these would represent, say, the top 60% of the nation, owning a house, with a “decent” job. Well, maybe that was once the case, a simple google search and this particular fairy tale came to an end and reality set in.

Being in the top 10% in the UK must make you rich, right?

The office of national statistics (ONS) (through the help of Google AI) suggest that to be in the top 10% of wealthiest households in the UK, you need to have a net wealth of £1.2 million. From the outside this may sounds rather good, but before we get ahead of ourselves, rather than the top 60% of middle England doing well, the ONS also tells us the median household wealth across the UK is £293,700. Given that is barely 10% more than the UK average house price, this would suggest that the Median British person, who likely has a  mortgage for their house, really doesn’t have that many assets outside their house. Then given the onward march of house prices during the last 30 years, is the value many hold in their houses actually wealth, or simply a product of looser bank and interest rate policy allowing people to take on ever increasing amounts of debt to buy houses? 

So, from this position, if the top 10% were fortunate enough to get “into the housing market” at the right time, while they may on paper being sitting pretty on top of the healthy pile of capital gains since buying their spacious Semi in a leafy suburb in 1987, may not actually have many assets outside their “top 10%” million. From this point, looking at the amount British people hold in their pensions (another way of accumulating wealth into the future) so they can live without selling their primary residence. Worryingly, the average for someone approaching retirement is £146k, with the top 10% of pensions being between £400k and £700k. Including these figures as part of the wealth of the “rich” 10% again puts this all into perspective, the pension potentially making up a decent portion of this wealth. Even those in the 10% that 90% of the population would likely vote to take their wealth, may have more than the 90% but do not actually have a lot outside these headline figures of a house and a pension. And before we move forward, when ever pensions are raised and I’ve made my inner “sensible grown-up” happy, that I “put something away”, I also think about some overly smug professors I’ve met, complaining they’ve maxxed out their university pension at “1 MILLION POUNDS”. So, to quote Pierre Rochard: “Let’s run the numbers”.

Figure 1: How a “good and safe” pension might work with the grind of inflation

While these figures are totally made up, we can agree (or not totally reject) that a consistent 7% actual inflation of the products, services and taxes we want/have to buy/pay is not out of the range of possibility, and combine with the risk averse pension provider, taking their fee and proud of a 3%, post fee, return. What started off as the shining achieve of a 40-year career, quickly evaporates, unless you seriously cut back on the essentials into older age. If the professor took requirement at 65, by the age of 85, they would be out of cash. Now, change those figures to a £400k pension pot and a rather moderate £20k income, and the pension pot is done by the age of 80. While the “state pension” may fill a gap, well at least until that Ponzi collapses, I cannot imagine this will create the retirement of the “Silver Surfer” the top 10% of Brits was once promised.

The worry is that unless action is taken by this group, and action is already being taken by the top 0.1-1% (£3-10 million), the primary target of the working population of Britain, aspiring to be in the top 10% will become sitting ducks for the political class. Pensions are already no longer exempt from inheritance tax to a spouse, and as houses continue to grind higher in value, they can be easily targeted through additional taxes that the 10% will not be able to escape from. While inflation eats the value of their hard-earned pension, and maintenance costs of their property further increases their expenditure, the wealth of the top 10% will be stripped until they tumble down the wealth quartiles.

What can we learn from this?

While I don’t have to tell anyone reading this that wealth taxes are not a logical and sensible approach to wealth redistribution and creation for the have nots (also see the political class), this short overview of the what being part of the top 10% in the UK actually means. Being comfortable in the UK at the moment isn’t something that top 60% of the nation are experiencing. Looking a little closer at even the top 10%, irrespective of what their wages are, which are likely an ever-smaller portion of the “value” of their property, shows real wealth is very concentrated in the UK. But this is absolutely not about saying “let’s stop this”, instead, looking at even those who have done everything they need to and have reached the top 10% still haven’t enough for a comfortable life in retirement. Rather that focusing upon the 0.0003%, can we not instead focused upon the 10% or even the 40% and begin to ask what can be done to make these individuals more wealthy, rather than making those with some assets less wealthy.

So much is said about affordability of housing, which is both a key component of the 10%’s wealth, while also limiting the 90%’s ability to accumulate wealth as they pay interest costs directly to the bank that lent them the money for their overpriced first time buy. But how could this situation be resolved? While it is thrown around, the phrase “bitcoin fixes this” really rings true. If someone has wealth tied up in a house, why not sell and move a portion of that into bitcoin. Even if they take a significant haircut, the assets they end up with are qualitatively more valuable that a house that may ultimately be bigger than is necessary. Currently, the house costs repairs, council tax, insurance, likely a “mansion tax” in the not too near future and it also, by its very nature is immobile. Bitcoin has none of these issues, and by providing the new bitcoin holder with a lot more mobility and liquidity, may also allow those exiting the property market the opportunity to move to greener pastures, to jurisdictions that support wealth accumulation rather than theft (oh, sorry, I mean redistribution). Then, given the potential for bitcoin to appreciate in value, if you don’t get “top dollar” for your house that is not a problem, it makes housing more affordable to those further down the rungs of wealth.

Bitcoin doesn’t have to just send Financial Information

Feeling confident that you had truly made it, and could consider yourself as one of the top 10% is an achievement, but in the UK, that is no longer sufficient. I wanted to also include a reference to GDP per capita or even a reference to the UK being less wealthy than the poorest US state, but this simply further cements that being in the top 10% of a rapidly declining country is not something to be content with. In addition to this, there is now an ever present worry that those in charge will begin hunting for ways of extracting ever more from the assets you own to prop up their Ponzi until the next election cycle. While the suggested route of moving out of real estate into bitcoin is, to me anyway, a logical way forward, it might also send an important message to those who think they are in charge. Firstly, if it was to cause a dramatic decline in the housing market, those making money from mortgages and associated taxes would have to take note. With the consequence of people then holding more of their wealth in bitcoin (also maybe not contributing to their pensions), they and their wealth are suddenly, dramatically more mobile. Once this is realised, hopefully any new laws that are proposed will at least be oriented towards incentivising people to stay in the country, rather than bleeding those who have no option other than to stay.

Within this situation, the GBP may become even more irrelevant. What is the value of holding £1,000,000 of assets if they can just be taken, or can’t be moved. This instead moves us toward an alternate unit of account, bitcoin; how much bitcoin to you have to own to be in the top 10%? Bitinfocharts , while not specifically focused on the UK, does provide global balances, so let’s screw being in the top 10% of wealth in the UK and instead target UK citizens being in the 10% of wealth globally, in bitcoin terms? 

Figure 2: Bitcoin Wallets by amount held (accessed 01-06-2026)

While holding 0.01btc may not be sufficient (at the moment) to allow you to escape the UK and buy a villa in the French Riviera, it would mathematically put you comfortably in the 10% of bitcoin holders globally (the top 7.64%). Then given that may bitcoiners holder more than a single wallet address, you might be in a significantly more elite group than this if you hold an extremely moderate and achievable 0.1btc (£5291 at today’s prices). So then, to paraphrase Satoshi himself, “If enough people think that same way, \[handing power and control back to the people of Britain\] becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy”. If Britons chose to put more of their wealth into bitcoin, they will simply find themselves higher up the wealth ladder, that as time goes by, countries will likely be more interested in welcoming you.

Figure 3: Bitcoin Wallet Addresses as a proportion of total populations

So, to return to the start of this short essay, Is the UK still a rich country? In a word, no, but if people get their act together, not only the top 10% but many others could get themselves into the financial, bitcoin elite. But this is as a portion of global bitcoiner holders, so instead, let’s put that into the context of the broader population, that is the top 10% of bitcoin holders. As a proportion of the population of the UK, who likely don’t hold bitcoin, that would put you in the top 6.5% of the most wealthy in bitcoin terms, as a portion of global population that 0.1btc would put you in the top 0.054% of global bitcoin wealth. Wealth In Equalitywould suggest this is the equivalent to a net worth of around $5-10 million, which then would suggest that using these numbers, if wealth was only stored in bitcoin, bitcoin would be worth from $50 to $100 million a coin (in today’s dollars), meaning the 0.1btc the British person has been able to save has put them in a very financially comfortable position. In this situation, it would appear very likely that the UK would again be a rich country, if only the government would stop getting in the way.