Good question. I've been here since the beginning. I was such a newb, and trying to learn how to mine those first two days, that I was too shy to post. But somewhere around the 3rd day I started posting. Anyway, this is "the best of my knowledge" I can only tell you how I saw it unfold. Then I can suggest some logic, but ultimately, you need to be the judge.
First off, the first miners that knew what they were doing, they probably each got up to 100,000 coins. 1.9 or so million coins "spilled" out those first few days. Many of those early miners quit Dash and sold all they had (we had some pretty spectacular dumps! and rage quits) I grabbed this visual a long time ago, and I've forgotten where it comes from?? So it's outdated:
And here it is a little longer time span. Still, it's at least a year old, maybe 2, LOL
Basically, you can see how the funds were moving from initial miners to whomever. Coins have been traded over and over for the most part.
So anyway, I still don't see how anyone could possibly have gotten more than our member,
@Otoh. otoh was having fun buying up tons of Dash. I say that because he was giving out hints, and letting us see what he was doing before we knew who he was. Eventually he outed himself. This was still the first year of Darkcoin. Anyway, he had bought over 600,000 coins at one point, I believe, if memory serves me correctly. He has since evangelized for Dash and sold most of his fortune to other people directly. He still does. He mostly buys on an exchange then sells otc, I think, helping new Dashers get their coins without the fuss, I guess. (otoh made his first fortune on Bitcoin BTW) I don't know how much he still has, but I'm guessing less than 300,000 because of what I've read him say.
Even if he owned his 600,000 coins still, he could only have 600 masternodes. 600/4200 = ~ 14.3% of all masternodes. This is enough to vote in a proposal, but not if a lot of people disagree with him. He's stated publicly that he does NOT vote on anything, so that's a mute point. Of course you'd have to take his word on it.
So what happens over time? I believe Evan once said he bought a new house, so he's spent some of his stash. otoh, like I said, sold a lot of his stash. How many held on to every Dash they could? Even I have had to sell off my incoming from my nodes because I have bills to pay and no income otherwise. But I cling to my 2 masternodes like life or death, LOL, but if I weren't so afraid for my future, and had plenty of security, I would probably sell off my excess so I could buy some nice things for myself or family. In other words, no matter if Dash were pure deflationary (it's actually inflationary) people would have to sell them to get anything real out of this. So over time, the largest sellers will undoubtedly sell off large percentages of their holdings, I don't doubt this, and feel the chart shows how that works. By the way, the chart is showing stuff that happened way before people commonly used DarkSend. So that's real funds moving.
Ultimately, IMO, there are so many of us online that have 2, 5 and 10 masternodes, that makes up for a huge proportion of existing masternodes, and I just feel like there can't be anyone out there with more than what otoh once had, or probably still has - as I think he might still be the largest holder. Certainly nobody would have much more.
There probably will never be any way to know for certain who owns a masternode or how many. I tell you I own 2, but you have to trust what I say. My daughters have one together and my son has one on his own. I manage all 4 and their votes go where I say they go, LOL. Mostly because they're not interested (something about having a life, I don't understand???)
So what if someone has > 10% of all masternodes? If they vote for something bad, others will vote against it, and I do think if something were egregiously bad, there would be an uproar and campaign to shut it down. I think the risk is minimal for the DDAO (Dash DAO, LOL)