The Bitcoin (BTC) community’s HODLing culture is taken seriously by some known entities that are firmly holding their own Bitcoin stash in these over 15 years of existence of the leading cryptocurrency.
On September 19, Finbold collected data from multiple sources in order to provide an updated analysis of the current state of known Bitcoin holders in the world. Most of the consolidated data used in this story was provided by Arkham Intelligence and the Buy Bitcoin Worldwide website.
- Satoshi Nakamoto holdings (estimations): 750,000 to 1.1 million BTC
- Binance holdings: 643,546 BTC
- Grayscale holdings: 627,779 BTC
- US Government holdings: 207,189 BTC
- Mt. Gox holdings: 200,000 BTC
- Bitfinex holdings: 196,252 BTC
- China Government holdings: 194,000 BTC
- MicroStrategy holdings: 152,800 BTC
- Block.one holdings: 140,000 BTC
- Robinhood holdings: 118,300 BTC
Together, these top 10 Bitcoin holders have 3,479,866 (3.48 million) BTC. Accounting for 16.5% of the maximum supply of 21 million BTC, or 17.8% of the current circulating supply of 19.49 million BTC, by press time.
Bitcoin holdings by the top 5 largest known entities explained
Notably, it is impossible to know the exact amount of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin holdings, but the above estimations are the most accepted by renowned researchers, according to BTC mining data from the early days, suggesting the creator of Bitcoin was able to mine around 22,000 blocks.
While Binance is the second largest holder, its holdings are mostly made of third-party ownership using the centralized exchange to custody their coins that are ready to be traded. Grayscale holdings are mostly made of reserves for the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), with the on-chain proofs recently revealed by Arkham.
According to Forbes, the United States Bitcoin holdings are mostly made of seized assets from regulatory crackdowns against businesses, or from criminal activities such as hackings, financial fraudulent schemes, and money laundering activities.
Mt. Gox is probably one of the most monitored Bitcoin holders in history, as the remaining stash is locked by a Tokyo Court ruling on the Mt. Gox case, which will supposedly be used to pay the crashed exchange’s creditors. With recurrent delays and speculation about when they will be released for a possible sell-off.
