Who Owns The Most Bitcoin? | Bitcoin Holders and Whales (2024)

Bitcoin (BTC) is pretty much the first cryptocurrency and, with a market cap of $540.6bn as of 6 April2023, it is certainly the biggest. The coin's market dominance is such that any crypto coin that isn't BTC is classified as an altcoin, meaning that its defining characteristic is that it is not bitcoin. In fact, it could be said that, in the eyes of many, bitcoin and cryptocurrency are the same thing.

Thenumber of active BTC-holding addressessurged from about 1,000 in July 2010 to a peak of more than1.3 million by April2021 at the height of that year's cryptoboom and, by 14March 2023, there were more than one million people who held the coin.

But who are the largest holders of bitcoin and many bitcoin holders have enough of the crypto to be classified as major players, the so-calledwhales? Let's take a look who owns the most bitcoin.

Bitcoin explained

First, though, let's take a look and see if we can explain a little about what bitcoin actually is.

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that allows its holders to make online payments directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.

The system'spseudonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto publishedthe Bitcoin whitepaper in October 2008. The first block on the Bitcoin network was mined in January 2009, which rewarded its miner with the first BTC.

New bitcoinare rewarded to so-calledminers, people who validate transactions and add the history of transactions to the public blockchain ledger by solving complex mathematical equations using what is known as a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism.

BTC’s market cap hit more than $1.27trn at its peak in November 2021 when it reached an all-time high of $68,789.

In 2022, however,a series of market crashed damaged both bitcoin and crypto in general, with BTCdropping by nearly 65% over the course of the year. By 18 April 2023, the price of bitcoin stood at roughly $29,700.

Bitcoin has a hard cap, which means that only a certain number of bitcoincan ever be minted. The maximum supply of bitcoin is capped at 21 million.

Furthermore, the emission rate of bitcoin is designed to reduce over time in a process calledhalving. Halving takes place every 210,000 blocks, which is roughly every four years, and seesthe rewards for mining bitcoin cut inhalf.

The most recent halving event occurred in May 2021, when mining rewards dropped from 12.5 BTC perblock to 6.25 BTC perblock. The next halving event is expected to occur in 2024 after which BTC emissions will drop to 3.125 BTC a block.

As of 23 March 2023, more than 19.3million BTC has been mined, representing 92% of maximum BTC supply, according to CoinMarketCap. Less than two million bitcoinare left to be mined. The last bitcoin is expected to be mined in the year 2140.

Who owns the most bitcoin: Meet the whales

According to bitcoin-focused asset manager River Financial, Satoshi Nakamotois estimated to be the biggest bitcoin holder in possession of more than one million BTC stored in roughly 22,000 addresses. The site argued that none of Nakamoto's holdings, barring a few test transacctionshave ever been moved,

Wallet address data compiled byBitInfoChartsfound that thetop holders of bitcoin were addresses linked to the Binance (BNB) and BitFinex crypto exchanges.

A Binance wallet was the single richest address, with 248,597 BTC worth more than $7.3bn and representing almost 1.3% of the circulating BTC supply. The BitFinex wallet held 178,010, orabout 0.92% of BTC’s current circulating supply, while the third wealthiest, which held127,351 bitcoin, was also linked to Binance..

It should be noted that while blockchain data is transparent and wallet balances are viewable to the public, the identity of a wallet address holder remains anonymous unless voluntarily disclosed. The largest anonymous whale came in at number four on the list, with119,347 BTC worth around $3.5bn.

According to a report by American think tank theNational Bureau of Economic Research, published in October 2021:

“Determining the concentration of ownership is more complicated than just tracking the holdings of the richest addresses, since many of the largest addresses belong to cold wallets of exchanges and online wallets, which hold bitcoin on behalf of many investors."

Several corporations have accumulated BTC over the years. US-based software company MicroStrategy (MSTR) was the world’s biggest publicly traded corporate owner of bitcoin.

MicroStrategy said in its earnings report for the fourthquarter of 2022 earnings results hadholdings to 132,500 BTC,worth about $2.194bn on 2 February2023.

Tesla (TSLA), the company headed by noted crypto enthusiast Elon Musk,was alsoamong the biggest bitcoin holders at one point. However, the company announced on 20 July 2022 that it had sold 75% of its bitcoin holdings by the end of the second quarter of that year.

The electric carmaker did not disclose the amount of bitcoin it held. In its fourth quarter 2022 earnings result, the company reported “digital assets” worth $2.563bn, as of 31December 2022 on its balance sheet, up from $2.016bna year previously.

Meanwhile, the total number of bitcoinheld by the nation ofEl Salvador was about 2,301, as of 15 June 2022, according to news agency Fortune, based on purchase announcement byEl Salvador presidentNayib Bukele on Twitter.

The central American nation’stotal bitcoin holdings is shrouded with mystery.El Salvador’s Anti-Corruption Legal Advisory Center tweeted on 31 October 2022 that the nation’s development bank, BANDESAL, refused “for the second time” to provide information on the purchase and sale of bitcoin by the Salvadoran government.

In summary

For retail bitcoin holders, it might be useful to know who has the most bitcoin, as wallets holding large quantities of BTC can have significant influence over its price. As the National Bureau of Economic Research said:

“From a public policy perspective, it is important to understand the ownership and concentration of bitcoin holdings since it determines who is positioned to benefit most from any price appreciation.".

The wallet addresses belonging to individuals or organisations with large holdingsare known as whale addresses, and the holder is known as a whale.

According to Binance Academy, a BTC whale is someone whoholds at least 1,000. Data from BitInfoCharts said that, as of 6 April 2023, there were 2,021 addresses which qualified as whales by that measurement.

It should be noted that BTC is more evenly distributed than other cryptocurrencies. According to crypto analytics site IntoTheBlock, BTC’s concentration among large holders stood at 11% of its circulating supply on 18April 2023.

In comparison, smart contract leader ETH’s concentration among large holders stood at 40%, whilePolygon’s MATICcryptohad a large-holder concentration of 85% andtheDOGEmemecoinhad a 65% concentration of large holders.

The National Bureau of Economic Research noted that the Bitcoin ecosystem “is still dominated by large and concentrated players, be it large miners, bitcoin holders or exchanges.

“This inherent concentration makes bitcoin susceptible to systemic risk and also implies that the majority of the gains from further adoption are likely to fall disproportionately to a small set of participants.”

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