Who Owns the Most Bitcoin in 2024?

Cryptocurrencies gain popularity every year, and the first and most well-known is Bitcoin, created in 2009 and now worth $40,000 per coin after 14 years. Bitcoin gets tons of interest from investors, traders, and tech enthusiasts. Folks have many questions about this digital currency, so let's tackle some common and interesting ones about Bitcoin, including who owns the most.

What Gives Bitcoin Its Value?

Many still wonder: What makes Bitcoin so valuable and expensive? Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency running on its own blockchain ledger. The Bitcoin economy has no third parties since transaction data is recorded on a shared ledger that can't be faked. So how does Bitcoin gain value, and why is its price rising? Bitcoin derives value from key traits: decentralization, no government control, anonymity, divisibility, fraud resistance, portability, and scarcity. Let's break it down:

• Decentralization - Unlike banks, Bitcoin is decentralized, so no single entity controls issuance or transactions. This cuts fees by removing middlemen.

• No government control - No state can control cryptocurrency availability.

• Anonymity - Only a wallet address is needed to transact, no personal info.

• Divisible - Unlike gold or stocks, Bitcoin can be divided as needed. Buy $10, $100 or $1000 worth.

• Fraud resistant - The blockchain is linked blocks of data. Faking one block would break the chain.

• Portable - Easy to send, receive, buy, sell, store, and exchange Bitcoin.

• Scarce - There's a fixed limit of ~21 million Bitcoins. Once they're mined, no new coins are created, driving up value.

Who Owns Bitcoin?

The Bitcoin project has no owner. Its anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, doesn't own it either. As open source, any Bitcoin user can propose changes, and if the network agrees, the changes are adopted. This makes Bitcoin decentralized - no single entity can alter it without consensus.

Who Owns the Most Bitcoin?

Satoshi Nakamoto kickstarted Bitcoin as the first miner to generate transaction blocks, amassing over 1 million Bitcoin as reward. This has given Satoshi the largest known reserve, around 1 million BTC now worth ~$35 billion. It's held across ~22,000 addresses, not one wallet. Despite this vast holding, Satoshi hasn't touched any except for some tests. After withdrawing from Bitcoin in 2010, Satoshi remains silent, their identity and activities still a mystery.

Who Are the Bitcoin Billionaires?

Bitcoin doesn't technically belong to anyone, but some folks own a ton of it - the so-called "whales." These whales have so much Bitcoin that they can majorly impact the price and influence supply and demand. They play a huge role in Bitcoin's volatility and value changes. So if you're getting into crypto and Bitcoin, you gotta know these big holders.

Winklevoss Twins

In 2013, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the famous Winklevoss twins, revealed they'd scooped up 1% of all existing Bitcoin. As the founders of Gemini crypto exchange, the twins own around 70,000 Bitcoins, now worth a whopping $18.67 billion. Shockingly, reports say the twins lost over 60% of their Bitcoin when FTX exchange collapsed in November 2022.

Tim Draper

Tim Draper was one of the few who invested in Bitcoin super early. He owns 29,656 Bitcoins that the U.S. Marshals took from the infamous dark web Silk Road marketplace. He's also invested in Skype and Tesla. As a total Bitcoin bull, he talks positively about Bitcoin's bright future.

Michael J. Saylor

Michael J. Saylor is another Bitcoin whale. He may not be a billionaire, but he's an influential crypto voice who's mega bullish on Bitcoin - reportedly owning at least 17,732 Bitcoins as of 2021. His company MicroStrategy also holds around 132,500 Bitcoins.

Other Billionaires

It's hard to pinpoint exactly who owns how much Bitcoin, since wallet addresses are anonymous unless disclosed. But rumors fly about other big names potentially holding massive Bitcoin assets, like Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, and Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance. They may be among the influential Bitcoin "whales" out there.

How Is Bitcoin Wealth Distributed?

Among the owners of Bitcoin wallets, one can distinguish something like a hierarchy, from the largest whales to small users. Bitcoin wealth distribution depends on involvement in the project, how long ago a person learned about the existence of Bitcoin, and so on.

How many Bitcoin millionaires are there? At the moment only one: Satoshi Nakamoto.

Of course, the fortune of Bitcoin owners is constantly changing, but at the moment the biggest Bitcoin holders are four addresses with between 100,000 and 1,000,000 Bitcoins: the largest Bitcoin holdings. 112 addresses have between 10,000 and 100,000 Bitcoins. These 112 richest addresses own 12.32% of the total supply. Owners of wallets with more than 10,000 Bitcoins are called whales. This is approximately the amount you need to have to influence the market.

What Companies Hold the Most Bitcoin?

Companies mainly use corporate savings, called treasury, to buy Bitcoins. Used by companies such as Microstrategy, Tesla and Galaxy Digital Holdings — the biggest Bitcoin holders — this strategy has the benefit of protecting their savings from inflation and negative-yielding bonds . Major corporations that have the capability to issue corporate bonds at low interest rates also have the potential to generate inexpensive debt and employ the resulting funds to acquire Bitcoin. Theoretically, as the value of the dollar diminishes due to inflation and Bitcoin remains a store of value, repaying fiat debt would necessitate fewer Bitcoins. This approach bears a resemblance to purchasing on margin or utilizing leverage.

Public Companies

The ten companies with the most Bitcoins in their accounts collectively own 1.2% of the total supply, which is approximately 253,565 BTC. Now we will go through the largest Bitcoin holding companies.

MicroStrategy: This is the company with the largest number of Bitcoins. We have already mentioned the founder of this company, Michael Saylor. Over the entire period, this company has purchased 189,150 BTC, which is approximately 0.9% of the total supply. Why is the company acquiring so many Bitcoins? This is their strategy. They sell their stocks and bonds and buy Bitcoins with them. Since Bitcoin's growth outpaces interest on stocks and bonds, the company ultimately remains in good profit.

Robinhood Markets is a financial services company offering trading in stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies. At the moment, the company controls about 120 thousand Bitcoins.

Marathon Digital Holdings, the Bitcoin mining mega-company, owns 11,466 BTC. Following many years of accumulation, the firm sold 766 BTC in March of 2023.

The third-largest Bitcoin holding by a public company is Tesla, Inc., which holds 9,720 BTC. The auto manufacturer has sold over 33,000 BTC since their initial purchase in February 2021.

Hut 8 Mining Corp. and Block Inc. round out public companies in the top five Bitcoin holdings according to BitcoinTreasuries.net. The company holds over 8,000 BTC.

Private Companies

Private companies collectively own 1.5% of the total Bitcoin supply, amounting to 316,067 BTC.

• One of the private companies with a large Bitcoin capital is Block.one, a Chinese corporation that owns approximately 140,000 Bitcoins.

• Gox, a formerly hacked exchange, is also a major holder of Bitcoin, with around 140,000 Bitcoin in total, equating to 0.7% of the total supply.

• Stone Ridge Holdings Group is an American private company that owns approximately 10,000 BTC.

• In the Q3 2023 attestation of reserves, Tether Holdings LTD revealed that it had custody of over approximately 61,000 BTC, with a value of $1.66 billion at the time of disclosure. This solidified Tether's position as the company behind the USDT stablecoin, showcasing their continued success and growth in the crypto market.

Indirect Bitcoin Exposure

Indirect exposure to Bitcoin is one way to invest in Bitcoin, not directly, but through various ETFs. By using financial investment services that include Bitcoin, investors seek to reduce risks. Since Bitcoin itself is a volatile asset, other elements of an investment portfolio or shares with less volatility can balance the risk/reward ratio.

ETFs and other funds hold 819,125 BTC, which is 3.9% of the total supply. The largest holder is the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which holds 643,572 BTC, or almost 3.2% of the total supply.

Bitcoin Tracker One XBT is the second largest Bitcoin holder among indirect Bitcoin influencers, with 37,603 BTC in their possession.

In total, public companies, private companies and ETFs have nearly 1.5 million Bitcoins under management, accounting for more than 7% of the total supply.

Government Holdings

Governments of different countries also own a certain amount of Bitcoin. They acquire them either as a reserve asset or as a result of repossession from scammers, hackers, and so on. It is difficult to estimate the number of Bitcoins held by the government due to the involvement of various agencies.

The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) owns approximately 174,000 Bitcoins, more than half of which were seized as a result of the Silk Road, and the rest from the Colonial Pipeline hackers.

The other largest Bitcoin holdings among world governments include China (approximately 194,000 BTC) and Bulgaria (over 200,000 BTC).

What Is Total Bitcoin Supply?

We talked about how many Bitcoins people have and what percentage of the total supply it is, but how many Bitcoins does the total supply have at the moment?

The total supply cannot exceed 21 million Bitcoins. The current circulation is about 19 million. It is necessary to take into account that miners are still mining blocks, because they have not yet reached the final mark of 21 million. Also, when calculating the percentage (share) of the total circulation of a particular large owner, one must take into account the fact that Satoshi Nakamoto himself, at the beginning of his career, received a reward in the amount of one million Bitcoins, and there are approximately 3-4 million lost Bitcoins. Therefore, it turns out that there are about 17,000,000 Bitcoins in active use.

What Happens After All the Bitcoins Are Mined?

It would seem that miners have very little left before reaching the limit on Bitcoins, but what happens next?

It’s difficult to say; the crypto industry is an area that changes by leaps and bounds, so we cannot predict what the main motivation will be for miners after reaching the limit of 21,000,000. One option is to make a profit from transaction fees.

In any case, the Bitcoin limit is a strong anti-inflationary tool, the consequences of which will be known to us after everything happens.

Conclusion

Now that you know the answers to the main questions regarding who owns Bitcoin, you can begin to take the next steps in your study of and investment in the crypto industry.

Remember that we are still at the very beginning of the development of decentralized finance. It may seem that if you did not have time to buy Bitcoin cheap, then everything is already lost and only the whales and the biggest Bitcoin holders will skim all the cream off, but this is not so. Now is the best time to study the crypto market and invest, because there is an endless amount of free materials and crypto available, plus official crypto exchanges with a high level of security and more advanced financial technologies.

FAQ:

Who is the owner of 1 million Bitcoin?

Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, the biggest Bitcoin holder, is the owner of 1 million Bitcoins. He received them as a reward for creating blocks.

Which government owns the most Bitcoin?

At the moment, most Bitcoins are concentrated in the United States. China and Bulgaria, the other biggest Bitcoin holders, are not far behind.

How many millionaires own Bitcoin?

It is quite difficult to say how many millionaires own Bitcoin, because given the popularity of Bitcoin, it is likely to be an integral asset in the investment portfolio of many millionaires.

How much Bitcoin does the average person own?

It is difficult to say how many Bitcoin holders there are; such statistics have not yet been carried out, since the number of Bitcoins in the account depends on the total capital of the owner, his faith in Bitcoin, his faith in cryptocurrencies in general, and so on.

DISCLAIMER: None of the authors, contributors, administrators, or editors connected to OWNR Wallet encourage readers to invest in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency without doing proper research on their own. This article is purely for educational purposes.