Introduction
Bitcoin is all you hear about nowadays. But who exactly owns the elusive cryptocurrency?
If you’re curious about who owns Bitcoin, or who owns the bulk of it on the market, look no further. In this article, we will go through who owns bitcoin, who owns the most bitcoin, what the wealth distribution of bitcoin is like the billionaires who have gotten rich from bitcoin, and the companies and governments holding the most bitcoin.
Although Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious person who created Bitcoin, is its inventor, no one actually owns the Bitcoin project. Bitcoin is a piece of software that is managed by a decentralised network, which implies that no single entity is in charge of the software’s set of rules. To conduct transactions, all users of the network must accept these regulations. Keep reading to learn more!
What Bitcoin Owner Has The Highest Number Of Bitcoin?
As the first Bitcoin miner to create blocks of transactions, Satoshi Nakamoto did not just invent Bitcoin, he also launched it.
Beginning on January 3rd 2009, Satoshi is thought to have mined over 22,000 blocks and earned a total of over 1,000,000 bitcoin in block rewards. As a result, Satoshi is said to be the owner of the biggest bitcoin cache, which now stands at more than a million Bitcoin, or almost $23 billion. This bitcoin is dispersed across those about 22,000 addresses rather than being kept in a single address.
With the exception of a few test transactions, no Bitcoin was used. Since his departure from the crypto project in 2010, Satoshi has gone silent.
Wealth Distribution of Bitcoin
The distribution of bitcoin ownership over time has been dependent on the total value of bitcoin. Based on the total quantity of bitcoins present at an address, these categories have been created.
Each address holds a different percentage of the total bitcoin supply and this percentage changes over time. Currently, just five bitcoin addresses totalling 778,627 BTC each hold 100,000 to 1,000,000 BTC. The next 92 owners hold between 10,000 and 100,000 bitcoin, which amounts to 2,169,396 BTC. The top 97 addresses in terms of wealth make up 14.15 per cent of the supply. Whale addresses are those having 10,000 or more bitcoins in their balance.
Billionaire Bitcoiners
Five bitcoin addresses, excluding Satoshi, each have over 100,000 bitcoin. Bitfinex, Binance, MicroStrategy, and an additional address of unknown identity are the four companies whose addresses have the most bitcoin. Together, the owners of these five addresses have over 778,000 bitcoin.
The assets of several individual investors who do not possess their own keys are represented by the exchange addresses.
Businesses with the Most Bitcoin
Businesses can purchase bitcoin using their treasury, or corporate funds.
Large firms with the ability to issue low-interest corporate bonds also have the option to generate inexpensive debt and utilise the money to buy bitcoin. Theoretically, if bitcoin continues to store value and the value of the dollar depreciates due to inflation, fewer bitcoin will be needed to pay off the loan in fiat currency. This tactic is comparable to margin or leveraged purchases.
Public Corporations
Public enterprises possess 1.029% of the entire supply as a whole. Nearly 200,000 BTC are held by the 10 publicly traded businesses that have the most bitcoin shown on their balance sheets.
More bitcoin is held by Microstrategy, headed by Michael Saylor, than by any other publicly traded firm. In terms of the overall supply, Microstrategy has gained more than 0.689%. Microstrategy has acquired bitcoin via both bond sales and its corporate treasury. The interest rate on these bonds is quite low, and they have two redemption options: ownership in Microstrategy or currency. This method enables Microstrategy to buy bitcoin at a minimal cost and in excess of what their corporate treasury can handle.
Tesla, Inc. now owns 0.051% of the entire supply. the third-largest bitcoin holding by publicly traded Galaxy Digital Holdings, which has 16,400 BTC.
Private Businesses
Around 174,068 BTC, or 0.829% of the total supply, are owned by private businesses. The biggest private owner of bitcoin is a Chinese company called Block.one. According to reports, Block.one has 140,000 Bitcoins or 0.667% of the whole supply.
Indirect Bitcoin Use
For investors who wish to get exposure to the bitcoin price without actually acquiring bitcoin, indirect bitcoin exposure is one investing strategy. Some investors also think that diversifying their holdings over a wide range of bitcoin-related assets may lower their risk.
Bitcoin-related assets may be included in a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), creating a more diverse portfolio. Even so, Bitcoin ETFs attempt to track the price of bitcoin.
Bitcoin Holdings by Governments
An estimated 259,870 BTC, or 1.237% of the total supply, are held by governments worldwide.
According to reports, officials of the Ukrainian government are said to privately retain some 46,351 BTC, and Bulgaria reportedly holds more than 213,519 BTC. Several billion dollars worth of bitcoin that had been discovered from the Silk Road was sold by the US government in 2015, and they presently retain another cache of almost 70,000 BTC that they plan to sell soon. On its website, the U.S. Marshals Service auctions off bitcoin that have been confiscated by the FBI and other governmental organisations.
Conclusion
With that, we’ve come to the end of this article about Bitcoin, its origins, and its uses. Currently, bitcoin is quite popular. However, just whose property is the elusive cryptocurrency?
The truth is, the number of bitcoins will never exceed 21 million. For this reason, the hard cap of 21 million may be used to compute the percentage ownership of the whole bitcoin supply. We hope that with this article, you have learnt about the people owning bitcoin: who owns bitcoin, who owns the highest number and value of bitcoin, how bitcoin’s wealth is distributed, bitcoin billionaires, and the businesses and countries that possess the most bitcoin.
