Coinbase vs. BlackRock vs. Strategy: Who Really Holds the Most Bitcoin (BTC)?
Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, stays the largest single holder of the cryptocurrency, controlling roughly 1.1 million BTC. This provides as much as roughly 5.5% of the whole provide. At present market costs, this stake is price round $75 billion, dwarfing the holdings of even the largest company and institutional gamers.
Despite years of hypothesis about potential motion from these early-mined addresses, Nakamoto’s BTC have largely remained untouched since the asset’s inception.
Bitcoin’s Top Holders Revealed
Following Nakamoto in the rankings is the US-based alternate Coinbase, which holds 993,069 BTC on-chain, equal to five% of the whole provide. These funds characterize a mixture of shopper deposits and company reserves, together with liquidity saved available to fulfill withdrawals. Its rival, Binance, controls 661,000 BTC beneath custody, which accounts for 3.15% of the whole provide.
The institutional sector can also be staking its declare. Arkham Intelligence information revealed that BlackRock is the largest institutional holder, with 761,801 BTC. This stash is price round $52 billion. ETF issuers and different asset managers resembling Fidelity and Grayscale additionally preserve important positions, although a few of their holdings are routed via omnibus custodial accounts, which makes direct attribution barely much less clear. For instance, Fidelity Custody seems to carry 448,000 BTC. Meanwhile, a few of Strategy’s company holdings, which whole 715,000 BTC, are reflected on-chain beneath Fidelity attributable to their custodial technique.
Besides Strategy, different publicly traded entities, together with mining agency MARA and Japanese agency Metaplanet, have additionally acquired significant stakes. Additionally, personal firms spherical out the largest holders. Popular stablecoin issuer Tether has 96,369 BTC and SpaceX holds 8,300 BTC as of August 2025.
Nations Stockpiling Bitcoin
While entities like BlackRock and Coinbase maintain huge quantities, governments like the United States, which leads the checklist with 328,000 BTC, aren’t far behind. Most of this got here from asset seizures, together with cash recovered from the Bitfinex hack, the Silk Road market, and its hacker James Zhong. More just lately, the US authorities additionally acquired 127,000 BTC from the LuBian Hacker handle.
Next up is the United Kingdom with 61,245 BTC, largely seized by the UK Metropolitan Police from Jian Wen and Zhimin Qian in 2018. China’s authorities have additionally confiscated 194,775 BTC from the PlusToken Ponzi scheme in 2020, although it’s unclear if the Chinese authorities nonetheless holds these cash or has offered them.
Ukraine has additionally seen important Bitcoin involvement. Since the Russian-Ukrainian battle, the nation obtained $22.8 million in BTC donations. More than 700,000 Ukrainian public officers have declared proudly owning Bitcoin, with some holding as much as 18,000 BTC, totaling nearly 46,351 BTC.
Germany seized 50,000 BTC from a film piracy web site known as Movie2k in January 2024, however these cash have been absolutely sold by July 2024.
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