Bitcoin (BTC) is a pioneer of decentralised peer-to-peer payments and the largest cryptocurrency in the world valued at a market capitalisation of over $461 bn, as of 29 July 2022.
Bitcoin’s censorship-resistant and permissionless feature has attracted a host of early adopters of the cryptocurrency.
Reading: Who has most bitcoin
The number of active btc addresses has skyrocketed from about 1,000 in July 2010 to more than 900,000 at the end of July 2022, according to data from blockchain research firm glassnode.
who are the largest bitcoin holders and how high is the concentration of bitcoin whales? here we take a look at who owns the most bitcoins.
about bitcoin: decentralized payments
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.
pseudonymous bitcoin founder satoshi nakamoto published the 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 bitcoins are rewarded to miners who validate transactions and add transaction history to the public blockchain ledger.
btc market cap was over $457 billion at prices of almost $24,000 on july 29, 2022. btc market cap was over $1.27 trillion at its peak in november 2021 However, in 2022, investor confidence changed, triggering a crypto winter. with btc falling more than 40%.
tokenomics: limited
Bitcoin has a hard cap, which means that only a certain number of bitcoins can be mined. the maximum bitcoin supply is capped at 21 million.
Furthermore, bitcoin’s issuance rate is designed to decrease over time in a process known as halving. halving events occur every 210,000 blocks, which is roughly every four years, in which mining rewards are halved.
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The most recent halving event occurred in May 2021 when mining rewards fell from 12.5 btc per block to 6.25 btc per block. the next halving event is expected to occur in 2024, after which btc issuances will drop to 3,125 btc per block.
As of July 29, 2022, over 19.1 million btc have been mined, representing 91% of the maximum btc supply, according to coinmarketcap. There are less than two million bitcoins left to be mined. the last bitcoin is expected to be mined in the year 2140.
who owns the most bitcoins?
According to bitcoin-focused asset manager river financial, satoshi nakamoto, the anonymous inventor of bitcoin, is estimated to be the largest holder of bitcoin in possession of over a million btc stored in approximately 22,000 addresses.
none of nakamoto’s estimated btc holdings have moved other than a few test transactions, according to river financial.
Looking at wallet address data collected by bitinfochart, the top bitcoin holders were identified to be addresses linked to cryptocurrency exchanges binance (bnb) and bitfinex.
binance wallet was the richest individual address with 252,597 bitcoins worth over $6 billion and accounted for 1.3% of the circulating supply of btc. the bitfinex wallet contained approximately 0.9% of the current circulating supply of btc, as of July 29, 2022.
The third richest bitcoin address with 131,883 btc on July 29, 2022 remained anonymous. It should be noted that while blockchain data is transparent and wallet balances are visible to the public, the identity of the wallet address holder remains anonymous unless voluntarily disclosed.
There were several wallet addresses identified as crypto exchange addresses in the bitinfochart bitcoin address list. binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of transaction volume, had three wallets on the list.
various corporations have accumulated btc over the years. US-based software firm MicroStrategy (MSTR) is the world’s largest publicly traded corporate owner of Bitcoin, with holdings of around 129,218 BTC, according to its Q1 2022 earnings report. microstrategy’s btc holdings were worth over $3 billion as of July 22, 2022.
tesla (tsla) is also known to own bitcoin. however, the company announced on July 20, 2022 that it had sold 75% of its bitcoin holdings by the end of Q2 2022.
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The electric car maker did not disclose the number of bitcoins it held. the company reported “digital assets” worth $218 million, as of June 30, 2022, on its balance sheet, down from the $1.26 billion it had on March 31, 2022.
Meanwhile, the total amount of bitcoins held by el salvador, an early adopter of btc, was approximately 2,301, as of June 15, 2022, according to news agency fortune.
conclusion: less concentration than other cryptocurrencies
For retail bitcoin holders, it might be useful to know who has the most bitcoins, as wallets that hold large amounts of bitcoins can have a significant influence on their price.
These wallet addresses that belong to individuals or organizations are known as whale addresses and the holder is known as a whale.
who are the bitcoin whales? According to Binance Academy, a BTC whale must have at least 1,000 BTC. there were 2,151 addresses holding more than 1,000 btc each, as of July 29, 2022, data from blockchain research firm messari showed.
it should be noted that btc is more evenly distributed than other cryptocurrencies. According to crypto analytics site IntoTheBlock, the concentration of BTC among large holders stood at 10% of its circulating supply.
By comparison, the eth smart contract leader’s concentration among large holders was 41%. the ethereum sidechain polygon matic had a huge headline concentration of 86%. memecoin doge had a 65% concentration of large holders, as of July 29, 2022.
The absence of venture capitalists, seed investors, and initial coin offerings, which is all too common in the crypto industry today, has helped btc maintain a low concentration of large holders.
However, the National Bureau of Economic Research noted that the bitcoin ecosystem “is still dominated by large, concentrated players, whether they are large miners, bitcoin holders, or exchanges.”
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