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- who owns the most bitcoins?
- who owns bitcoin and why does it matter
- bitcoin price
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The headlines have been dominated by the rise of institutional investors such as tesla, microstrategy and countless funds gaining exposure to cryptocurrencies. but the answer to the question “who has more bitcoins?” may surprise you.
Generally speaking, the holdings of large companies pale in comparison to the holdings of early adopters in the space. there are two reasons for this. First, many institutions are reluctant to take exposure to a digital asset known for its volatility. and second, those with fat balances likely started accumulating crypto when a single bitcoin was worth hundreds of dollars, rather than tens of thousands. you need to own to be in the top 1%.
Reading: Who owns the most bitcoin
who owns the most bitcoins?
At this point, it’s worth noting that the maximum amount of btc that will ever exist is capped at 21 million. this supply will be gradually released between now and 2140, and at the time of this writing, more than 19 million of them are in circulation. The total number of Bitcoins on the open market is likely to be even less than this, with some estimates suggesting that around 20% of BTC has been lost forever since the asset was launched. data from bitinfocharts suggests that just four crypto addresses have a balance of between 100,000btc and 1,000,000btc – representing 3.54% of all coins in existence. at the time of writing, these wallets were worth a staggering more than $14.9 billion. however, we already know who these addresses belong to: they are the cold wallets of the exchanges huobi, binance and bitfinex, btc that is safely stored away from an internet connection. Let’s go to the next level. the number of wallets holding between 10,000 btc and 100,000 btc is just 94, and together they hold $49.7 billion in wealth and 11.7% of the total bitcoin supply.
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the rest of bitcoin ownership breaks down as follows:
- 2133 addresses contain between 1,000 and 10,000 bitcoins. together they hold almost 5.1 million btc, 26.9% of the total coins, with a cash value of nearly $113 billion.
- 13,686 addresses have between 100 and 1,000 bitcoins. together they hold 3.8 million btc, 20.3% of the total coins, with a cash value of nearly $85.7 billion.
- 131,621 addresses have between 10 and 100 bitcoins. together they hold almost 4.2 million btc, 22.3% of the total coins, with a cash value of $94.2 billion.
About 19.4% of bitcoin wealth is stored in wallets containing more than 1 btc, while only 4.38% store between 0.1 btc and 1 btc. When it comes to how many people own bitcoin, numbers vary, but an estimated 106 million people worldwide, of which 400,000 are daily bitcoin users. but let’s look at this in monetary terms. when it comes to how many people (or addresses) own bitcoin worth more than $100, that figure currently stands at nearly 13.6 million. More than five million people own BTC worth more than $1,000, which boils down to nearly 1.4 million addresses that have stashed bitcoins worth more than $10,000.
you will be one of 253,947 people if your crypto address has a cash value of $100,000. And, fascinatingly, there are 65,503 bitcoin millionaires out there.
who owns bitcoin and why is it important
These statistics may seem quite abstract at first, but they tell an important story. institutions aren’t in the lead when it comes to bitcoin’s ever-increasing market capitalization, which comfortably surpassed $1 trillion in 2021.
Instead, it relies on consumers who have jumped on the crypto bandwagon out of fear of missing out. This can be a high-risk strategy if you buy at a high point, but then again, those who bought BTC when it first broke £5,000 in September 2017 will have seen their investment more than quadruple even at current prices. those with the most bitcoin may surprise you. At the top of the list is Satoshi Nakamoto, the cryptocurrency’s pseudonymous developer. research suggests he has a war chest of up to 1.1 million btc, which is likely spread across multiple wallets. From time to time, we have seen bitcoin mined in this era moving between addresses, and this activity has tended to spook the crypto markets. law enforcement agencies are also high on this list. Bulgaria managed to seize 213,500 BTC in 2017, before the cryptocurrency topped $20,000 for the first time. had he held on to these coins, they would be worth a staggering $4.7 billion at the time of this writing. Inevitably, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also gets a mention. the fbi managed to seize 144,000btc when they shut down the silk road website in 2013. unfortunately, they ended up selling this batch of cryptocurrencies at an average price of $334 per coin, meaning they lost billions in terms of people who make the bitcoin rich list cameron and tyler winklevoss feature prominently. They became billionaires after settling a lawsuit with Mark Zuckerberg and spending $11 million of the cash they received in BTC, buying 1.5 million coins at $120 each. since then, the price of bitcoin has increased by 18,569.3%. Although they are unlikely to own all of this BTC in today’s market, they are certainly sitting on a gold mine.
bitcoin price
As for what happens next, with bitcoin falling to $22,403 as of June 14, 2022, jpmorgan’s concern is that institutional interest might not be strong enough to drive the cryptocurrency higher. Some analysts believe that we will soon see a reduction in supply in the bitcoin markets, given that only 900 new btc are mined daily. with grayscale investments buying the cryptocurrency faster than it can be mined, sustained demand could open the door to $100,000 and beyond.
but how long the current crypto winter lasts remains to be seen. hold on to your seats.
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