While the Bitcoin blockchain is public, determining who owns the most Bitcoins in 2022 isn’t as simple as it should be. One of the key characteristics of the Bitcoin blockchain is its openness. Anyone may view all transactions that have ever been carried out on the Bitcoin network and verify each address’s balance. As a result of this transparency, we are able to determine who owns the most Bitcoin (BTC) in 2022.
It’s critical to examine who has the most BTC, because the cryptocurrency’s supply is limited to 21 million pieces. According to Chainalysis’ Kim Grauer, director of research, 3.7 million BTC have been lost since February, effectively deflating the currency’s circulating quantity.
The majority of the world’s bitcoin holders are just waiting for China, Russia, and other countries to legalize cryptocurrency. As Bitcoin’s popularity increases, demand is expected to skyrocket. Because 3.7 million bitcoins are believed to be lost and a large amount is being kept on-chain by early investors, there may be a supply shock in the future. Only if demand rises dramatically in the future would this happen.
The most Bitcoin holders will profit significantly from a drop in price. Furthermore, one entity having a large amount of cryptocurrency is seen as a hazard due to the potential for that entity to sell its war chest on the market and cause a significant loss.
Who has the most Bitcoins? The inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, is widely acknowledged to have the most Bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto is thought to possess around 1.1 million BTC that they have never touched throughout the years, fueling a variety of speculations regarding their identity and location.
The precise number of coins Nakamoto possessed has been the subject of a lot of study. After mining the genesis block to establish bitcoin, Nakamoto mined a large number of blocks with each block awarding 50 BTC as a prize.
Although many people believe Nakamoto vanished in 2010, he or she has been using various Bitcoin addresses for almost a decade. It’s unclear how many blocks they mined since other early adopters joined in late. Lower calculations suggest that Satoshi had around 750,000 BTC at his disposal.
While the precise investments of Nakamoto are unknown, those of publicly listed businesses, governments, funds, and other transparent institutions are clear.
Dozens of organizations have had Bitcoin on their balance sheets for varying lengths of time. The most well-known example is business analytics firm MicroStrategy, which amassed 129,218 BTC after investing in the cryptocurrency in August 2020.
The CEO, Michael Saylor, has repeatedly emphasized the firm’s Bitcoin strategy during this bear market, claiming MicroStrategy will “hold bitcoin through rough waters.” Tesla, a maker of electric vehicles, invested in Bitcoin in early 2021 for $1.5 billion, risking 43200 BTC.
Other firms that have Bitcoin on their balance sheet include Core Scientific, BTC Miner Marathon Digital Holdings, fintech giant Square, crypto exchange Coinbase, and crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital, according to Bitcoin Treasuries.
Perfumo said that Kraken also enables staff to “take as much of their salary in crypto as they want via a payroll system we call Sidemoon.” He added that the solution has been utilized by “a considerable number” of Kraken workers.
According to figures released by the World Gold Council, 268,271 BTC—or roughly 1.27% of Bitcoin’s total supply—are held by corporations. However, numerous private firms have also revealed that they own BTC throughout the years.
The company behind the EOSIO software, Block.one, has 140,000 BTC, the Tezos Foundation maintains 17,500 BTC, and Stone Ridge Holdings Group has 10,000 BTC. Next is MassMutual with 3,500 Bitcoins.
The most Bitcoin has been kept by a number of nations. Most have seized the flagship cryptocurrency, but these possessions are often quickly sold in auctions to private investors. El Salvador holds the most Bitcoins with 2,301 BTC in its treasury. In September 2021, El Salvador became the first nation to legalize bitcoin as legal currency. It has invested in bitcoin numerous times and is planning to build a Bitcoin City utilizing power from a volcano.
In April 2022, Finland announced that it was holding 1,981 BTC seized during criminal investigations and intended to sell the funds later in the year. No news has emerged claiming that the money was sold.
According to Opendatabot data, Ukrainian civil servants have 46,351 BTC in their possession as of April 5, 2021. These declarations came as property disclosure obligations were placed on public officials, implying that they belong to individuals rather than the government. Similarly, it is claimed that Georgian parliamentarians own 66 BTC collectively; however, the money belongs to private people rather than the government.
Cryptocurrency investment funds facilitate the accumulation of cryptocurrency exposure without having to deal with it. This means gaining access to a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin without having to deal with public or private keys in practice.
Investor inflows and withdrawals drive up the price of Bitcoin, which in turn attracts more investors. The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust holds 643,572 BTC, or over 3% of the circulating supply. Following close behind is CoinShares, which has 42,980 BTC stored in XBT Provider’s exchange-traded products.
The Purpose Bitcoin ETF was the world’s biggest exchange-traded fund by BTC holdings before this month’s crypto market sell-off. Between June 16 and 17, the fund’s holdings dropped from 47,818 BTC to 23,307 BTC, a staggering 51% decline. The Fund still has greater estimated assets than 3iQ’s CoinShares Bitcoin ETF, which estimates 12,115 BTC.
Because Bitcoin addresses are pseudonym, we can readily determine which addresses contain the most Bitcoins, but we can only figure out who’s behind each one through extensive blockchain analysis or if the person comes forward.
Tim Draper, a venture capital investor from Silicon Valley, is known to have bought at least 30,000 BTC in 2014 via an auction held by US authorities following the seizure of Silk Road’s funds.
According to one source, Barry Silbert of Digital Currency Group, Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX, Brian Armstrong of Coinbase, and Saylor are among the many people believed to have a large number of bitcoins. Their actual holdings — if they even own Bitcoin — are unknown.
As the number of Bitcoin users grows, the overall amount of Bitcoin available decreases, resulting in a supply shock. Perfumo from Kraken emphasized that one of the most fascinating aspects about crypto is that it gives users complete control over their digital currency’s security.
According to Abra’s Barhydt, investors in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) should have a time horizon of five to seven years or more.
The introduction of new money into the market would be a supply shock. According to Kent Barton, tokenomics lead at ShapeShift DAO, “downturns have historically been an excellent period to acquire Bitcoin at low prices,” despite the fact that there are no guarantees that prices will ever rise again.
“Take a certain amount of your risk off the table” during bull markets, Barton advised. “When prices are high, moving some BTC to fiat means that you’ll be in a better position to weather the next bear market and have dry powder to buy Bitcoin at low rates on a very long-term perspective,” he continued. Bitcoin has provided diversification against the dollar’s collapse over time, according to Barton.
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