The Bitcoin Rich List: Who Owns The Most Bitcoin?

Ask any non-crypto head to name one coin off the top, and Bitcoin will almost always be the first they'll mention. From the genesis block in January 2009, Bitcoin (BTC) is now about 19.3 million coins strong. We still have roughly 1.7 million left before creation stops.

While BTC is among the most polarising digital currencies, it's hard to deny its influence. So, it's only natural to wonder who owns the most BTC. Is it some popular billionaire or a random unknown person? Well, the answer lies somewhere in between.

The challenges of determining Bitcoin ownership

As with many of Bitcoin's competitors, we cannot accurately confirm which person or organisation has the most Bitcoin worldwide. The difficulty lies in the mysterious nature of digital currency transactions.

We deal with long and random alphanumeric characters when we send and receive money. Here's an example below highlighting that there is no identifying clue about who this address below may belong to.

But, most crypto addresses are not entirely anonymous. While they don't reveal a person or company's identity, users can begin to observe patterns with transactions in Bitcoin's block explorer.

Couple this with some 'insider' knowledge, and it is possible (albeit quite challenging) to make a reasonable assumption.

Yet, based on my research in looking at who owns the most Bitcoin, no Bitcoin address could be linked to the people we expect on the list. This includes the Winklevoss twins, Changpeng 'CZ' Zhao and, of course, Satoshi Nakamoto, among many others.

These individuals have been successful at being truly anonymous. One way they may have achieved this is by transacting from several wallets rather than one, making it difficult to pinpoint their identity.

For instance, it is reported that Nakamoto has their Bitcoin wealth spread across about 22 000 addresses. Another technique is using what's called a cryptocurrency mixer or tumbler. This is a service that, as the name suggests, takes your crypto transactions and mixes them with others.

The result is that it becomes even harder to connect to the original sender or destination. The point is tracing crypto transactions is incredibly difficult. Thus, the information about most companies or people owning Bitcoin is estimated as no verifiable connections exist.

Interesting stats on Bitcoin ownership

• The USA has the most Bitcoin users (at least 46 million), followed by India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Vietnam.
• 65% of crypto users globally (about 420 million) own some part of BTC, which is around 5.25% of the global population
• 63% of BTC owners are male (37% are female)
• Bitcoin's ownership has become more evenly distributed over the years. BTC whales own around 11% of the entire supply, much lower than other prominent coins like Ethereum and Polygon.
• According to BitInfoCharts, 71791 addresses (at the time of writing) have at least $1 million in Bitcoin value.

So, who owns the most Bitcoin?

That's what we came here for, right? But, as mentioned before, there is no verifiable proof of ownership for the 'usual suspects' like the Winklevoss twins and CZ. So, the values for individuals are speculative.

Yet, we have a definitive answer when looking at institutions with the most Bitcoin. The table below is from River Financial, a Bitcoin buying and mining service that has conducted the most accurate research.

This table shows seven addresses with Bitcoin worth over $1 billion. Unfortunately, no personal profile has been linked to any of these. The Winklevoss twins are the only recognised individuals with about 70 000 BTC in value, the highest for this group.

But, again, this is only hearsay. We will get to Nakamoto later. But, for now, the other people commonly cited to have the most Bitcoin (who are also reported as crypto billionaires by publications like Forbes) are:

• Changpeng Zhao (CEO of Binance)

• Michael Saylor (CEO of MicroStrategy)

• Chris Larsen (co-founder of Ripple)

• Jed McCaleb (founder of the defunct Mt. Gox; co-founder of Stellar and Ripple)

• Brian Armstrong (co-founder and CEO of Coinbase)

Now let's look at companies in this Bitcoin rich list. It comes as no surprise that exchanges hold a substantial amount of BTC, which they need for liquidity purposes in serving their clients. The table below from BitInfoCharts shows the top 10 addresses with the most BTC.

Four of these addresses are linked to Binance, including the #1 spot, which has 248597 BTC (worth about $6.9 billion at the time of writing). This explains CZ's wealth being the CEO of this exchange.

Users have confirmed the address in the #4 position with 119347 BTC belongs to MicroStrategy. Similarly, this discovery explains Michael Saylor's holdings in the coin.

Interestingly, the address at the sixth spot is rumoured to be the wallet of the former Mt. Gox exchange. For context, Mt. Gox was the leading platform for trading Bitcoin between 2010 and 2014 until the infamous hack. This resulted in the loss of several hundred of thousand in BTC for its clients.

However, it appeared there was a wallet linked to an individual or people associated with the exchange. Several users discovered years later that the account had been dormant before transactions mysteriously occurred.

Again, all this is speculation in trying to uncover the profile behind the wallet.

How much does Satoshi Nakamoto own?

This question continues to be the subject of much debate and theory. It's much more difficult to answer, given the creator's long-held mystery. Still, it hasn't stopped users from putting their best ideas forward over the years.

The most commonly reported story is that Satoshi received about 1.1 million BTC between 01 January 2009 and 25 January 2010. Sergio Demian Lerner, a crypto security researcher, created a report called 'The Well Deserved Fortune of Satoshi Nakamoto.'

In it, he identified what he coined the 'Patoshi Pattern' in Bitcoin's block explorer from block 1 to block 36288. He expanded further on his findings in April 2019 with the 'The Return of the Deniers and the Revenge of Patoshi' piece.

Needless to say, it is unclear who the entity is responsible for the initial activity. Yet, since it was during the early days of Bitcoin, it is likely to be Nakamoto. Regardless, this would put the value of their Bitcoin at approximately $30.6 billion if accounting for the current price of $27867.

Conclusion

The main takeaway is how nearly all Bitcoin or crypto whales will go to great lengths to conceal their identity. Of course, that's just protocol in the world of digital currencies. However, it does make you wonder about the potential ulterior motives considering there are so many addresses with more than $1 million each in BTC.

In many countries, this figure puts anyone in the top 1% of earners. The reasons for owning Bitcoin vary widely. Some speculate or invest; others do it out of inflationary fear. And then there's the unspoken group using Bitcoin to launder money.

So, it is interesting that we can never be sure of each investor's true intentions.