World’s largest Bitcoin holders’ list includes unexpected guest

These are the world’s largest Bitcoin holders, and the list includes some surprising names.

One in particular might not sit right.

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We should point out that a Bitcoin address isn’t like a bank account, so that means it does not necessarily have a name attached to it.

But some Bitcoin addresses are labelled, and this is how we know who the holder is.

Financial players

BREAKING: MicroStrategy buys additional 12,333 #Bitcoin for $347 million pic.twitter.com/upMCtlloVq

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 28, 2023

Eight of the world’s largest Bitcoin holders are financial firms.

Most of them are crypto exchanges like OKX (118,334 BTC), Bitfinex (192,508 BTC) and Binance (498,147 BTC).

But the list also features financial entities that offer both crypto services and traditional tools like stocks and funds.

Among others, we’ve got Robinhood (118,300 BTC), MicroStrategy (152,800 BTC) and Grayscale (643,572 BTC).

Now onto some more interesting names.

Satoshi Nakamoto

Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous founder of Bitcoin, is unsurprisingly also the world’s largest holder.

The true identity of Nakamoto is a mystery but what we do know is the person behind this pseudonym owns 1.1 million BTC scattered across different wallets.

Bitcoin’s max supply is capped at 21 million, so that means that Nakamoto controls roughly 0.2 percent of the entire stockpile.

It’s worth noting that Nakamoto created Bitcoin in 2009 and disappeared right after.

His Bitcoins have not moved in 14 years.

An unexpected guest: the US Government

US Government is the 5th largest #Bitcoin Holder https://t.co/LXcowQncO3

— Web3 Buzz (@web3buzztweets) September 12, 2023

It sounds crazy but the US Government is the fifth-largest Bitcoin holder in the world with at least 175,000 BTC to its name.

Most of these Bitcoins were acquired after the FBI shut down the black marketplace Silk Road in 2013.

Silk Road mostly relied on Bitcoin, so when the FBI arrested the founder, they also seized a large quantity of BTC.

The US Government has sold some of its Bitcoins since, but it regularly replenishes its stack.

This is because even though the US Government does not actively buy crypto, it has the right to seize ill-gotten gains whenever there’s a crypto-related crime on US soil.