Author: Thejaswini M A
Compiled by: Block unicorn
Preface
If different wallets are merged into one entity, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, is the largest holder, with 1,096,000 Bitcoins (approximately 77 billion USD). Arkham's label derives from a known mining pattern referred to as the 'Patoshi Model' and includes Satoshi's only (known) address that spent Bitcoin. Research indicates that he obtained this Bitcoin as a reward for mining 22,000 blocks.
In terms of individual addresses, the wallet with the most Bitcoin is the cold wallet of Binance, holding nearly 250,000 Bitcoins. You can also check the entities that hold the most Bitcoin. An entity refers to a collection of cryptocurrency addresses confirmed to be controlled by the same person or institution (such as an exchange, DeFi protocol, or company).
Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that operates on a blockchain (a peer-to-peer network). Because of these characteristics, no one truly owns the entire bitcoin network, but individuals can access and own bitcoin through their private keys.
The price of bitcoin surged significantly, reaching approximately $126,000 in October 2025, with a market cap peak of $2.48 trillion, creating multiple bitcoin billionaires and other wealthy holders. In this article, we will examine some individuals, companies, and wallets that have become crypto whales based on on-chain data and their own public statements, and investigate the amounts of bitcoin they hold.
Summary
Satoshi Nakamoto is the largest holder of bitcoin, possessing approximately 1.1 million bitcoins, valued at around $77 billion at current prices.
Coinbase is the second largest entity, holding 982,000 bitcoins. BlackRock holds 775,000, Binance holds 655,000, Fidelity Custody holds 460,000, and Strategy holds 443,000 (although Strategy controls 738,000 bitcoins, part of these bitcoins are on-chain attributed to Fidelity Custody due to its integrated custody approach).
The U.S. government holds 328,000 bitcoins. These bitcoins come from asset seizures against criminal organizations.
There are also multiple unidentified bitcoin billionaires. There are numerous wallets, most of which have remained inactive since the initial influx of bitcoins.
The largest bitcoin wallets
We group wallets associated with individuals or organizations into 'entities.' Entities are useful because large holders rarely keep all their assets in one wallet for security and operational reasons. By grouping all associated wallets into one entity, we can better and more comprehensively display that entity's total holdings and influence in the cryptocurrency market.
However, individual wallets can also be viewed without categorizing them into their respective entities. The following table lists the largest individual wallets.
The fifth largest wallet is controlled by the U.S. government, seized from the Bitfinex hacking incident. The sixth largest wallet is controlled by Tether for managing its bitcoin reserves.
Top holders in various categories
Here are the top bitcoin holders from various major entity categories (individuals, exchanges, ETF issuers, government agencies, publicly traded companies, and private companies).
The total holdings of Strategy are listed in parentheses next to their confirmed on-chain holdings.
Exchanges
Coinbase is the largest bitcoin exchange holder, with both its own and customer bitcoins held at Coinbase. Coinbase also invests part of its net revenue in crypto assets and holds a certain amount of bitcoin for operations, such as to meet customer withdrawal demands at any time.
Binance, Robinhood, and Upbit are also large exchange holders of bitcoin. The cold wallets controlled by exchanges hold customer deposits and usually do not represent ownership of the exchanges.
At the time of writing, Coinbase holds 5% of the total bitcoin supply, while Binance holds 3.3%.
ETF issuers
Since the U.S. launched the bitcoin spot ETF in January 2024, Arkham has been the first institution to identify all ETF holding locations on-chain.
These include the following companies:
BlackRock
Fidelity
Grayscale
Bitwise
ARK Invest
Grayscale is an asset management company that provides a range of products to the public market. The company is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group. All digital assets of Grayscale's financial products are also held on the Coinbase platform. Although Grayscale publicly discloses its bitcoin balance, they refuse to reveal the trust's on-chain addresses—we successfully found these addresses on-chain, distributed across more than 1,750 different addresses, with no address holding more than 1,000 bitcoins.
Governments
Many of the world's largest countries have confirmed holdings of bitcoin or have previously held bitcoin.
According to our data, the following are the five governments verified to hold the most bitcoins. There may be more governments holding bitcoins, but their holdings have not yet been verified.
Asset seizure
The United States ranks first in wallet size with 328,000 bitcoins. These bitcoins were recovered by the FBI from the Bitfinex hack and seized from the Silk Road market and its hacker James Zhong. Recently, the U.S. government also obtained 127,000 bitcoins from the address of the LuBian Hacker.
The UK holds 61,245 bitcoins. The London Metropolitan Police seized 61,000 bitcoins from Jian Wen and Zhimin Qian in 2018 and gained access to these seized bitcoins in July 2021.
In November 2020, Chinese authorities seized 194,775 bitcoins from the operators of the PlusToken Ponzi scheme. These tokens were confiscated for local government ownership, but it is currently unclear whether China still holds these bitcoins or has sold them.
Since the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Ukraine has received bitcoin donations worth $22.8 million. According to data released by the Ukrainian government in April 2021, over 700,000 Ukrainian public officials have declared holdings of bitcoin, with some holding as much as 18,000 bitcoins. It is reported that Ukrainian public officials collectively hold 46,351 bitcoins. Although the bitcoins held by public officials are not strictly government assets, the large-scale public holding of bitcoin by civil servants is still significant and unusual.
In January 2024, the German government seized 50,000 bitcoins from a movie piracy website called Movie2k. However, these bitcoins were sold off in their entirety by July 2024.
Sovereign nations adopt
Unlike most countries that hold bitcoins seized through criminal arrests, El Salvador boldly recognizes bitcoin as legal tender. El Salvador previously spent $108 million to purchase 2,546 bitcoins, a move widely known. Additionally, in November 2022, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele announced that the country would also purchase one bitcoin daily.
Bhutan has been mining bitcoin since 2019. In May 2023, Bhutan's sovereign wealth fund Druk Holding and Investments announced a $500 million partnership with Bitdeer to expand its bitcoin mining operations. Given Bhutan's geographic advantages, the country has built numerous hydropower stations along its glacial rivers. Today, Bhutan will utilize its cheap and abundant hydropower resources for bitcoin mining and invest the proceeds in national development.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is actively positioning itself as a global cryptocurrency hub. Recently, we discovered large-scale mining activities in the UAE. The UAE holds 6,800 bitcoins. These bitcoins come from Citadel's mining operations. Citadel is a publicly traded mining company controlled by the UAE Royal Group through IHC (International Holding Company).
Publicly traded companies
As the value of bitcoin as a digital asset becomes increasingly recognized and accepted, publicly traded companies are incorporating bitcoin into their investment strategies or diversifying their corporate reserves.
Strategy, led by Michael Saylor, holds more bitcoins than any other publicly traded company. The company has been accumulating bitcoins since August 2020, making purchases of varying sizes every few weeks. Its total holdings amount to 739,000 bitcoins.
MARA is a bitcoin mining company listed in North America and is another company holding a large amount of bitcoin. The company operates nine mines, with an average daily production of 22.7 bitcoins in September 2025. According to our data, MARA's on-chain wallet holds 13,000 bitcoins (valued at $864 million). However, it is reported that the company also holds a treasury reserve of 53,200 bitcoins.
Metaplanet, listed in Tokyo, is hailed as 'Japan's MicroStrategy.' The company is acquiring bitcoin as its primary reserve asset and claims it is a key hedge against the long-term depreciation of the yen and broader economic uncertainties. Metaplanet currently holds 35,100 bitcoins (approximately $2.4 billion).
Private companies
Based on verified on-chain data, the two private companies holding the most bitcoins are Tether (96,300 bitcoins) and SpaceX (8,300 bitcoins).
SpaceX first acquired bitcoins in 2021, once holding 28,000. However, its holdings have significantly decreased since then. As of August this year, the bitcoins held by SpaceX are valued at $1 billion.
According to the Bitcoin Treasuries website, Block.one is currently the private company holding the most bitcoins, with 164,000. Block.one is a private tech and investment company known for developing the open-source blockchain software EOSIO. Its massive holdings cannot be verified on-chain.
Unassigned wallets
To further explore these unassigned wallets, you can copy the addresses and paste them into a data platform for searching.
Conclusion
Bitcoin initially was a niche project for cryptography enthusiasts, but it has now evolved into a financial asset of global significance, held by numerous companies, individuals, and governmental institutions. The immense appeal of bitcoin to users stems from its decentralized nature. This characteristic ensures that the bitcoin network cannot be completely controlled by anyone, making it nearly impossible for even the most determined attackers to control the entire network due to the extremely high costs involved.
The maximum supply of 21 million bitcoins is a fundamental element of the project's design, ensuring its scarcity and preventing value inflation through excessive issuance. Considering that approximately 3.7 million bitcoins are permanently stranded in inaccessible wallets, the actual total supply of bitcoin is even lower.