Who will own the most Bitcoin in 2026

Article Author: Thejaswini M A

Article Compiled by: Block unicorn

Introduction

If different wallets are merged into one entity, Bitcoin's anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto is the largest holder, owning 1.096 million Bitcoins (approximately $77 billion). Arkham's label comes from a known mining pattern called the "Patoshi pattern" and includes Satoshi Nakamoto's unique (known) address for spending Bitcoin. Research indicates that he acquired 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 view the entities that hold the most Bitcoin. An entity refers to a collection of crypto addresses confirmed to be controlled by the same person or institution (such as exchanges, DeFi protocols, or companies).

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that operates on a blockchain (a peer-to-peer network). Due to 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 has 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 amount of Bitcoin they hold.

Summary

• Satoshi Nakamoto is the largest holder of Bitcoin, owning about 1.1 million Bitcoins, valued at approximately $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, some of these are attributed on-chain to Fidelity Custody due to its comprehensive custody approach).

• The U.S. government holds 328,000 Bitcoins. These Bitcoins come from asset seizures from criminal organizations.

• There are also several unidentified Bitcoin billionaires. There are numerous wallets, most of which have been inactive since Bitcoin first flowed in.

Largest Bitcoin Wallets

We group wallets associated with individuals or organizations into "entities." Entities are useful because, for security and operational reasons, large holders rarely keep all their assets in one wallet. By grouping all associated wallets into one entity, we can more accurately and completely present the total holdings and influence of that entity in the cryptocurrency market.

However, individual wallets can also be viewed without classifying them into the corresponding entities. The table below lists the largest individual wallets. The top four are cold wallets controlled by the world's largest exchanges.

The fifth-largest wallet is controlled by the U.S. government, seized from the Bitfinex hack. The sixth-largest wallet is controlled by Tether, used to manage its Bitcoin reserves.

Top Holders in Each Category

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 its confirmed on-chain holdings.

Exchanges

Coinbase holds the largest amount of Bitcoin among exchanges, with both its own and its customers' Bitcoins held at Coinbase. Coinbase also invests a portion of its net income into 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 holders of Bitcoin among exchanges. Cold wallets controlled by exchanges hold customer deposits and typically do not represent ownership by the exchange.

As of the writing of this article, Coinbase holds 5% of the total Bitcoin supply, while Binance holds 3.3%.

ETF Issuers

Since the U.S. launched Bitcoin spot ETFs 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 offers a range of products to the public market. The company is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group. All digital assets of Grayscale financial products are also held on the Coinbase platform. While Grayscale publicly discloses its Bitcoin balance, they refuse to disclose the trust's on-chain addresses— we successfully found these addresses on-chain, distributed across more than 1,750 different addresses, each holding no more than 1,000 Bitcoins.

Governments

Many of the largest countries in the world have confirmed holding Bitcoin or have held Bitcoin in the past.

From our data, here are the five governments that have been verified on-chain to hold the most Bitcoin. There may be more governments holding Bitcoin, but their holdings have not yet been verified.

Asset Seizures

The United States ranks first with a wallet size of 328,000 Bitcoins. This batch of Bitcoins was 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 United Kingdom 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 also received $22.8 million worth of Bitcoin donations. According to data released by the Ukrainian government in April 2021, over 700,000 Ukrainian public officials declared holding 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 all sold by July 2024.

Sovereign Adoption

Unlike most countries that hold Bitcoin through criminal asset seizures, El Salvador boldly recognizes Bitcoin as legal tender. El Salvador famously spent $108 million to purchase 2,546 Bitcoins. Additionally, in November 2022, President Nayib Bukele announced that the country would also purchase one Bitcoin daily.

Bhutan began mining Bitcoin in 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 geographical 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, which 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 Bitcoin than any other publicly traded company. The company has been accumulating Bitcoin 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 that holds a large amount of Bitcoin. The company operates nine mining sites, with an average daily output of 22.7 Bitcoins as of September 2025. According to our data, MARA's on-chain wallet holds 13,000 Bitcoins (worth $864 million). However, it has been reported that the company also holds a treasury reserve of 53,200 Bitcoins.

Metaplanet, listed in Tokyo, is dubbed "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

According to verified on-chain data, the two private companies holding the most Bitcoin are Tether (96,300 Bitcoins) and SpaceX (8,300 Bitcoins).

SpaceX first purchased Bitcoin in 2021, at one point holding 28,000 Bitcoins. However, its holdings have since decreased significantly. As of August this year, the Bitcoin held by SpaceX is valued at $1 billion.

According to the Bitcoin Treasuries website, Block.one is currently the private company holding the most Bitcoin, with 164,000 Bitcoins. 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.

Unattributed Wallets

To further explore these unattributed wallets, you can copy the addresses and paste them into a data platform for search.

Conclusion

Bitcoin initially started as a niche project for cryptography enthusiasts but has now evolved into a financial asset of global significance, held by numerous companies, individuals, and government agencies. The immense appeal of Bitcoin to users stems from its decentralized nature. This characteristic ensures that the Bitcoin network is not fully 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 aspect 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.