Author: Thejaswini M A; Compiler: Block unicorn

Foreword

If different wallets are combined into a single entity, Bitcoin's anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto is the largest holder, holding 1.096 million Bitcoins (approximately $77 billion). Arkham's label is derived from a known mining mode known as "Patosi Mode" and contains the unique (known) address where Satoshi Nakamoto spent his Bitcoins. Research shows that he received this bitcoin as a reward for mining 22,000 blocks.

The wallet holding the largest number of Bitcoins in terms of a single address is the cold wallet of the Binance exchange, which holds nearly 250,000 Bitcoins. BinanceHolds 655,000, From Confiscated in Bitfinex hacking incidentThe top institutions, public and private companies)LargeExchange holders. Exchange-controlled cold wallets host customer deposits and generally do not represent ownership of the exchange.

At the time of writing, Coinbase holds 3.3%.

ETF Issuer

Arkham is the first to identify all ETFs on-chain since the launch of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the United States in January 2024Institutions holding positionsposition.

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 markets. The company is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group. All digital assets for Grayscale financial products are also hosted on the Coinbase platform. While Grayscale publicly discloses its Bitcoin balance, they refuse to reveal the trust’s on-chain addresses – we managed to find them on-chain, spread across over 1,750 different addresses, each holding no more than 1,000 Bitcoins.

Governments

Many of the world's largest countries have confirmed holdings of Bitcoin, or have held Bitcoin in the past.

Data from us shows that here are the five governments with the largest Bitcoin holdings that have been verified on-chain. There may be more governments holding Bitcoin, but their holdings have not been verified.

Asset seizure

The United States tops the list with a wallet size of 328,000 Bitcoins. The 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 obtained an additional 127,000 Bitcoins from the address of LuBian Hacker.

The UK holds 61,245 Bitcoins. The Metropolitan Police in the UK seized 61,000 Bitcoins from Jian Wen and Zhimin Qian in 2018 and gained access to the seized Bitcoins in July 2021.

In November 2020, Chinese authorities seized 194,775 Bitcoins from the operators of the PlusToken Ponzi scheme. The tokens were confiscated and returned to local governments, but it is unclear whether China still holds the bitcoins or whether they have been sold.

Ukraine has also received $22.8 million worth of Bitcoin donations since the Russia-Ukraine conflict. According to data released by the Ukrainian government in April 2021, more than 700,000 Ukrainian public officials declared holdings of Bitcoin, with some holding as much as 18,000 Bitcoins. A total of 46,351 Bitcoins are said to be held by Ukrainian public officials. Although Bitcoin held by public officials is not strictly a government asset, the large-scale public holding of Bitcoin by public officials 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 in July 2024.

Sovereign countries adopt

Unlike most countries that confiscate and hold Bitcoin through criminal arrest, El Salvador boldly treats Bitcoin as legal tender. El Salvador famously spent $108 million to purchase 2,546 Bitcoins. Additionally, in November 2022, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced that the country would also purchase 1 Bitcoin per day.

Bhutan has been mining Bitcoin since 2019. In May 2023, Bhutan’s sovereign wealth fund Drucker Holdings Investment Company announced a $500 million cooperation agreement with Bitdeer to expand its Bitcoin mining operations. Due to Bhutan's geographical advantage, the country has built numerous hydropower stations along its glacial rivers. Now, Bhutan will use its cheap and abundant water resources to mine Bitcoin and invest the proceeds in national development.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is actively establishing itself as a global cryptocurrency hub. Recently, we have discovered significant mining activity in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE holds 6,800 Bitcoins. The bitcoins come from Citadel’s mining operations. Citadel is a listed mining company controlled by the Emirates Royal Group through IHC (International Holdings Company).

Listed companies

As the value of Bitcoin as a digital asset is increasingly recognized and accepted, listed companies have included Bitcoin in their investment strategies or companyreserve diversification.

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), 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 are 739,000 Bitcoins.

MARA is a publicly traded Bitcoin mining company in North America and another company with a large holding of Bitcoin. The company operates nine mining farms with an average daily production of 22.7 Bitcoins in September 2025. According to our data, MARA’s on-chain wallet holds 13,000 Bitcoin (worth $864 million). However, the company also reportedly holds a treasury reserve of 53,200 Bitcoins.

Metaplanet, a company listed in Tokyo, is known as "Japan's MicroStrategy." The company is acquiring Bitcoin as its main reserve asset, saying it is a key hedge against a prolonged depreciation of the yen and broader economic uncertainty. Metaplanet currently holds 35,100 Bitcoins (approximately $2.4 billion).

Private Company

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

SpaceX purchased Bitcoin for the first time in 2021 and once held 28,000 coins. But since then, its holdings have dropped significantly. In August, SpaceX’s Bitcoin holdings were worth $1 billion.

The Root Bitcoin Treasures website shows that Block.one is currently the private company with the largest number of Bitcoins, holding 164,000. Block.one is a private technology company and investment firm best known for developing open source blockchain software EOSIO. Its huge holdings cannot be verified on the chain.

Unowned wallet

To further explore these unattributed wallets, you can copy the address yourself and paste it into the data platform to search.

Conclusion

Bitcoin started as a niche project for cryptography enthusiasts and has grown into a financial asset of global importance, with numerous companies, individuals and government institutions holding Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s huge appeal to users stems from its decentralized nature. This feature ensures that the Bitcoin network is not completely controlled by anyone. It is almost impossible for even the most determined attacker to control the entire network because the cost is extremely high.

Bitcoin's maximum supply of 21 million coins is a fundamental element of the project's design, ensuring that it remains scarce and does not drive up its value through additional issuance. The actual total supply of Bitcoin is even lower, considering that approximately 3.7 million Bitcoins are permanently stuck in inaccessible wallets.

That's it for today, see you in the next article.