Bitcoin and its underlying tech are some of the most popular financial innovations of the 21st century. The crypto has been touted as having the potential to be a “world currency.” Interestingly, some schools of thought believe it will be the only acceptable currency worldwide in the future.
This article covers in-depth details about Bitcoin and who its major “hodlers” are. It also includes details like the crypto’s highs and lows and its current price journey.
Before we move on, let’s find out what the “King Crypto” really is.
What Is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin, simply put, is a digital asset built on blockchain technology. Launched in 2009, its remarkable price increase has, over time, attracted investors from all walks of life. While there are a lot of other cryptocurrencies, BTC remains the number one, as well as the most widely used, crypto today. Bitcoin was created by the still anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto and started out trading at $0.003. The crypto has had to surmount a lot of challenges to get to where it is today.
The crypto’s finite supply of 21 million and the sudden increase in institutional investors begs the question- how much Bitcoin is left? Also, who are the current top BTC holders, and how much Bitcoin do they have?
People
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss were among the first people to spot Bitcoin’s potential. After receiving compensation from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the twins invested heavily in the crypto. As of 2015, they reportedly held approximately 1% of the total BTC in circulation. That is, between 100,070 to 200,000 BTC at that time. This amount is expected to have increased over time.
Chamath is a popular Bitcoin investor who might currently own at least 1 million BTC.
Popular billionaire, CEO of Galaxy Digital, and Bitcoin enthusiast Mike Novogratz is next on the list. With a net worth of about $1.5 billion, he remains a staunch supporter of Bitcoin. Novogratz, in a recent statement, disclosed that everyone should own at least 2-3% of their net worth in Bitcoin. He added that current Bitcoin prices are a sure indicator of the crypto’s impending bull run.
According to him, “Bitcoin prices is better than it’s ever been.” Also, he said that BTC is now a “macro-asset” that is sure to benefit its investors.
Novogratz first invested in BTC in 2015 when he launched a $500 million crypto fund. The crypto fund contained about $150 million of Novogratz’s personal funds.
In total, the billionaire currently holds nothing less than 500,000 BTC.
Roger Keith Ver was one of the earliest investors in Bitcoin. According to Forbes, he was worth about $430 million in 2018. Ver is at one point is known to have owned about 100,000 BTC.
CEO of Real Vision and former Goldman Sachs Manager Raoul Pal is also a well-known Bitcoin enthusiast. According to reports, he bought his first BTC as far back as 2012 and has been steadily buying BTC since then.
He recently referred to Bitcoin as a “supermassive black hole.” He said that the crypto was slowly but surely taking liquidity out of other forms of investments like gold, bonds, banks, the NASDAQ, etc.
According to Pal, the “King Crypto” could be worth $1 million within the next five years. Notably, because of the surprising increase in institutional investors.
Pal, with an estimated net worth of $15 million, recently disclosed that 98% of his assets were in BTC. This means that he may currently hold approximately 700 BTC.
Ok, last bomb – I have a sell order in tomorrow to sell all my gold and to scale in to buy BTC and ETH (80/20). I dont own anything else (except some bond calls and some $’s). 98% of my liquid net worth. See, you can’t categorize me except #irresponsiblylong Good night all.
— Raoul Pal (@RaoulGMI) November 30, 2020
Tim Draper is the tech billionaire who purchased about 30,000 BTC from the U.S. government. He purchased them at $632 apiece. The bitcoins were seized from the illegal darknet website Silk Road. He also purchased about 2,000 BTC in 2017, bringing his total Bitcoin holdings to 32,000 BTC.
Apart from his BTC stash, Draper owns a myriad of altcoins, including Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ripple (XRP), Tezos (XTZ), etc.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is a staunch advocate of Bitcoin. The Twitter CEO has revealed that he is still maxing out Cash App limits of $10,000 every week to buy BTC.
Other BTC investors
There are other top Bitcoin investors available today, we, however, do not have a sneak peek into how much Bitcoin they own.
They include:
- Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance
- Dan Morehead, founder of Panthera Capital
- Blythe Masters, former managing director at JP Morgan Chase & Co.
- Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase
Companies and Organizations
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Barry Silbert of Digital Currency Group
Barry Silbert is the CEO of the Digital Currency Group. The company serves as a support system for the current global financial system. It supports both Bitcoin and its underlying blockchain technology. Since its inception, the firm has assisted at least 100 Bitcoin-based companies.
Both trading firm Genesis and crypto investing firm Grayscale are off-shoots of the Digital Currency Group.
Grayscale is allegedly the world’s largest crypto hedge fund. The firm currently owns over half a million BTC in its Bitcoin Trust. This is with approximately $8.35 billion.
The firm furthermore confirmed this on Twitter. The cryptocurrency hedge fund, Grayscale Investments, now holds more than 500,000 bitcoins in its Bitcoin Trust.
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust now holds more than 500,000 $BTC. Yes, you read that right. Learn more about the world’s largest #Bitcoin investment product. #GoGrayscale https://t.co/2sEpUdw8iN pic.twitter.com/9h8nGZ8i4t
— Grayscale (@Grayscale) November 16, 2020
Just last week, the Guggenheim Fund revealed plans to invest $500 million in Grayscale. These funds will be able to purchase about 27,000 bitcoins.
Square is a digital payment company founded by Bitcoin enthusiast and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. The company recently bought 4,709 bitcoins for $50 million. This is estimated to be about 1% of the payment platform’s total treasury.
More important than Square investing $50mm in #Bitcoin is sharing how we did it (so others can do the same): https://t.co/35ABYHuz4f
— jack (@jack) October 8, 2020
MicroStrategy, in an unexpected turn of events, transferred $425 million of its assets to Bitcoin (BTC). CEO Micheal Saylor, despite previous disdain for the crypto space, heralded this move. The purchases were made when Bitcoin was priced at about $9,954. Alongside previous purchases, this brings the company’s total BTC holdings to 380,250 BTC. MicroStrategy’s recent purchases have been linked to the current increase in BTC price.
Other Investment Platforms
Top investment platforms like Fidelity, Nasdaq, Bakkt, and the New York Stock Exchange have all shown interest in Bitcoin. To offer any form of BTC-related services, such exchanges must first have enough BTC liquidity. Although they are yet to publish any amount of BTC holdings, it is only logical to believe that they are actively buying Bitcoin.
Cypherpunk holdings, a BTC investment firm in Canada, also has 276,474 BTC.
Interestingly, German banks last year were given the go-ahead to buy, sell, hold, and trade BTC. About two months ago, the U.S. Office of the Currency Comptroller (OCC) offered the same service to banks in the United States.
Crypto Exchanges’ BTC Holdings
Exchanges need to hold Bitcoin as proof of their liquidity and the ability to carry out crypto-based functions.
Some of the top bitcoin holding exchanges include: [Source]
- Binance with 87,489 BTC and 13,388 BTC in cold storage.
- Huobi has 141,452 BTC.
- Bitfinex holds 57,001 BTC.
- Bittrex holds 52,002 BTC.
- CoinCheck with 33,516 BTC.
- BitMex cold wallet holds 14,944 BTC.
- Coinbase holds 55,578 BTC.
- Celsius Network holds 46,949 BTC.
- Kraken has 22,219 BTC.
In Conclusion
Bitcoin is created through mining. Miners can only create 900 BTC in a day. PayPal and Cash App recently disclosed that they have been buying every single freshly mined BTC on a daily basis. The last Bitcoin is expected to be mined in the year 2140. However, according to The Modern Investor, apart from the approximately 4 – 6 million bitcoins lost forever, THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO BITCOIN LEFT!
He also disclosed that there’s a high chance of institutional buyers completely boycotting exchanges and buying the crypto directly from mining companies. In the event of this happening, individual BTC buying will be almost impossible.
With the above calculations, we can almost accurately account for 13 – 15 million BTC. This is a wake-up call. It is better to get on the BTC train today or miss out.
Top financial analysts JP Morgan Chase and Citibank have also predicted BTC price to reach as high as $100,000 to $300,000 in a few years.
BTC price
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $19,099.58, with a market cap of $354,551,390,112 and a 24-hour trading volume $28,936,511,427.
Find out more details about Bitcoin and its forecasted bull run on the Altcoin Buzz YouTube channel.