Who personally owns the most Bitcoin?
According to Bit Info Charts, there are only 98 Bitcoin wallets in the world that hold 10,000 BTC or higher, and only about 5 of those contain 100,000 BTC or more.
Because of its public ledger system, every transaction made with BTC can be seen and tracked. Even though all Bitcoin wallets have some level of anonymity to them, it’s easier to track than you may think.
That being said, so much about Bitcoin owners is unclear, including the names of the owners of some of these Bitcoin wallets.
While several “Bitcoin whales” are very vocal about their holdings and their continued business in crypto, there isn’t a 100% clear cut way to verify who actually owns which wallet.
Our list includes public individuals who own the most BTC directly, as well as through companies they own. This information is gathered to the best of our abilities through public info.
10. Jack Dorsey: “Enough” BTC
- Has never publicly announced the size of his Bitcoin position, but has been very vocal about his spending on BTC and his assessment of the digital asset.
- Owns “Enough” BTC (based on a Tweet), much purchased through Cash App with a $10k daily limit.
- Assuming he continued this pattern, Dorsey continues to buy at least a couple BTC each month just on Cash App.
- The billionaire has likely continued purchasing much more BTC than his Cash App limit.
- Dorsey believes BTC has the power to bring world peace and replace the USD as the world reserve currency.
- Recently launched The Bitcoin Academy with Jay-Z, teaching families in Brooklyn, NY about personal finance, bitcoin, and investing principles.
- The Bitcoin Academy gave $1,000 in BTC to each student who attended the full course.
- Dorsey left the management board of Twitter, which he co-founded in 2006, to focus on BTC.
9. Gavin Andresen: 10,000+ BTC
- Though he’s listed here with a “humble” 10,000 BTC, Gavin Andresen bought those ten thousand coins in 2009 for $50.
- Since then, Gavin has been a key leader in developing Bitcoin after Satoshi Nakamoto’s virtual “death."
- In 2010, created his first BTC project, “The Bitcoin Faucet”, a site that awarded 5 BTC to every visitor until going offline in 2012.
- In 2011, Gavin addressed the CIA on Bitcoin during an emerging technologies conference, stating that BTC will “not ‘take over the world’ but ‘Bitcoin is a very interesting experiment that could be world-changing if it works out.’”
- Gavin has often been called Satoshi Nakamoto himself, though he denies this, claiming that he is friends with Nakamoto, and is considered Nakamoto’s successor by many.
- Has been paid by The Bitcoin Foundation (the official centralized BTC non-profit he helped found) large sums of BTC through the years for his continual development and oversight.
- In reality, Gavin Andresen likely owns MUCH more than just 10,000 BTC.
- It's impossible to know how many wallets he has.
8. Michael Saylor: 17,700+ BTC
- Software developer billionaire whose fortune crashed during the dot com bubble, but became a billionaire again after strategically investing in Bitcoin.
- Before becoming a software tycoon, he studied aeronautics and astronautics in at MIT.
- One of the first public individuals to bring attention to BTC among institutional investors.
- Believes BTC is a tool for humanity to overcome totalitarianism.
- Founded Microstrategy in 1989, which now holds 121,000+ BTC.
- Held the “Bitcoin for Corporations” conference, attended by many movers and shakers in the billionaire class, including Elon Musk.
- Over 1,400 firms attended the conference, seeing a massive turnout.
- Days after the conference, Tesla invested $1.5 million USD into Bitcoin.
- Square also purchased $50 million USD in BTC following the conference.
- Tweets praising BTC literally every day on his handle @saylor.
7. Tim Draper: 30,000+ BTC
- Known for decades as an early adopting investor and venture capitalist.
- Created “viral marketing”, a strategy for exponentially spreading electronic services by digital word of mouth between customers, leading to the success of several of his ventures, including Skype.
- Founder of Draper University, a residential and online school “to help extraordinary people accomplish their life missions," teaching entrepreneurs about business and personal potential.
- Bought 30,000 BTC in 2014 in an FBI auction seized from the Silk Road.
6. Barry Silbert: 48,000+ BTC
- Famous Wall Street investment banker.
- Bought 48,000 BTC in a public auction held by the FBI, after they seized it from the dark web’s Silk Road.
- Founded Digital Currency Group, a conglomerate made of 5 companies, bringing in money from MasterCard, Bain Capital Ventures, New York Life and others.
- Has been criticized by many in the BTC community for sullying the waters with “old money” corporations and centralized giants.
- DCG owns the digital asset manager Grayscale, that oversees over $28 Billion in various cryptocurrencies.
- Has worked with many blockchain startups over time.
- Has invested in over 100 crypto startups, including Coinbase.
5. Jihan Wu: ???+ BTC
- Founder of Bitmain, a company that produces Bitcoin mining software.
- Once held so much Bitcoin that he had virtual control over the market.
- Though his holdings have never been public, Jihan Wu’s net worth has risen to $500,000,000 USD, primarily through his Bitcoin and crypto-focused businesses.
- One of the most successful Chinese Bitcoin millionaires.
- Co-founded Matrixport, a platform for next generation crypto-backed financial products, including earning interest, and zero-cost loans.
- Co-founded Bitdeer, a company who owns 5 mining farms with users worldwide.
- Translated the white papers for Bitcoin into Mandarin.
4. Roger Ver: 100,000+ BTC
- One of the first Bitcoin millionaires of all time.
- Has been an early investor and promoter of BTC, and has been called “Bitcoin Jesus."
- Was a part of the Bitcoin Cash movement, one of the first “hard forks” in the blockchain.
- Several users wanted to up the memory limit of 1MB for each BTC block to allow for easier transactions, as well as the ability to allow BTC’s value to grow more through easier adoption.
- This proposal would mean rewriting and ‘updating’ the blockchain’s programming.
- Because not everyone on the BTC network unanimously agreed to these changes, BTC Cash became a “hard fork," forcing users to opt in to BTC Cash or stay with the original BTC blockchain.
- This splintered the blockchain into two parallel-but-separate programs, also allowing for the printing of new coins, all highly controversial changes.
- Has invested in crypto projects such as Kraken, Blockchain.com, bitcoinstore.com and Ripple.
- Managed Bitcoin.com from 2015-2019.
- Wants to create a libertarian nation backed by cryptocurrency.
- Donated over $1 million worth of BTC to the Foundation for Economic Education, a libertarian think tank that focuses on educating people with the ideas of liberty and free market economics.
3. Erik Voorhees: 126,000+ BTC
- Founder of ShapeShift, an online digital asset exchange.
- Vocal thought leader on crypto, famous for his twitter account @ErikVoorhees.
- Created SatoshiDice in 2012, a crypto gambling platform, one of the first.
- Sold SatoshiDice for 120,000 BTC in 2013.
- Was fined by the SEC for his company FeedZeBirds, for acquiring investor capital without seeking federal approval first.
- Has faced multiple SEC accusations, including money laundering accusations.
- Very vocal critic of fiat currency and centralized governments.
- Has stated in 2020 that “Within 5 years there will be a major financial meltdown and crypto will be ready."
2. Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss: 750,000+ BTC each
- These twins are both Harvard and Oxford business grads, where they met Mark Zuckerberg before Facebook’s development.
- Sued Mark Zuckerberg in 2008 for ‘stealing’ Facebook from them, and Zuck paid them $65 million dollars.
- They also competed in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing in the rowing competition.
- Invested $11 million from their lawsuit into Bitcoin.
- Founded Gemini in 2014, a leading crypto exchange that offers several financial products, including interest earning crypto accounts and crypto-backed credit.
1. Satoshi Nakamoto: 1,100,000+ BTC
- Created bitcoin in 2009, and cryptically left the community in 2011 “to pursue other things."
- First miner of BTC, mined around 1 million coins to test the system.
- Many people have different opinions on the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, and disagree on whether they are an individual person, or a group of developers using a pseudonym.
- The team of developers who have worked on BTC originally have referred to Nakamoto in passing as an individual, rather than an entity.
- Though Satoshi holds the most Bitcoin among anyone by far, they have never used BTC to buy anything, or even convert their holdings into fiat currency.
Final Thoughts
So, what can be learned from this list of the biggest public Bitcoin holders in the world?
Well, for one thing, Twitter seems to be the “public forum” of choice for a lot of the BTC whale community. So, if you want to stay tuned in to the Bitcoin conversation, that is the best place to do so.
It seems like Bitcoin and crypto overall still has a ways to go. For now, it has made many millionaires and even a few crypto-billionaires.
If you enjoyed this list, be sure to check out the 7 biggest Ethereum holders here!
