Bitcoin prices pulled back roughly 38% from their October 2025 high. But the number of people who own Bitcoin kept growing. According to the Crypto Wealth Report 2026, published by Henley & Partners, there are now 92,272 Bitcoin millionaires worldwide — people whose BTC holdings are worth at least $1 million.
The global crypto market is worth $2.6 trillion as of August 31, 2026. Bitcoin accounts for $1.6 trillion of that total. That puts Bitcoin’s share of the overall crypto market at about 60%.
This article uses on-chain data from Arkham, address statistics from BitInfoCharts, and wealth modeling from Henley & Partners to break down who holds Bitcoin, how wealth sits at each tier, and what those numbers actually mean.
The Crypto Wealth Pyramid
At the base of the crypto wealth pyramid, 742 million people worldwide hold some amount of digital assets. Of those, 371 million hold Bitcoin specifically.
That figure has grown. Funded Bitcoin addresses increased by 4.9% in the year to August 31, 2026. The mid-2025 ownership estimate from Crypto.com put the number at 354 million Bitcoin owners. Applying that growth rate gives the 2026 estimate of 371 million.
Moving up the pyramid, wealth becomes far more concentrated. There are 135,694 crypto millionaires — people with $1 million or more in digital assets. Of those, 92,272 hold their million-dollar wealth in Bitcoin alone. That means Bitcoin millionaires make up 68% of all crypto millionaires.
Higher up sit 290 centi-millionaires — people with at least $100 million in crypto. Among them, 151 hold that amount in Bitcoin. At the very top are 23 crypto billionaires. Nine of those hold their wealth in BTC.
Bitcoin’s share of individual wealth shrinks as you go up the pyramid. At the millionaire level, Bitcoin accounts for about 68% of the crypto market excluding stablecoins. At the billionaire level, that share falls to around 40%. Many of the largest fortunes at the top are tied to founders holding stakes in their own blockchain networks rather than Bitcoin.
The 2026 wealth figures are based on market prices from August 31, 2026, when Bitcoin traded at $78,008 per coin. They are not directly comparable to previous Henley & Partners reports due to a methodology change.
| Tier | Threshold | Total (All Crypto) | Bitcoin Only |
|---|---|---|---|
| Users | Any amount | 742 million | 371 million |
| Millionaires | $1M+ | 135,694 | 92,272 |
| Centi-Millionaires | $100M+ | 290 | 151 |
| Billionaires | $1B+ | 23 | 9 |
Source: Henley & Partners Crypto Wealth Report 2026, data as of 31 August 2026.
Who Holds the Most Bitcoin?
When grouping wallet addresses by entity — a cluster of addresses confirmed to be controlled by one person or organization — Satoshi Nakamoto sits at the top. The anonymous Bitcoin creator holds an estimated 1.096 million BTC, worth roughly $92 billion at current prices. This Bitcoin was mined from about 22,000 blocks in Bitcoin’s earliest days and has not moved since 2010.
After Satoshi, the biggest holders are institutions. Coinbase, the U.S.-based exchange, holds 969,000 BTC on behalf of itself and its customers. Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), the company that converted its corporate treasury into Bitcoin starting in 2020, holds 848,000 BTC. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, holds 799,000 BTC through its Bitcoin ETF.
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, holds 714,000 BTC. Fidelity Custody, which acts as custodian for many large Bitcoin holders, holds 436,000 BTC.
One thing worth understanding about exchange holdings: when Coinbase holds 969,000 BTC, most of that Bitcoin belongs to its customers, not to Coinbase itself. Exchange cold wallets hold customer deposits and operational reserves — they are not purely the exchange’s own wealth.
The U.S. Government holds 325,000 BTC — the fifth-largest entity. That Bitcoin came from criminal seizures rather than purchases. Tether, the stablecoin issuer, rounds out the major private-sector holders with 97,000 BTC in its reserves.
| Entity Type | Entity | BTC Held | USD Value | % of Supply |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Individual | Satoshi Nakamoto | 1.096M | $92B | 5.5% |
| Exchange | Coinbase | 969K | $81B | 4.8% |
| Public Company | Strategy | 848K | $77B | 4.0% |
| ETF Issuer | BlackRock | 799K | $67B | 4.0% |
| Exchange | Binance | 714K | $60B | 3.6% |
| Government | U.S. Government | 325K | $27B | 1.6% |
| Private Company | Tether | 97K | $8B | 0.5% |
Source: Arkham Intel Platform, September 2026.
The Largest Individual Bitcoin Wallets
Looking at individual wallet addresses — rather than grouped entity holdings — reveals which single wallets hold the most BTC. The top four are all exchange cold wallets used for secure offline storage of customer Bitcoin.
Binance controls two of the top four individual wallets. Its largest cold wallet holds 249,000 BTC. A second Binance cold wallet holds 210,000 BTC. Robinhood’s cold wallet holds 141,000 BTC and Bitfinex’s cold wallet holds 130,000 BTC.
There are also several large wallets with no publicly known owner. The biggest unattributed wallet holds 92,000 BTC — worth roughly $8 billion — and has been inactive since receiving its initial deposit.
| Rank | Wallet | BTC Held | USD Value | % of Supply |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Binance Cold Wallet (34xp4…) | 249K | $21B | 1.24% |
| 2 | Binance Cold Wallet (3M219…) | 210K | $18B | 1.04% |
| 3 | Robinhood Cold Wallet | 141K | $12B | 0.70% |
| 4 | Bitfinex Cold Wallet | 130K | $11B | 0.65% |
| 5 | Tether Bitcoin Reserves | 97K | $8B | 0.48% |
| 6 | U.S. Govt (Bitfinex Recovery) | 95K | $8B | 0.47% |
Source: Arkham Intel Platform, September 2026.
Exchange and ETF Holdings
Exchanges hold large amounts of Bitcoin to serve their customers. Cold wallets — offline storage addresses — secure these deposits away from internet-connected systems. Coinbase controls 4.8% of the total Bitcoin supply, and Binance controls 3.6%. Together, the two largest exchanges account for more than 8% of all existing Bitcoin.
Bitcoin spot ETFs launched in the United States in January 2024. Blockchain analytics firm Arkham was first to identify the on-chain locations of these ETF holdings. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs now hold a combined 1.26 million BTC.
Of that total, 79% falls outside institutional 13F filings — the quarterly disclosures required of large U.S. investment managers. That points to most ETF Bitcoin being held by retail investors and private clients rather than large institutions on the public record.
BlackRock leads all ETF issuers with 799,000 BTC. Fidelity holds 433,000 BTC in custody for its ETF and for Strategy’s corporate holdings. Grayscale, which reports its BTC balances publicly but refused to disclose on-chain addresses, has its holdings spread across more than 1,750 separate wallets — each holding no more than 1,000 BTC. Arkham discovered these wallets independently. Other major ETF issuers include Bitwise, ARK Invest, and Morgan Stanley.
The launch of Bitcoin ETFs created a new class of Bitcoin holders who never appear on the blockchain. Their holdings exist as ETF shares held through brokerage accounts. This means the true number of Bitcoin millionaires is higher than raw on-chain data suggests.
Government Bitcoin Holdings
Governments hold Bitcoin mainly because law enforcement seized it from criminals. The United States is by far the largest government holder, with 325,000 BTC worth about $27 billion.
U.S. holdings come from several separate cases. The FBI recovered Bitcoin from the 2016 Bitfinex hack. Authorities seized Bitcoin from the Silk Road dark web marketplace and from hacker James Zhong. More recently, the U.S. government acquired 127,000 BTC from an address linked to the LuBian hacker. In July 2026, the government transferred $280 million worth of Bitcoin and Ether to Coinbase Prime.
The United Kingdom is the second-largest government holder with 61,245 BTC. That stash was seized from Jian Wen and Zhimin Qian in 2018 during a money laundering investigation. The UK police gained access to the wallets in July 2021.
El Salvador is a different kind of case. The country made Bitcoin legal tender in 2021 and has actively purchased BTC. El Salvador now holds 7,200 BTC. President Nayib Bukele announced in 2022 that the country would buy one Bitcoin per day going forward.
Bhutan has been mining Bitcoin since 2019, using cheap hydroelectric power from its glacial rivers. The country’s sovereign wealth fund, Druk Holding and Investments, once held around 6,000 BTC. That has since fallen to about 500 BTC in 2026 as Bhutan has been selling portions of its holdings.
The UAE’s government-linked Bitcoin comes from mining operations. The UAE Royal Group holds a majority stake in Citadel, a publicly listed mining company, which controls about 7,100 BTC.
| Rank | Government | BTC Held | USD Value | % of Supply |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 325,000 | $27B | 1.60% |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 61,000 | $5B | 0.31% |
| 3 | El Salvador | 7,200 | $608M | 0.04% |
| 4 | UAE (Citadel Mining) | 7,100 | $589M | 0.04% |
| 5 | Russia | 1,000 | $86M | 0.005% |
| 6 | Bhutan (Druk Holdings) | 500 | $43M | 0.002% |
Source: Arkham Intel Platform, September 2026. Note: chart uses a logarithmic scale due to the large gap between the US and other holders.
Public Company Holdings
Public companies have been adding Bitcoin to their corporate treasuries at a growing rate. Strategy leads all companies with 848,000 BTC — a position built through consistent purchases since August 2020.
Strategy’s on-chain wallets show slightly less than the confirmed total. Arkham has verified about 83% of Strategy’s on-chain Bitcoin. The remaining portion — roughly 184,000 BTC — is held by Fidelity Custody on Strategy’s behalf. When both are combined, the total stands at approximately $77 billion.
Metaplanet, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, has taken a similar approach. The company now holds 43,000 BTC, which it describes as a hedge against long-term weakness in the Japanese yen. Metaplanet has earned the informal label “Japan’s MicroStrategy.”
MARA Holdings (formerly Marathon Digital) is a publicly traded Bitcoin mining company. According to a recent SEC filing, MARA holds 35,500 BTC. The company mines an average of 22.7 BTC per day across nine facilities in North America.
SpaceX, which recently became a publicly traded company, holds 19,000 BTC in its corporate treasury. With a market cap around $2 trillion, SpaceX is the largest Bitcoin treasury company in the world by the size of the parent company.
| Company | BTC Held | USD Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy | 848,000 | $77B | Includes ~184K held via Fidelity Custody |
| Metaplanet | 43,000 | $3.6B | Tokyo-listed |
| MARA Holdings | 35,500 | $3.0B | Per SEC filing |
| SpaceX | 19,000 | $1.6B | Recently went public |
Source: Arkham Intel Platform and SEC filings, 2026.
How Many Bitcoin Addresses Hold Over $1 Million?
As of August 6, 2026, there were 111,801 Bitcoin addresses with a balance worth more than $1 million. An additional 14,025 addresses held more than $10 million each. These counts come from BitInfoCharts and are updated continuously as Bitcoin’s price moves.
These raw numbers don’t translate directly to a count of individual millionaires. The largest addresses belong to exchanges, custodians, and funds holding Bitcoin on behalf of thousands of clients. A single Binance cold wallet holding $21 billion doesn’t represent the wealth of one person.
On the other side, a real Bitcoin millionaire might spread their holdings across several wallets. None of those wallets would individually cross the $1 million mark. This creates a double-counting problem that pushes address counts away from true individual counts in both directions.
The Henley & Partners estimate of 92,272 Bitcoin millionaires adjusts for these distortions. It removes exchange and fund addresses — which account for roughly 22% of addresses in this range — estimates and removes lost coins (around 15% of the remaining group), consolidates multiple addresses per owner, and adds back roughly 31,000 individuals who hold Bitcoin only through ETFs and never appear on-chain.
The address count also changes every time Bitcoin’s price moves even slightly. When Bitcoin shifts a few percent, thousands of addresses near the $1 million mark can cross the threshold in either direction — without a single transaction taking place. That’s why address-based counts are only an approximation of the true number of millionaires, not a precise headcount.
How Much Bitcoin Makes You a Millionaire?
The answer changes with the price of Bitcoin. At $78,008 per BTC (August 31, 2026), a person needs about 12.82 BTC to hold $1 million worth of Bitcoin. At Bitcoin’s October 2025 peak near $126,000, only about 8 BTC would have crossed that threshold.
The BTC millionaire threshold is purely a function of price. A holder with exactly 12.82 BTC can gain or lose millionaire status without buying or selling a single coin. All it takes is a shift in price.
This is why Bitcoin millionaire counts are always snapshots tied to a specific date and price. The 2026 Henley count used $78,008. The 2025 report used June 2025 prices near $105,869. These figures are not directly comparable because of both the price difference and a change in methodology.
| Bitcoin Price | BTC Needed to Reach $1 Million |
|---|---|
| $50,000 | 20.00 BTC |
| $78,008 | 12.82 BTC |
| $100,000 | 10.00 BTC |
| $250,000 | 4.00 BTC |
| $1,000,000 | 1.00 BTC |
Calculation: $1,000,000 ÷ BTC price. Reference price: BitInfoCharts, August 6, 2026.
The Most Crypto-Friendly Countries
The Henley Crypto Adoption Index 2026 ranks 36 countries on how well they support digital asset investors. The index draws on more than 900 data points covering regulatory frameworks, tax policy, infrastructure, innovation, and public adoption.
Singapore leads the ranking for the fourth year in a row. The city-state scores highest on innovation and technology and does not levy capital gains tax on individual crypto investors.
The UAE jumped from 5th to 2nd place this year, earning a perfect 10 out of 10 for tax-friendliness. The country taxes neither crypto trading, staking, nor mining. Dubai established the world’s first dedicated virtual asset regulator in 2022.
Hong Kong ranks 3rd, earning the top scores for infrastructure adoption and economic factors. The United States is 4th — the only country in the index to score a perfect 10 for public adoption. Switzerland rounds out the top five, with strong scores for both innovation and economic factors.
Malta holds the highest regulatory environment score of any country in the index and ranks 6th overall. Thailand, the United Kingdom, Cyprus, and The Bahamas complete the top 10.
The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR), which took full effect in December 2024, created a unified rulebook for digital assets across 30 countries. This has reduced the ability of individual EU member states to compete on regulation alone. Tax policy and residency options are now bigger factors for attracting crypto wealth within the EU.
| Rank | Country | Key Strength |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Singapore | Innovation & Technology |
| 2 | UAE | Tax-Friendliness (10/10) |
| 3 | Hong Kong | Infrastructure & Economy |
| 4 | United States | Public Adoption (10/10) |
| 5 | Switzerland | Innovation & Economy |
| 6 | Malta | Regulatory Environment |
| 7 | Thailand | — |
| 8 | United Kingdom | — |
| 9 | Cyprus | — |
| 10 | The Bahamas | New entrant in 2026 |
Source: Henley Crypto Adoption Index 2026.
New Reporting Rules Are Changing the Landscape
Seventy-six countries have signed onto the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF). The first automatic exchanges of data between 46 of those countries are scheduled for September 2027. After that, crypto holdings will face the same kind of cross-border tax reporting as traditional bank accounts.
This changes the practical importance of where a Bitcoin holder lives. Wealth held in Bitcoin was previously difficult for tax authorities to track across borders. That is becoming harder as information-sharing agreements take effect.
Several wealthy crypto holders have begun seeking professional advice on where to establish residency. Henley & Partners reports growing demand from clients looking at residency and citizenship options in jurisdictions with clear, favorable treatment of digital assets.
Stablecoins are also changing how digital wealth moves across financial centers. Payment rails built on stablecoins can move dollar-denominated value between custodians in Dubai, Singapore, and Europe in minutes rather than days — without routing through the traditional correspondent banking system. Countries including Bahrain and Hong Kong have introduced dedicated stablecoin regulations in response to this shift.
Conclusion
Bitcoin is held by a wide range of players in 2026 — from an anonymous creator who mined it in 2009, to governments that seized it from criminals, companies that bought it as a treasury asset, and retail investors who own it through ETF shares.
Wealth is concentrated at the top. Satoshi Nakamoto alone holds 5.5% of all Bitcoin that will ever exist. The six largest entities together — Satoshi, Coinbase, Strategy, BlackRock, Binance, and the U.S. Government — control more than 20% of the total supply.
But ownership is broader than ever. Some 371 million people now hold Bitcoin in some form. That is more than at any previous point in the asset’s history.
Of the 21 million Bitcoin that can ever be created, roughly 3.7 million are believed to be permanently lost in inaccessible wallets. That leaves an effective circulating supply of around 17.3 million coins.
The 92,272 Bitcoin millionaires counted for 2026 are a snapshot tied to one price and one date. As the price changes, those numbers shift — even without a single coin changing hands.
Sources
- Henley & Partners. Crypto Wealth Report 2026. Published September 8, 2026. London.
- Arkham Intel Platform. Bitcoin Token Page and Entity Holdings. Accessed September 2026. arkham.intelligence.com
- BitInfoCharts. Bitcoin Rich List and Address Distribution. Data as of August 6, 2026. bitinfocharts.com
- Glassnode. Clustering-Based Address-to-Owner Ratio (network average: 0.81 owners per address).
- Crypto.com. Global Crypto Ownership Report. Mid-2025 edition.
- MARA Holdings. SEC 10-Q Filing. 2026.
- Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy). Bitcoin Tracker and Treasury Reports. 2026. strategy.com
- Henley & Partners. Crypto Adoption Index 2026. Benchmarking 36 countries across 900+ data points.
- OECD. Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF). First data exchanges scheduled September 2027.
- New World Wealth. Crypto Wealth Estimates. 2025 edition (used as methodology cross-check for 2026 report).
