- Data shows the combined total Bitcoin holdings of the US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs surpassed Satoshi Nakamoto’s estimated holdings of 1.1 million BTC.
- The ETFs eclipsed Satoshi on Thursday last week following a flood of capital into the funds.
- BlackRock’s IBIT fund holds the most BTC of the US-based ETFs, at around 521,000, with Greyscale’s GBTC and Fidelity’s FTBC coming in second and third.
US spot Bitcoin ETFs now hold a combined total of over 1.1 million BTC, more than the amount estimated to be held by the cryptocurrency’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, according to data from crypto analytics platform CoinGlass.
This makes US-based BTC ETFs the largest source of Bitcoin holdings on Earth.
Over half of this total, approximately 521,000, is held by BlackRock’s IBIT ETF with Grayscale’s GBTC and Fidelity’s FBTC rounding out the top three, with around 214,000 and 199,000 BTC respectively.
Related: US Spot Bitcoin ETFs Close November with Record-Breaking Inflows
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Bitcoin ETFs are ‘King of The Hill’, Says Analyst
The combined total of the ETFs eclipsed Satoshi Nakamoto’s estimated bag on Thursday last week after 7,800 BTC, valued at around US$766,000 (AU$1.1m), were added to the funds.
Posting on X, Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas, proclaimed that the US spot Bitcoin ETFs are now ‘king of the hill’ when it comes to top BTC holders, after surpassing Satoshi’s estimated holdings:
Balchunas described the ETFs performance since launch as “mind blowing”, adding that the funds are “not even a year old yet, literally still babies”.
Since their launch in January of this year the growth of the US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen combined total inflows of over US$33 billion (AU$51.5b) since January, with nearly US$2.4 billion (AU$3.7b) added to the total in the past week alone.
And let’s not forget, most of 2024 was bearish in crypto markets. It’ll be interesting to see how much capital flows into these funds during a full-blown bull market.
How Do We Know What Satoshi Holds?
At this stage you’re probably wondering how anyone knows how much BTC Satoshi holds — after all, he hasn’t exactly been available for an interview lately.
The estimates of Satoshi’s BTC bag come from researchers, such as Sergio Demian Lerner, who’ve closely analysed early Bitcoin mining patterns. These researchers have spotted a specific pattern of mining behaviour known as the “Patoshi Pattern” which has allowed them to identify with some level of confidence which blocks Satoshi probably mined.
Based on this analysis, most researchers agree that Satoshi likely mined at least 22,000 blocks — back in those days each block earned you 50 BTC — so simply multiplying the number of blocks by the rewards per block brings us to an estimated Satoshi bag of 1.1 million BTC. All of these BTC have remained unspent since being mined, which adds further support to the idea they belong to Satoshi.
Related: “I Am Not Satoshi”, Peter Todd and Crypto Community React to Wild Claims
If Satoshi does own 1.1 million BTC, that would put his fortune at around US$100 billion (AU$156b), ranking him as one of the richest people in the world. Of course it’s possible Satoshi isn’t one person, but a group of Bitcoin founders, so this fortune may be split between several individuals.
Image Source: Shaun Edmondson via X
The other top holders of BTC at the moment (excluding the ETFs) are the crypto exchange Binance (633,103 BTC), Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy (402,100 BTC), and perhaps surprisingly, the US Government (198,109 BTC).
