As Bitcoin marches past $118,000 in mid-2025, attention has turned not just to its price, but to who actually holds the keys to this trillion-dollar asset.
From crypto exchanges and institutional funds to sovereign treasuries and billionaire wallets, the BTC ownership landscape is both revealing and evolving.
Exchanges Still Lead the Pack
At the top of the leaderboard are cryptocurrency exchanges, whose massive cold wallets dominate the Bitcoin rich list. Binance holds the crown, with its largest cold wallet storing around 248,000 BTC, over $26 billion.
Robinhood and Bitfinex follow, managing tens of thousands of BTC each, primarily as custodians for their user bases.
These wallets are rarely active, suggesting long-term storage strategies rather than frequent trading. And with ETF inflows surging and exchange reserves thinning, exchanges appear to be centralizing fewer BTC than before, a sign of growing investor self-custody.
Institutional Titans: Strategy and the ETF Wave
Corporate holdings are spearheaded by Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), which now owns nearly 600,000 BTC. This eye-popping stash, worth over $70 billion, represents over 90% of the company’s balance sheet, making it the most BTC-heavy firm in the world.
Meanwhile, institutional investors are pouring in via ETFs. Grayscale’s trust leads with 292,000 BTC, while BlackRock’s iShares fund, launched just last year, has already accumulated 274,000 BTC, reflecting Wall Street’s growing appetite for regulated crypto exposure.
Governments Join the Game
Nation-states are also stepping into Bitcoin. The U.S. government, through asset seizures and a newly created Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, holds over 207,000 BTC. Other notable sovereign players include China (194,000 BTC), the U.K. (61,000 BTC), and Ukraine (46,000 BTC), with holdings stemming from donations, mining, or law enforcement actions, according to Cointelegraph.
El Salvador, Bhutan, and even Georgia also make the list, proving Bitcoin’s reach now spans from global powers to small nations hedging with digital gold.
Crypto Billionaires and Hidden Fortunes
On the individual side, no name looms larger than Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s mysterious creator, who is believed to control over 1 million BTC, untouched since 2010. Other known whales include the Winklevoss twins (~70,000 BTC), venture capitalist Tim Draper (~30,000 BTC), and Michael Saylor personally (~17,000 BTC), not counting corporate reserves.
Yet many addresses, like the infamous 1Feex wallet with 79,957 BTC, remain anonymous, their origins clouded by early exchange exploits or silent accumulation.
A Growing Middle Class of BTC Holders
Despite Bitcoin’s concentration at the top, 2025 has seen a marked rise in mid-sized wallets (100–1,000 BTC), now totaling over 4.7 million coins. This signals broader adoption among family offices, hedge funds, and HNWIs, a shift that could gradually decentralize BTC wealth and bring greater market stability.
In conclusion, the Bitcoin ownership map of 2025 shows both concentration and quiet redistribution. While exchanges, institutions, and sovereign entities still hold the lion’s share, the rise of mid-tier investors suggests a maturing market.
Whether future BTC flows are shaped by policy, innovation, or market psychology, one thing is clear: the stakes are higher, the holders more diverse, and the race to control digital gold has never been more intense.
