Interesting question I’ve also asked myself: How many bitcoins does Satoshi Nakamoto really have? The answer is astonishing and shows how concentrated wealth actually is in this space.

Satoshi Nakamoto is considered the biggest Bitcoin holder ever. Estimates suggest he owns about 1.1 million BTC – which is crazy when you consider he earned these coins simply through mining in the early days. Between January 2009 and 2010, Satoshi mined over 22,000 blocks and secured more than one million bitcoins in block rewards. The special thing about this: these bitcoins are spread across approximately 22,000 different addresses and have never been moved—except for a few test transactions. You can imagine how much influence Satoshi would have if he ever liquidated these coins.

The current valuation is impressive. At today’s price of about $79,500, Satoshi’s holdings would be worth over $87 billion. That’s an incredible amount of wealth just sitting in digital wallets. Satoshi left the project in 2010 and has not shown any sign of himself since— a mystery that still occupies the Bitcoin community today.

But how many bitcoins does Satoshi Nakamoto hold compared to other major players? That’s the interesting part. The Winklevoss twins, for example, hold about 70,000 BTC—they invested early and are still massively exposed. Tim Draper, the legendary VC, lost 40,000 BTC in the Mt. Gox hack but then bought nearly 30,000 BTC in 2014 at an average of $632 per coin. Michael Saylor of MicroStrategy was long the most aggressive buyer and already held over 17,000 BTC personally in 2020.

Looking at institutions, it gets even more interesting. MicroStrategy has become a Bitcoin treasury company and now holds over 628,000 BTC. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has also positioned itself and controls over 738,000 BTC—probably through their Bitcoin products. Grayscale holds about 180,000 BTC, showing how important this sector has become.

All of this paints a clear picture: Satoshi Nakamoto remains the largest individual holder, but the concentration is slowly shifting toward institutional players. Who should watch this development more closely? Definitely everyone who takes Bitcoin seriously.