Whenever I see discussions about how many bitcoins Satoshi Nakamoto has, I realize that most underestimate how concentrated the BTC supply truly is in the hands of early participants.

Satoshi not only invented Bitcoin but was also the first miner of the protocol. He mined over 22,000 blocks starting from January 3, 2009, and accumulated more than 1.1 million BTC in rewards. The interesting part is that these bitcoins have never been moved. They are distributed across approximately 22,000 different addresses, but none have been spent except for some test transactions. This means Satoshi controls an amount of BTC valued at around $127 billion at that time, although the price has fluctuated significantly since then.

But Satoshi is not the only one. There are other "whales" who accumulated BTC in the early days. The Winklevoss twins, after their deal with Facebook, invested about $11 million in bitcoin when it was around $10 per coin. It is estimated that they own close to 70,000 BTC. Tim Draper, the famous venture capital investor, bought 40,000 BTC on Mt Gox but lost them in the hack. However, in 2014, he acquired 29,656 BTC for $18.7 million.

Michael Saylor of MicroStrategy is another interesting case. In 2020, he revealed he personally owned 17,732 BTC, and considering he is a public Bitcoin bull, he has probably acquired more since then.

At the institutional level, MicroStrategy holds 628,791 BTC, BlackRock has 738,170, and Grayscale owns 180,596. The concentration is real, and when you see how many bitcoins Satoshi Nakamoto has compared to the total supply, you understand why some argue that the protocol is more centralized than many believe in its early phases.