2025 Institutional Frenzy: Global ETPs and Public Companies Consumed 944,000 BTC, Supply Gap Expanded to 7.4 Times

🔵 Data Verification and Scale Comparison

According to Bit's statistics as of August 10, 2025, global Bitcoin exchange-traded products (ETPs) and listed companies have cumulatively purchased 944,330 BTC. This scale reaches 7.4 times the new Bitcoin supply in 2025 (approximately 128,000 BTC), highlighting the significant gap between institutional demand and natural supply. If the time frame is extended to the entire year, listed companies have increased their holdings of Bitcoin valued at $47.3 billion in 2025, far exceeding the $31.7 billion inflow of the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF during the same period. This imbalance worsened further after Bitcoin's fourth halving (the daily new coin production decreased from 900 BTC to 450 BTC).

📊 Institutional Buying Power Distribution and Dynamics

Institutional demand is mainly driven by two types of entities:

1. Public companies directly hoarding: In the first half of 2025, public companies purchased 237,664 BTC (worth $26.2 billion), exceeding the ETF purchase volume of 117,000 during the same period. The leader MicroStrategy has increased its holdings of BTC worth $17 billion just this year, with total holdings surpassing 628,000 BTC.

2. ETP continues to accumulate: The total holdings of the US spot Bitcoin ETF have reached 1.496 million BTC, accounting for 7.12% of the total Bitcoin supply. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust ranks first with a holding of 625,000 BTC.

It is worth noting that the corporate purchasing strategy exhibits the characteristic of "ignoring price fluctuations." Nick, the research director of Ecoinometrics, pointed out that publicly listed companies are more focused on "increasing Bitcoin reserves" rather than the highs and lows of short-term prices.

🌐 The underlying causes of supply shortages

The imbalance between supply and demand arises from three structural factors:

• Halving mechanism's rigid constraint: The fourth halving of Bitcoin will compress the annual new supply to about 164,000 coins, while institutional purchases in a single quarter can exceed this number (for example, publicly listed companies and ETFs combined purchased 242,000 coins in Q2 2025).

• Institutional FOMO sentiment spreads: As of August 2025, 80 listed companies worldwide hold Bitcoin, a 142% increase from 33 companies in 2023. The Trump administration's policy to establish a U.S. Bitcoin reserve further intensifies the urgency for companies to "have to participate."

• Custodial model locks liquidity: Publicly traded companies typically allocate Bitcoin to on-chain custodial solutions (such as MicroStrategy's offline wallet), resulting in a further shrinkage of the actual circulation. Currently, the combined holdings of institutions and ETFs account for more than 16% of Bitcoin's circulating supply, while the exchange's available balance has fallen below 5% of the total supply.

💹 Impact on market structure and prices

Supply shortages have triggered significant market effects:

• Institutionalized upward price pressure: The purchase volume by institutions continues to exceed new supply, which means that each newly produced Bitcoin needs to meet several times the demand, providing a rigid support for the price. Analysts generally predict that Bitcoin may surpass $200,000 in 2025.

• Volatility structural changes: Due to institutional holdings aimed at long-term reserves (such as MicroStrategy claiming to "never sell"), market selling pressure has decreased, but it may also lead to flash crashes during times of insufficient liquidity.

• Accumulation of risks in the derivatives market: CME Bitcoin futures experienced a price gap exceeding $10,000, and high-leverage trading amplifies volatility risks in a low liquidity environment.

⚠️ Potential risks and sustainability challenges

Despite the optimistic outlook, the current trend implies three major risks:

1. Possibility of Regulatory Reversal: If the U.S. government shifts to a tightening stance on cryptocurrency policy (such as reversing Trump’s policies after the Democrats take office), it may trigger institutional concentration of sell-offs.

2. Technical Overbought Signal: The Relative Strength Index (RSI) of Bitcoin has repeatedly reached high levels in the short term. If the price retraces below $110,000, it may trigger a chain liquidation.

3. Concerns about ecological centralization: The top 10 entities hold more than 3 million BTC, and excessive concentration may contradict the original intention of decentralization.

💎 Conclusion: From Supply-Demand Imbalance to Value Reevaluation in a New Cycle

The gap of 7.4 times between institutional demand and natural supply marks that Bitcoin has shifted from a retail-driven speculative asset to an institutionally priced scarce resource. The sustainability of this transition depends on three major variables: the impact of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy on the cost of capital, the penetration rate of Bitcoin in traditional asset allocation, and whether technological solutions such as Layer 2 can alleviate on-chain congestion. If the current trend continues, Bitcoin may challenge a million-dollar valuation in the next decade, but investors should be wary of short-term technical corrections and policy black swan risks.