Transparency is one of the main Bitcoin features. It enables us to see which wallets hold the most Bitcoins.
Why is it important?
The Bitcoin total supply is limited to 21 million coins. Approximately 3.7 million Bitcoins were lost. A significant number of coins is held on-chain by early investors. We call them Bitcoin whales, and they are as follows.
Bitcoin Holder 1
Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to hold over 1 mln of coins in his wallets.
This is an assumption only and it is based on calculations. Satoshi Nakamoto mined a significant number of blocks, and the reward was 50 BTC at that time.
These coins have never been touched, so the mystery of the Bitcoin creator stays unsolved.
Bitcoin Holder 2
The Winklevoss Twins purchased 1.5 million Bitcoin in 2013 for the compensation received from a legal dispute with Zuckerberg.
It is believed that they alone own 1% of all BTC in the market.
They are the founders of several Bitcoin-based companies, BitInstant, Gemini, and Windex.
Bitcoin Holder 3
Michael Saylor, the MicroStrategy CEO, has lost a big part of his fortune after the crash of dot.com.
But his company purchased 70,000 BTC later, and he himself bought 17,732 BTC. Calculate how much this stock is worth now!
With it, Michael Saylor is recognized as the third largest individual Bitcoin holder.
Bitcoin Holder 4
Roger Ver is one of the early Bitcoin adopters and Bitcoin millionaires.
He is believed to own at least 100,000 Bitcoins. He is also known under the name Bitcoin Jesus.
Bitcoin Holder 5
Gavin Andresen has been a lead developer of the Bitcoin open-source code.
For a long time, he was believed to be Satoshi Nakamoto but he denied it. Gavin said that he and the famous Satoshi have been friends, and in 2010, Satoshi selected him to be his successor.
Gavin Andresen was paid over $200,000 worth of Bitcoin for his contribution to the project. Even though it is not known how many Bitcoins he still holds, he may be one of those whales that determine the market trends.
Bitcoin Holder 6
Barry Silbert is a venture capitalist and a founder of a digital currency group.
He won over 48,000 Bitcoins back in 2014 at an auction organized by the US Federal Agency for Law Enforcement.
The conglomerate of Barry Silbert includes Grayscale, the digital asset management firm.
Bitcoin Holder 7
Charlie Shrem is one of the biggest Bitcoin holders and one of the most controversial Bitcoin millionaires.
He didn’t disclose how many Bitcoins he has but he is known for investing a lot in this coin when BTC was still cheap. He reportedly purchased thousands of coins.
Bitcoin Holder 8
Tony Gallippi is a business giant and one of the major Bitcoin holders.
He is also behind BitPay, one of the biggest payment providers that work with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Holder 9
Bulgaria takes 9th place in the list of the biggest Bitcoin holders. In MAy 2017, the country’s law enforcement agencies tracked down organized crime and managed to confiscate 213,519 Bitcoins. At the moment, it is sufficient to pay ¼ of the country’s national debt.
For now, the Bulgarian government doesn’t give any comments on the status of the coins.
Bitcoin Holder 10
BitFinex, one of the major cryptocurrency exchanges, has over 160,000 Bitcoins in its wallets. It is believed that this stock is held in a cold wallet to protect the funds from hackers.
Conclusion
The cryptocurrency market gave many investors an opportunity to purchase Bitcoin at very low prices. The potential of crypto can be seen clearly now, in the Bitcoin example.
FAQ
Who Are the Big Bitcoin Whales?
Bitcoin whales are those people or companies who hold enough Bitcoins to be able to pump and dump the coin price.
Do Bitcoin Whales Manipulate Crypto?
Bitcoin whales have enough coins in their wallets to pump the coin price or dump it.
How Many Bitcoin Whales Are There?
There are not so many Bitcoin whales, and most of them are early investors in the project.
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