The amount of Bitcoin held by U.S. Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is expected to surpass that held by Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto within two months.
What's New: Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, predicted on his X (formerly Twitter) on the 13th that the combined holdings of ETFs currently traded on U.S. stock exchanges are around 910,000 bitcoins, and will soon be close to 1 million.
Didn't realize US ETFs are on track to pass Satoshi in bitcoin held in October. BlackRock alone is already #3 and on pace to be #1 late next year, and will likely stay there for a very long time Ht @EdmondsonShaun pic.twitter.com/QGsO00zrxp
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) August 12, 2024
When Bitcoin was first created, it was a fair system where no one owned any tokens. However, the creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, soon ended up owning a significant amount of Bitcoins. This was because he had been mining heavily for a considerable period of time and was responsible for maintaining the network when the Bitcoin mining reward was 50 per block.
The digital wallet address believed to be his wallet currently contains approximately 1.1 million bitcoins.
Who owns the second-largest Bitcoin?: In the mid-2010s, when Bitcoin became commercialized and many cryptocurrency exchanges supporting trading were created, they emerged as Bitcoin ‘big players.’ It is known that Binance, currently the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has around 550,000 Bitcoins locked up.
According to Eric Balchunas, the BlackRock Bitcoin Spot ETF (IBIT), which is the leader in the U.S. Bitcoin spot ETF market, is the world’s third largest by holdings. IBIT holds about 340,000 bitcoins.
Bitcoin holdings to reverse course in October?: Eric Balchunas predicts that the total accumulated total will exceed 1.1 million in October, given the current pace of accumulation in US Bitcoin spot ETFs. He also forecasts that IBIT will become the world’s largest holder of Bitcoin by the end of 2025, a year later.
The increase in Bitcoin holdings in US Bitcoin spot ETFs is not simply a matter of gossip about who holds the most. This is because the holdings are a measure of how many investors are trying to enjoy the benefits of holding Bitcoin through US stock exchanges. It seems that the day is not far when Satoshi Nakamoto's wish for more people to hold Bitcoin will come true through ETFs.
