According to the data, the total Bitcoin holdings of the US-based Spot Bitcoin ETF exceeded Satoshi Nakamoto's estimated holdings of 1.1 million BTC. The ETF outperformed Satoshi last Thursday following inflows into the fund. BlackRock's IBIT fund holds the most BTC of any US-based ETF, with approximately 521,000 BTC, with Grayscale's GBTC and Fidelity's FTBC in second and third place. It becomes.
According to data from cryptocurrency analysis platform CoinGlass, US Spot Bitcoin ETFs currently hold a total of more than 1.1 million BTC, which is estimated to be held by pseudonymous crypto creator Satoshi Nakamoto. exceeds the amount.
This makes the US-based BTC ETF the largest source of Bitcoin holdings on the planet.
More than half of this total, approximately 521,000 BTC, is held by BlackRock's IBIT ETF, with Grayscale's GBTC and Fidelity's FBTC rounding out the top three with approximately 214,000 BTC and 199,000 BTC, respectively.
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Analyst says Bitcoin ETF is “king of the hill”
The ETF's total exceeded Satoshi Nakamoto's estimate after 7,800 BTC worth around US$766,000 (A$1.1 million) was added to the fund last Thursday.
Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas, in a post on did.
King of the Hill: US spot ETF has overtaken Satoshi in total Bitcoin holdings and now holds more than 1.1 million bits, more than anyone else in the world and is only a year old It hasn't even been that long, and it's literally still a baby. So much that I was surprised. hour/month @edmondsonshaun for data pic.twitter.com/FQBIGGz5ei
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) December 6, 2024
Balciunas described the ETF's performance since its launch as “amazing,” adding that the fund is “less than a year old, so it's literally a baby.”
Since its launch in January this year, the growth of the US-based Spot Bitcoin ETF has brought total inflows since January to over US$33 billion (AU$51.5 billion), with an additional US$2.4 billion (AU$3.7 billion). Nearby added. Even just this past week.
And don't forget, most of 2024 was bearish in the crypto market. It will be interesting to see how much money flows into these funds during a full-blown bull market.
How do I know what Satoshi has?
At this stage, you may be wondering how anyone knows how much BTC Satoshi owns. As it turns out, he wasn't available for interviews recently.
Estimates of the value of Satoshi's BTC bag come from researchers such as Sergio Demian Lerner, who closely analyzed early Bitcoin mining patterns. These researchers discovered a specific pattern of mining behavior known as the “Patoshi pattern,” allowing them to identify with some confidence which blocks were likely mined by Satoshi.
Based on this analysis, most researchers agree that Satoshi likely mined at least 22,000 blocks. At the time, each block earned 50 BTC. Therefore, simply multiplying the number of blocks by the reward per block gives an estimated Satoshi bag of 1.1 million. Bitcoin. All of these BTC remain unspent since being mined, which further supports the idea that they belong to Satoshi.
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If Satoshi owns 1.1 million BTC, his fortune would be around US$100 billion (A$156 billion), ranking him among the richest people in the world. Of course, it is possible that Satoshi is not a single person, but a group of Bitcoin founders, and this wealth could be divided among multiple individuals.
Image source: Sean Edmondson via X
Other top holders of BTC at the moment (excluding ETFs) are crypto exchange Binance (633,103 BTC), Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy (402,100 BTC), and, perhaps surprisingly, the US government (198,109 BTC). is.
