Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States may soon collectively hold more Bitcoin than the cryptocurrency’s anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bloomberg ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas posted a chart to X on Aug. 13 showing that the ETFs now hold 909,700 Bitcoin (BTC) in total, worth around $55.1 billion at its current price of around $60,500.
They’re closing in on Nakamoto’s estimated 1.1 million BTC stash, which the mysterious creator mined in the infancy of BTC and hasn’t touched after vanishing over 13 years ago.
On average, the Bitcoin ETFs add around 37,510 BTC to their holdings every month, meaning at that rate, they could surpass Nakamoto’s holdings in January — a year after they first launched.
Balchunas thinks the funds could overtake Nakamoto’s stack as early as October.
Source: Eric Balchunas
“BlackRock alone is already #3 and on pace to be #1 late next year and will likely stay there for a very long time,” Balchunas wrote.
The ETFs may have already surpassed Nakamoto’s total Bitcoin holdings, as some estimates place the creator’s holdings as low as 600,000 BTC spread across as many as 20,000 wallets.
No one has been able to put an exact number on Nakamoto’s Bitcoin holdings as the Bitcoin creator used a fresh wallet to receive the 50 BTC reward for every block mined in the early days of Bitcoin.
Nakamoto was the biggest miner then, and the process was much less resource-intensive than it is today.
Since January, the 11 Bitcoin ETFs have seen combined net inflows of $17.35 billion, which includes $19.49 billion in net outflows from Grayscale’s flagship ETF.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) has seen the majority of flows, accruing $20.33 billion in Bitcoin as of Aug. 12, followed by the $9.72 billion into the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), according to Farside Investors.
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