There is still much to explore about the largest cryptocurrency holders of each digital asset, as it is very difficult to determine the true owners of cryptocurrency wallets despite advances in blockchain technology transparency.

However, we have compiled a list of the largest Bitcoin holders or Bitcoin whales as BTC trades above 100,000 dollars. This is a follow-up to our previous article on the largest publicly traded companies holding BTC.

Bitcoin holders are very active, ranging from large investors to companies and nations, often changing based on legal developments and shifting market conditions along with other external factors.

So, let's take a look at the largest Bitcoin whales of 2024.

Satoshi Nakamoto (~1.1 million BTC)

The creator of Bitcoin, known as Satoshi Nakamoto, is one of the largest BTC whales with over 1 million of this coin. However, on-chain data indicates 54,316 blocks, meaning 50 BTC from each block before the first halving event occurred.

Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin in a paper titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" sent to a cryptography mailing list on October 31, 2008. This paper describes Bitcoin as "a decentralized, peer-to-peer protocol that is secure from a cryptographic standpoint."

According to Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin is "a completely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash" that "allows online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution or any intermediary."

Most of Nakamoto's Bitcoin is sitting idle, unspent across 22,000 wallet addresses, accounting for a large portion of the BTC supply. If Nakamoto decides to move their holdings, this would lead to significant volatility in Bitcoin's market value and have widespread impacts on the cryptocurrency industry as a whole.

Winklevoss twins (~70,000 BTC)

The co-founders of the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, remain the largest Bitcoin whales, with nearly 70,000 BTC. Widely known as the Winklevoss twins, they founded the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini in 2014.

The Winklevoss twins recently donated 2 million dollars in Bitcoin to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Each donated 15.47 BTC, totaling 30.94 Bitcoin. However, they had to refund part of their contributions due to exceeding the legal limit for donations.

This led Cameron and Tyler to invest in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to settle their 65 million dollar lawsuit against Facebook. The initial BTC investment of the Winklevoss twins helped them become prominent figures in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, and they solidified this in 2015 by co-funding the cryptocurrency exchange.

According to a Fortune article, Gemini has become the leading cryptocurrency exchange as digital asset prices hit new highs every day, giving these twins a net worth of over 7 billion dollars. However, the cryptocurrency crash that winter wiped out 2 trillion dollars from the industry, which also affected the twins.

Tim Draper (~29,656 BTC)

The man behind financial technology companies like Robinhood and the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Timothy Cook Draper, is one of the largest Bitcoin whales with 29,656 BTC. Draper is the brain behind companies like Skype, Hotmail, Tesla, DocuSign, and Twitter.

10 years ago, in 2014, Draper bought 29,656 BTC at 632 dollars each, making it an investment worth 18.7 million dollars. Draper purchased them from the US Marshals, who had seized them from the now-defunct Silk Road black market. The man behind Coinbase is known for advocating decentralization and opposing government control.

Michael Saylor (~17,732 BTC)

Just as MicroStrategy has made its way onto the list of the largest publicly traded companies holding Bitcoin, the company's founder Michael Saylor is also among the largest Bitcoin whales with 17,732 BTC. Saylor was the CEO of MicroStrategy until August 2022 and then became the company's chairman.

The founder of MicroStrategy is a strong advocate for Bitcoin, as shown through his pitch to Microsoft about investing in BTC. Saylor's ownership of a business analytics company in the 90s made him a billionaire.

However, MicroStrategy's stock price fell after the SEC filed charges against the company for violating accounting laws and fined it 11 million dollars. This reduced Saylor's net worth to 6 billion dollars.

But the founder of MicroStrategy soon recovered from losses and rebuilt his wealth through Bitcoin investments, filling the gap left by previous failures. This has made Saylor a proponent of Bitcoin, which he describes as "a bank on the internet, operated by incorruptible software, providing a global, affordable, simple, and secure savings account for billions of people without the choice or desire to run their own hedge fund."

Michael Saylor's net worth is 4.8 billion dollars after he bought billions of dollars in BTC. Most of it comes from MicroStrategy's Class B holdings and the 1.14 billion dollars worth of Bitcoin he purchased in 2020.

Changpeng Zhao

Last but not least is the owner of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, as he is known in the cryptocurrency world, with 94 million BNB tokens and an undisclosed amount of BTC holdings.

The holder of 90% of Binance's shares is said to have purchased 1 million dollars worth of Bitcoin by selling their apartment in China. This investment of 1300 BTC is now valued at 106 million dollars.

Currently, Changpeng Zhao has a net worth of 61 billion dollars, with 90% of it coming from cryptocurrency investments.

Together, these 5 Bitcoin holders dominate the cryptocurrency market by the amount they hold and can impact the market if they make any transfer transactions.

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