By Daniel Phillips and Stephen Gr
Translation: Blockchain in Vernacular
For years, the idea of public companies buying Bitcoin as reserves was seen as laughable. The top cryptocurrency was considered too volatile and too niche to be embraced by any serious business.
However, this taboo has been completely broken, and many important institutional investors have bought Bitcoin in recent years.
The door first opened when cloud software company MicroStrategy bought $425 million worth of Bitcoin in August and September 2020. Other companies followed suit, including payment processing company Block and electric car maker Tesla.
According to BitcoinTreasuries, public companies holding Bitcoin now account for nearly 1.5% of the total 21 million Bitcoins.
1、MicroStrategy
MicroStrategy, a well-known business analytics platform, has made Bitcoin its primary reserve asset.
The company, which makes mobile software and cloud-based services, has aggressively pursued Bitcoin purchases, acquiring millions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency. As of May 2025, the company holds 214,400 Bitcoins, equivalent to $14.8 billion, more than 1% of the total Bitcoin supply.
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor has said that he used to buy $1,000 of Bitcoin every second. During the company's first quarter 2024 earnings call, Saylor claimed that the company's adoption of a "Bitcoin strategy" had improved the performance of its rival enterprise software companies in the business intelligence space by 10 to 30 times.
Unlike other CEOs who generally avoid discussing their personal investments, Saylor has publicly stated that he personally holds 17,732 bitcoins, currently worth more than $1.2 billion.
If Saylor’s bitcoins are all held in one address, that would make him one of the top 101 holders of the most bitcoins, according to BitInfoCharts. It’s a change of heart for the MicroStrategy CEO, who in 2013 had claimed that bitcoin’s days were numbered.
"We are in the early stages of Bitcoin's rapid institutional adoption as a digital asset," Saylor said during the company's first quarter 2024 earnings call. He added that in the future, Bitcoin will not compete with other crypto assets, but with gold, art, stocks, real estate, bonds and other forms of stored value in wealth creation, wealth protection and capital markets."
2、Marathon Digital Holdings Inc.
Unsurprisingly, bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital is also a large holder of bitcoin, holding 17,631 bitcoins in its corporate reserves (worth approximately $1.23 billion as of May 2024). The company aims to build "one of the largest bitcoin mining operations in North America, operating at the lowest energy cost." Before turning to crypto mining, the company started out as a patent holding company (often referred to as a "patent troll").
As of May 2024, Marathon Digital operates approximately 240,000 Bitcoin mining machines, capable of generating 29.9 EH/s of computing power, with an average operating power of 21.1 EH/s.
The company noted that it is accelerating its growth plans to “mitigate the impact” after the 2024 Bitcoin halving, and said it hopes to double the size of its mining operations in 2024.
However, the company missed its revenue target for the first quarter of 2024, citing factors including "unexpected equipment failures, transmission line maintenance and higher-than-expected weather-related restrictions in Garden City and other locations."
3、Tesla
Electric car maker Tesla joined the ranks of companies holding Bitcoin in December 2020, disclosing in an SEC filing that the company had invested "a total of $1.5 billion" in the cryptocurrency.
Tesla sold 10% of its Bitcoin holdings in the first quarter of 2021; according to CEO Elon Musk, this was to demonstrate Bitcoin's liquidity as an alternative to holding cash.
Tesla's Bitcoin investment comes after months of speculation following Musk's tweets about Bitcoin. At the end of 2020, MicroStrategy's Saylor expressed his willingness to share his "strategy" on Bitcoin investment with Musk, and said that Tesla's foray into Bitcoin would bring "$100 billion in benefits" to Tesla shareholders.
However, Musk and Tesla have always had an up-and-down relationship with Bitcoin. After announcing that Tesla would accept Bitcoin as payment for its products and services in March 2021, just two months later, Musk suddenly announced that the company would no longer accept Bitcoin as a payment method.
Musk mentioned that due to the "rapid increase" in the use of fossil fuels in Bitcoin mining and trading, Tesla announced that it would not sell any of its Bitcoin holdings and would consider using it for trading again after mining "shifts to more sustainable energy." He later clarified that the company would resume using Bitcoin for trading once miners use 50% clean energy.
In July 2022, Tesla revealed in its second quarter 2022 quarterly update that the company had sold "approximately 75%" of its Bitcoin holdings, with its balance sheet showing digital asset sales totaling $936 million. In a conference call with analysts, Musk said the company did this to bolster its cash position in anticipation of the uncertainty surrounding COVID lockdown measures. At the time, he also added that the company "is open to increasing our Bitcoin holdings in the future, so this should not be viewed as some kind of ruling against Bitcoin."
According to bitcointreasuries.org, Tesla Inc. holds 9,720 bitcoins in its portfolio as of May 2024 (about $677 million at current prices). The company has maintained its bitcoin position, with its Q1 2024 balance sheet showing an estimated value of $184 million as of Q3 2023 and Q1 2024.
Musk has also become an avid supporter of Dogecoin, and Tesla allows the use of Dogecoin to purchase some products.
4、Hut 8 Mining Corp
Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 holds 9,109 bitcoins, worth about $644 million at current prices.
The company went public on the Nasdaq Global Select Market in June 2021 under the ticker symbol HUT. The company's SEC filing states that the company is committed to increasing shareholder value by increasing the volume and value of its Bitcoin holdings.
The company also explained that it generates fiat currency income from its self-mined and held Bitcoin reserves through a yield account arrangement established with a leading digital asset prime brokerage firm.
In November 2023, the company merged with another Bitcoin mining company, US Bitcoin, and the combined company will describe itself as an "energy infrastructure company targeting Bitcoin mining and data centers." These mining centers are located in six locations in Alberta, Texas, and New York, and reportedly have a self-mining capacity of 7.5 EH/s.
In its first quarter 2024 results, the company reported revenue of $51.7 million for the quarter, a 231% year-over-year increase.
5、Riot Platforms, Inc.
Riot Blockchain, another cryptocurrency mining company in the United States, holds 9,084 bitcoins, which is worth $643 million at today's prices.
The company's valuation rose from less than $200 million in 2020 to more than $6 billion in 2021, and the Nasdaq-listed company has been aggressively expanding. In April 2021, the company spent $650 million to purchase a one-gigawatt Bitcoin mining facility in Rockdale, Texas; the company described the purchase as a "transformational event" that made the company "the largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining and hosting company in North America measured by total developed capacity."
In April 2022, Riot announced further plans to build an additional one-gigawatt mining facility in Navarro County, Texas. After the 2022 cryptocurrency market crash, CEO Jason Rice told Yahoo Finance that Bitcoin mining will "continue to thrive in the United States," saying that "even though the economics of Bitcoin mining have declined, there is still a huge opportunity here."
By January 2023, the company changed its name to Riot Platforms, aiming to diversify its business model as the cryptocurrency mining industry faces challenges from the ongoing crypto winter and rising energy prices.
In early 2024, the company warned shareholders that there was “no guarantee” that the upcoming Bitcoin halving would have a positive impact on its profitability. In June, the company became the target of short seller Kerrisdale, which claimed that “Bitcoin mining is one of the dumbest business models we have encountered in the past 15 years of short trading,” but the company’s stock price quickly recovered after an initial drop following the report.
6、Coinbase Global, Inc.
Without a doubt, the most well-known cryptocurrency company on this list is cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, which conducted a landmark direct listing on the Nasdaq in April 2021.
Prior to the listing, in February 2021, Coinbase revealed that it held $230 million in Bitcoin on its balance sheet. By June 2024, it held 9,000 Bitcoins in its reserves, valued at just under $642 million.
7、Galaxy Digital Holdings
Crypto-focused commercial bank Galaxy Digital Holdings holds 8,100 bitcoins. This is down from the 16,400 bitcoins it held in July 2022, although bitcoin price growth means the dollar value of its bitcoin holdings in June 2024 is close to $578 million, compared to the $357 million value of its reserves two years ago.
Galaxy Digital Holdings was founded by Michael Novogratz in January 2018 and has partnered with cryptocurrency companies including Block.one and BlockFi. Not surprisingly, Novogratz is a staunch supporter of Bitcoin, saying in March 2024 that Bitcoin would never fall below $50,000 again, and a few months later predicting that Bitcoin would soar to $100,000 by the end of the year.
Galaxy Digital is one of the companies that manages the U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that received historic approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in January 2024.
8、Block, Inc.
In October 2020, Blockchain, along with Tesla, lit the fuse for institutional investment in Bitcoin by investing $50 million in Bitcoin. By June 2024, the company held 8,027 Bitcoins, worth approximately $573 million. This is perhaps not surprising, as the company's CEO Jack Dorsey is an active advocate of Bitcoin (even running his own Bitcoin node).
At the time of the initial investment, the company described it as “part of Square’s ongoing commitment to Bitcoin,” noting that “the company plans to continually evaluate its total investment in Bitcoin in light of its other investments.”
The company has invested in Bitcoin technology, launched its own Bitcoin wallet, and developed Bitcoin mining ASIC chips. In April 2024, its payment services subsidiary Square announced that it would enable businesses using its Cash App product to automatically convert a portion of daily sales into Bitcoin.
In May 2024, the company announced that it would reinvest 10% of profits from Bitcoin-related products and services into Bitcoin on a dollar-cost averaging (DCA) basis for its purchase plan.
The company changed its name from Square to Block in December 2021, an apparent reference to the blockchain technology that Bitcoin is based on. The name change came as a rebranding after Dorsey announced a week ahead of schedule that he would step down as Twitter CEO to focus on the payments company.
9、CleanSpark
US Bitcoin mining company CleanSpark holds 6,154 bitcoins, worth approximately $439 million as of June 2024.
Ahead of the 2024 Bitcoin halving, the company expanded its operations and acquired three Bitcoin mining facilities in Mississippi for $19.8 million, adding 2.4 EH/s to its mining capacity. The company also added a third facility in Dalton, Georgia, adding an additional 0.8 EH/s of mining capacity.
In June 2024, CleanSpark revealed that they mined 417 bitcoins in May, claiming to have “exceeded industry expectations” in the first full month of production after the halving. The company also stated that it plans to further expand to a location in Wyoming in the “coming days.”
10、Bitcoin Group SE
Germany-based venture capital firm Bitcoin Group SE ranks lower on the list, holding a relatively small 3,830 bitcoins, worth $275 million at current prices.
The company’s investments include cryptocurrency trading platform Bitcoin.de and Futurum Bank. The two companies merged in October 2020 to form “Germany’s first crypto bank.” The move came after the German parliament decided to allow banks to sell and store cryptocurrencies. Marco Bodewein, managing director of Bitcoin Group SE, highlighted the opportunity to introduce the “high returns and security features” of cryptocurrencies to the bank’s institutional investors.
