How Many People Own 1 Bitcoin?
Summary: As of 2024, there are about 420 million cryptocurrency users globally. Of these, approximately 1.5 million individuals possess more than 1 Bitcoin, which is just 0.36% of all cryptocurrency users.
Here’s the detailed breakdown:
- Total Bitcoin Supply: The maximum number of Bitcoins is capped at 21 million. Currently, around 93.32% of this total, or approximately 19.59 million Bitcoins, have already been mined.
- Remaining Bitcoin: The remaining 6.68% (1.41 million Bitcoins) will be mined gradually over the next century, until 2140. After this point, miners will earn only transaction fees instead of block rewards.
- Lost Bitcoin: It's estimated that about 6 million Bitcoins are lost due to forgotten private keys or lost hardware wallets, leaving roughly 13.59 million Bitcoins in circulation.
Although in theory, 13.59 million people could each own 1 Bitcoin, the actual distribution is much more concentrated. Blockchain data shows that 1.94% of wallet addresses control 92.76% of all Bitcoin. This equates to about 1,020,070 addresses.
However, since individuals can have multiple wallet addresses and many large addresses belong to exchanges and financial institutions that hold Bitcoin on behalf of numerous users, these entities significantly impact the distribution. Currently, exchanges hold around 1.89 million Bitcoins.
Estimating Retail and Large Investors
Using the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) to analyze the Bitcoins held by exchanges:
- Retail Investors: Likely possess 20% of the 1.89 million Bitcoins, or approximately 378,000 Bitcoins. If each retail investor owns 1 Bitcoin, there would be about 378,000 retail investors with 1 Bitcoin.
- Large Investors: Represent 20% of investors but hold 80% of the Bitcoins on exchanges. Hence, around 94,500 large investors hold the remaining 1.51 million Bitcoins (1.89 million x 80%).
Combining both groups, the number of users on exchanges with more than 1 Bitcoin is about 472,500.
Total Estimate
Assuming no overlap between exchange users and on-chain addresses (though some overlap likely exists), the number of individuals owning more than 1 Bitcoin is around 1.5 million. This represents just 0.36% of the 420 million cryptocurrency users, highlighting how uncommon it is to own 1 Bitcoin in the crypto world.
