Bitcoin now occupies a central place in the global financial sphere. More and more governments, businesses and funds integrate it into their reserves, while individuals continue to accumulate. In appearance, the property seems widely distributed, with more than 54 million Bitcoin addresses recorded on the blockchain. However, a more attentive examination reveals a very different reality: these figures do not reflect which really controls the asset.
In short
- Less than 20,000 portfolios hold more than 60 % of all bitcoins, illustrating an extreme concentration of property.
- The institutional, scholarships, depositaries, companies, ETF and minors portfolios control a major part of the BTC on behalf of many customers.
- After filtering minimal sales and aggregated accounts, around 3.9 million active users control the majority of Bitcoin outside institutions.
Whales and institutions dominate the property of Bitcoin
Sani, founder of the Time Chain Index analytical platform, examined on-chain data in order to better understand the real distribution of bitcoin. Its analysis highlights an extreme concentration: a handful of addresses controls the majority of the offer. On all of the addresses identified, only 18,695 are classified as “whale portfolios”, but they alone hold more than 60 % of bitcoins in circulation.
An important part of the addresses also belongs to institutional entities rather than individual users. Of the 54.4 million existing addresses, around 271,883 are linked to scholarships, depositaries, companies, ETF or minors. Together, these aggregated accounts have 8,789,113 BTC, or almost 44 % of the total offer. However, these portfolios represent funds managed on behalf of multiple customers, not individual assets.
Filter data to reveal the real user base
By excluding institutional and grouped portfolios, the remaining addresses offer a more precise overview of the real distribution and significant sales.
- Collectively, these addresses hold 11,137,306 BTC, even if many of them contain only tiny fragments from old transactions.
- To isolate the relevant assets, Sani removed addresses containing less than 0.001 BTC as well as those associated with companies or depositaries.
- After this filtering, 23.43 million addresses remained active, controlling 11,131,336 BTC, the majority of assets held outside the major institutional accounts.
From this refined dataset, Sani underlines that the total number of addresses does not correspond to the actual number of usersmost holders with several wallets. Assuming an average of six addresses per person, it estimates that the Bitcoin network has approximately 3.9 million active users, collectively holding the majority of the non -institutional BTC.
This analysis highlights the deceptive nature of the gross figure of 54 million addresses, which gives a massive illusion of distribution. In reality, the whales dominate, the depositaries centralize almost half of the offer, and the base of active users remains much more limited than it seems.
A prudent market despite the price increase
At the same time, Bitcoin exchanges around $ 111,000, up approximately 2 % over the last 24 hours. According to Glassnode, the tendency to accumulation score recently weakeneda sign of a more cautious approach on the part of the big holders.
If demand does not leave, the Bitcoin market could undergo increased pressure linked to the available supply, which would weigh on short -term prices.
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