Bitcoin Ownership Map 2025

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Fifteen years after its creation, Bitcoin has grown from a peer-to-peer experiment into a global financial instrument. But behind the open network, power is concentrating. Liquidity and ownership now rest with a small set of custodians, ETFs, and even governments.

In 2025, Bitcoin’s decentralization is still visible in code, but not in who owns it. Coinbase, BlackRock, the US government, and MicroStrategy together control more Bitcoin than the combined holdings of the top 1,000 retail whales.

Bitcoin has achieved legitimacy, but it has also become centralized in practice.

Key Takeaways

• The top 20 entities hold about 31% of all Bitcoin.

• The US government now owns around 355,000 BTC worth $36B after its largest DOJ seizure ever.

• Spot ETFs control about 1.25M BTC or 6% of total supply.

• 60% of wallets hold less than 0.01 BTC, which equals under 1% of total supply.

• North America accounts for 10.7% of all Bitcoin ownership, while Africa holds just 1.6%.

• About 1.6M BTC are lost forever and 1.2M are yet to be mined, leaving a tradable float near 17M BTC.

State of Ownership: 2025 Snapshot

The Institutional Shift

When spot Bitcoin ETFs went live in 2024, they changed the structure of ownership. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) now holds roughly 690,000 BTC, Fidelity’s FBTC manages about 200,000 BTC, and Grayscale’s GBTC, after converting, still retains a large base of long-term holders.

Together, these funds control around 1.25M BTC, equal to 6% of all supply. This makes ETFs the new liquidity hubs of Bitcoin. They have replaced miners as the main distributors of supply, with inflows and redemptions now dictating short-term market direction.

ETFs brought legitimacy and deep liquidity, but they also centralized ownership. A handful of custodians now control millions of coins on behalf of millions of investors. The open market has become a collection of regulated vaults.

The Corporate Layer

Corporate treasuries have adopted Bitcoin as a strategic reserve, a hedge against inflation, or a signaling tool.

This group holds about 900,000 BTC, or 4% of total supply. MicroStrategy’s aggressive, debt-backed buying has become the blueprint for corporate accumulation. Others, such as Tether and Block.one, hold Bitcoin as a stability and confidence asset rather than a speculative one.

The corporate strategy has clear benefits: it locks supply and signals confidence. But it also adds leverage and systemic exposure. If markets turn, these same firms could become forced sellers.

The Retail Mirage

Retail remains Bitcoin’s largest group by count but not by influence. Over 60% of wallets contain less than 0.01 BTC, equal to under 1% of total coins. Addresses with 1–10 BTC control about 10% of supply, and the top 100 addresses hold more than 14%.

After the FTX collapse, self-custody briefly increased. But ETF adoption reversed that trend, as convenience again overtook sovereignty. Bitcoin’s user base keeps expanding, yet the number of people truly holding their own keys continues to shrink.

Retail gives Bitcoin its legitimacy and global narrative. The question is whether it can still shape the market when institutional players own most of the liquidity.

The Geographic Divide

Ownership remains concentrated in the developed world. Less than 4% of the global population owns Bitcoin, and most of that capital is in North America. Emerging markets lead in transaction activity but not in total holdings. The wealth distribution mirrors the traditional economy that Bitcoin was meant to disrupt.

The paradox is clear: the world’s most borderless asset is still shaped by geography and inequality.

Critical Analysis: The New Centralization Paradox

Bitcoin was built to remove central points of control, yet success has drawn it back into them.

Custodial centralization: Roughly 60% of circulating Bitcoin now sits under 10 major custodians. If any one of them falters, the effects could ripple across ETFs, derivatives, and stablecoin markets.

Policy centralization: The U.S. government’s 355,000 BTC reserve, now worth $36B, gives it unplanned market power. How and when these holdings are auctioned could sway liquidity and sentiment. Bitcoin has become part of the state’s enforcement machinery.

Financialization: Bitcoin’s price now moves with the same liquidity cycles as equities and bonds. ETFs and structured products have reduced volatility but tied Bitcoin to traditional finance.

Social centralization: The narrative is led not by developers or miners but by CEOs, fund managers, and politicians. Bitcoin’s culture has become top-down, driven by reputation and capital rather than community.

The decentralization ideal remains intact at the protocol level, but socially and financially, Bitcoin has become centralized.

Possible Solutions and Emerging Counterforces

Self-custody revival: New wallet technology is making private key management simpler. Passkey wallets, social recovery systems, and integrated insurance could make self-custody mainstream again.

Real-time proof of reserves: Custodians need continuous, cryptographic verification instead of quarterly audits. Emerging systems such as zk-proof-based attestations can show holdings live, not retroactively.

Transparent sovereign management: Governments that seize Bitcoin should manage it transparently rather than sell it in opaque auctions. A “sovereign reserve” framework could stabilize how states handle confiscated BTC and reduce market shocks.

Decentralized ETF alternatives:  Developers are testing trustless vaults and on-chain ETF models. These products mimic regulated exposure but eliminate custodians, potentially restoring decentralization within compliance boundaries.

Education and ownership literacy: Grassroots projects in Latin America and Africa are reframing Bitcoin around self-sovereignty rather than price speculation. Long-term distribution depends more on user literacy than on product innovation.

The Broader Implication

Bitcoin’s ownership has become a reflection of global power. It no longer represents a purely peer-to-peer economy but an interconnected financial system where the same forces, governments, funds, and large institutions, shape outcomes.

Three truths now define this era:

1. Bitcoin is systemic. ETF growth and government holdings make it part of the global financial order.

2. Sovereignty is conditional. Most holders depend on intermediaries to store or trade their assets.

3. The next disruption will be about ownership, not technology.

The challenge is to build tools and incentives that push Bitcoin back toward distributed control. That means empowering users, increasing transparency, and making decentralization economically competitive again.

Our Take

Bitcoin’s code remains decentralized, but its ownership has become concentrated. The network is stronger and more accepted, yet also more dependent on institutions and regulators.

The next phase for Bitcoin isn’t about price or halving cycles. It’s about redistributing control. Until that happens, Bitcoin will remain a paradox—technically decentralized, socially centralized, and globally owned by the few who were meant to be replaced.

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