304 days or roughly nine months ago, 42 companies held bitcoin on their balance sheet with an aggregate total of 1,350,073 bitcoin on March 1, 2021. Today, metrics indicate there are 59 companies, a few countries, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with 1,499,493 bitcoin held in treasuries.
Private and Public Companies, ETFs, and Countries — Treasuries List Highlights 59 Firms With Bitcoin on Their Balance Sheets
Over the last 12 months, a great number of companies have disclosed that they have added bitcoin (BTC) to the firm’s balance sheet and even countries like El Salvador are now storing BTC in their national treasury.
On March 1, 2021, Bitcoin.com News reported that there were 42 firms that consisted of public and private companies, alongside bitcoin funds as well. At the time 1,350,073 BTC was held by the company’s and it represented 6.43% out of the 21 million maximum supply.
Now similar to Microstrategy announcing a BTC purchase every so often, the Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele has also been telling the public about El Salvador’s BTC acquisitions. For instance, El Salvador purchased 21 BTC to celebrate the 21st day, year, and century on December 21.
The Bitcoin Treasuries list hosted on buybitcoinworldwide.com shows that there are 59 companies that hold BTC on their balance sheets and five different countries. At the time of writing, the web portal claims 1,499,493 BTC is held by these entities.
This equates to $71.6 billion in USD value and 7.14% of the 21 million BTC supply cap. Now the Bitcoin Treasuries list notes that five countries own BTC and the first one on the list is Bulgaria, however, the stash of 213,519 BTC held by Bulgarian authorities is controversial and many people believe the coins were sold.
In April 2018, the regional news publication Bivol explained that Bulgaria’s finance minister, Vladislav Goranov, explained that the BTC was sold. Goranov noted that the BTC was sold to “several sovereign wealth funds and Asian investors.” It also noted that Deloitte and the FBI helped facilitate the sales and the BTC was sold for €15,000 per unit.
If that stash is taken off the Bitcoin Treasuries list’s aggregate, the current BTC held by companies and four countries would be 1,285,974 BTC worth $61.1 billion. The Bitcoin Treasuries list then says El Salvador holds 1,391 BTC, the UK government holds 46,351 BTC, Finland has 1,981 BTC, and Georgia has 66 BTC.
Microstrategy, Tesla, Galaxy Digital Hold the Top 3 Public Company Positions — Block.one, Tezos Foundation, Stone Ridge Hold the Top 3 Private Company Positions
That would leave the Bitcoin Treasuries list down to ETFs, private companies, and public firms. The publicly listed company with the most BTC at the time of writing according to the Bitcoin Treasuries list is Microstrategy, with 122,478 BTC or $5.8 billion worth of coins.
However, the company’s CEO Michael Saylor told the public it purchased 1,914 BTC on Thursday. The Bitcoin Treasuries list shows that Tesla and Galaxy Digital hold the second and third largest amount of bitcoin in terms of public companies.
Tesla holds 42,902 BTC according to the list and Galaxy Digital has a stash of 16,400 BTC. Those two public firms are followed by Voyager Digital LTD (12,260 BTC), Square Inc. (8,027 BTC), and Marathon Digital Holdings (7,649 BTC).
That leaves 39 public companies holding BTC on their balance sheets with firms like MOGO Financing (18 BTC), Phunware, Inc. (127 BTC), Coinbase Global, Inc. (4,482 BTC), and Brooker Group’s BROOK (BKK) (1,150 BTC).
Six private companies hold bitcoin as well including Block.one (140,000), The Tezos Foundation (17,500), Stone Ridge Holdings Group (10,000), Massachusetts Mutual (3,500), Lisk Foundation (1,898), and Seetee AS (1,170).
Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust Dominates the Entire Bitcoin Treasuries List, ‘Who Owns All the Bitcoin’ Lists Are Not Entirely Accurate
14 funds hold 809,848 BTC according to the list and the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) holds 648,069 BTC of that total. Following GBTC, there are funds like CoinShares / XBT with 48,466 BTC, Purpose Bitcoin ETF with 22,411 BTC, and 3iQ Coinshares Bitcoin ETF that holds 21,237 BTC.
The Bitcoin Treasuries list gives a fairly good glimpse of a number of companies claiming to hold BTC on their balance sheet and it’s a great deal larger than it was last year. However, just like the discrepancy with the Bulgaria bitcoin stash mentioned above, none of the so-called “who owns all the bitcoin” lists are entirely accurate.
In fact, without cryptographic proof, these types of lists don’t hold water when it comes to actual onchain verification and actual “proof-of-reserves.” Despite this issue, the lists are useful for a visual perspective, of what could be the case, if a majority of these entities are being truthful about their BTC reserves.
What do you think about the Bitcoin Treasuries list at the end of the year? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.