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Ordinary investors, not crypto companies or institutional investors, own most of the world's Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). Individuals hold about 14 million BTC, or approximately two-thirds of the 21 million BTC that will ever exist, according to River's Bitcoin adoption report for 2026. (River was founded in 2019 to "build the Bitcoin bank of the world.")
The distribution of the coin's supply has been on my mind for years now. But I've only understood very recently that other people's misconceptions about who holds the most of it represent a significant buying opportunity. Let's walk through the logic here.
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The biggest single holder of Bitcoin is probably its pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, who disappeared in 2011 and whose identity remains unknown.
Many believe that the wallet addresses that are thought to constitute Satoshi's untouched stash hold 968,000 coins, or 4.6% of all that can exist. An investigation by Cointelegraph in September 2026 found that the estimates of the hoard's exact size range from just under 900,000 to about 1.2 million BTC. Those coins have never moved, and given Satoshi's potentially permanent absence, most people, including yours truly, assume that they never will, as to move them would cause widespread panic that they might be sold.
There are also an estimated 1.6 million coins that are permanently "lost," i.e., inaccessible to their owners. It is with some regret that I report to you that a small quantity of that lost sum was at one point under my control. Regardless, neither that pile nor Satoshi's are likely to re-enter circulation -- I'm certainly never going to find the wallet credentials I was using more than 10 years ago -- which has the effect of shrinking the pool of coins available to everyone else who might want to buy them.
Among the businesses that constitute the biggest potential buyers, Strategy has the most, with 848,000 BTC, or about 4% of the total; every other company combined holds about 3.9%.
As you can see, even exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as a group held just 7.1% of the supply despite being issued by major asset managers. And governments hold about 2.5% of the supply as of early October 2026 -- perhaps only a smidgen of what they could ultimately want to hold over the coming years.
So what does Bitcoin's ownership and distribution indicate?
In short, no single player can dictate its price by manipulating the supply, nor can a major holder manipulate the blockchain's policies, as owning coins does not confer any voting power over the underlying software or the direction that its developers choose to take.
The groups that are the most likely to want far more Bitcoin than they currently own, namely corporations, funds, and governments, today own only a minority of it. In 2025, individual holders sold a net 696,000 BTC while businesses bought 489,000, funds and ETFs 205,000, and governments 135,000, according to data from River. If that trend continues, River projects those three groups could own about 11.7 million BTC, or 56% of the supply cap, by 2036.
To own more, those groups need to buy it from the people who currently hold it by offering a price that the holders find attractive. Given that Bitcoin's supply is mined at a slower and slower rate after each of its halvings, over the long run it is thus quite likely that aspiring buyers will need to bid more and more to secure a portion of the supply. That's why I believe that buying it now will pay off later.
If you have the patience to wait for Bitcoin's slow-moving supply constriction to give way to higher prices, which can take years and is not guaranteed to happen, it's worth buying today and holding while the big accumulators compete for what's left. The big players can always choose to sell instead of buy, but in the long run, it's hard to envision what might make them dump Bitcoin and refuse to buy it again when its price is trending upward.
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Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Most Investors Are Wrong About Who Owns the Most Bitcoin. That Misunderstanding Creates a Buying Opportunity. was originally published by The Motley Fool
