Satoshi Nakamoto remains the largest known Bitcoin holder, with Arkham estimating the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin controls 1.096 million BTC, while Coinbase ranks second among labeled entities with roughly 981,000 BTC.
The figures come from Arkham’s latest 2026 ranking of top Bitcoin holders, which groups wallets into entities when addresses are believed to be controlled by the same person, company, exchange or institution. Arkham said its Satoshi attribution is based on the Patoshi Pattern, a known early-mining pattern linked to Bitcoin’s creator, and includes known addresses from which Satoshi spent BTC. The firm estimates that Satoshi accumulated the coins by mining about 22,000 blocks in Bitcoin’s earliest period.
At 1.096 million BTC, Satoshi’s position represents about 5.5% of Bitcoin’s fixed 21 million supply. The holding has remained one of the most closely watched dormant positions in financial markets because the coins have not moved in any meaningful way since Bitcoin’s early years. Any movement from wallets credibly linked to Satoshi would likely become one of the most consequential onchain events in crypto history.
Coinbase ranks second in Arkham’s entity table with about 981,000 BTC, or roughly 5% of supply. That does not mean Coinbase owns all of those coins outright. As an exchange and custodian, Coinbase holds large amounts of Bitcoin on behalf of customers, institutions and other products.
Bitcoin Ownership Becomes Institutional
The ranking illustrates how Bitcoin’s ownership base has changed since its early cypherpunk era. After Satoshi and Coinbase, Arkham lists Strategy with 844,000 BTC, BlackRock with 732,000 BTC, Binance with 675,000 BTC and Fidelity Custody with 426,000 BTC. The U.S. government holds about 324,000 to 325,000 BTC, mostly from criminal asset seizures.
Those numbers show that Bitcoin is increasingly held through institutional rails. Exchanges custody customer balances. ETF issuers hold coins backing public-market investment products. Treasury companies accumulate Bitcoin as a corporate reserve asset. Governments hold Bitcoin primarily through law-enforcement seizures.
The rise of BlackRock is especially important. Spot Bitcoin ETFs launched in the United States in January 2024 and rapidly changed the ownership structure of the asset by allowing traditional investors to access Bitcoin through regulated brokerage accounts. Arkham said it identified the onchain locations of ETF holdings after launch, including major issuers such as BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, Bitwise and ARK Invest.
Strategy remains the leading public-company holder. Arkham notes that its full holdings include Bitcoin that may not be visible directly under the company’s entity page because a portion is held by Fidelity Custody. That distinction matters because onchain attribution can understate corporate positions when assets are custodied through third parties.
Dormant Supply Still Shapes Market Psychology
Satoshi’s position remains unique because it is both the largest and the least active. Unlike Coinbase, BlackRock or Binance, Satoshi is not operating as a custodian or investment vehicle. The coins appear to represent early mining rewards from the network’s launch phase and have become part of Bitcoin’s mythology.
The market generally treats those coins as dormant, which reduces their practical float. If they are permanently lost, inaccessible or intentionally untouched, effective circulating supply is lower than headline supply. If they were ever moved, however, traders would immediately reassess both sell-pressure risk and the symbolic meaning of Satoshi reappearing.
Arkham’s list also shows that wallet-level rankings can be misleading. The largest individual wallets are mostly exchange cold wallets, including Binance addresses with hundreds of thousands of BTC. Entity-level rankings provide a clearer picture because large holders typically split assets across many addresses for security and operational reasons.
For investors, the data reinforces two conclusions. Bitcoin remains highly concentrated among a small number of identifiable entities, but much of that concentration reflects custody, ETFs and treasury structures rather than simple individual ownership. At the same time, Satoshi’s untouched 1.096 million BTC continues to sit above every exchange, public company, ETF issuer and government in the Bitcoin ownership hierarchy.
That combination makes Bitcoin unusual among major assets: its largest holder is still its missing creator, while its fastest-growing holders are regulated financial institutions.
