The World’s Biggest Bitcoin Investors
According to a website tracking global transactions of the cryptocurrency, there are 10 Bitcoin billionaires in the current moment. That number also includes government agencies, such as the FBI.
The price of Bitcoin, the most famous cryptocurrency, has rocketed from less than $2,000 six months ago to more than $16,000, making many people very rich in the process.
Bitcoin tracking website Bitfino reports, there are 10 “digital wallets” holding more than $1bn worth of Bitcoin. It doesn’t show the location of those wallets in the world or the owners of wallets.
The website informs, that the 10 richest Bitcoin owners collectively hold $13.5bn worth of the cryptocurrency.
There has been much speculation surrounding the identities of the world’s richest Bitcoin investors.
The twin brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who claimed that Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea of social network from them, are considered to become billionaires by buying $11m worth of Bitcoin in 2013 and retaining ownership throughout its meteoric rise.
The pair hold an estimated 100,000 units of the cryptocurrency. At the current price of $16,832 their 100,000 holding would be worth $1.68bn.
There is an anonymous figure, who is likely to have been fabulously enriched by Bitcoin, known as “Satoshi Nakamoto”. He published the original white paper laying out what the currency would look like in 2008. Last year the Silicon Valley magazine Wired pointed ,that he owned one million Bitcoins, which would now be worth almost $16.7 billion.
Also likely to be among the biggest holders of the digital currency in the world is the FBI. Again according to Wired, the American Government owns at least 144,000 Bitcoins seized from operators of the Silk Road. At today’s valuation this haul would be worth $2.4bn. Both of these fortunes are thought to be spread across several different wallets.
Mainstream private investors as well as high net worth individuals show rising interest to include Bitcoin in their portfolios. This caused many investment funds, which list their shares on stock markets or issue units direct to investors, to buy up the currency.
One of the most famous of such funds is Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust, with shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It currently owns $1.5bn Bitcoin on behalf of shareholders, but at $1.9bn, is trading at a 26pc premium.
