As Bitcoin (BTC) crossed the $100,000 milestone, here's a look into the biggest Bitcoin holders amongst publicly traded companies like MicroStrategy, Coinbase, etc.
MicroStrategy (MSTR) (252,220 BTC)
MicroStrategy has become one of the most successful Bitcoin holders amongst tech companies, so much so that it is now advising Microsoft and Amazon to get into BTC investment.
This publicly traded Bitcoin holder started purchasing the coin 4 years ago, back in August 2020, citing that the pandemic downturn and political unpredictability will lead the dollar to decline.
At that time, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor said: “This investment reflects our belief that Bitcoin, as the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, is a dependable store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash.”
In these four years, the company has become the biggest corporate Bitcoin holder in the world with 252,22 BTC as of Nov. 11, 2024. The average purchase price of these coins was $35,158, which means that the company made a total investment of $7.538 billion.
The Virginia-headquartered company now holds 10 times more than the next largest corporate Bitcoin holder, and this caused MicroStrategy’s share to spike 350% last year.
Tesla (TSLA) (9,720 BTC)
After MicroStrategy, the most popular publicly traded Bitcoin holder is Elon Musk's Tesla, which has the 4th largest Bitcoin reserve in the world valued at $546.7 million.
The automotive company first bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in 2021 to increase its liquidity and provide options for crypto products to its customers. However, Tesla had to sell a substantial portion of its BTC holdings due to a loss, which was in line with the market trends of companies reassessing their crypto holdings. However, despite selling BTC, the company has maintained its holdings as reported in the Q1 2024 balance sheet.
Hut 8 Mining Corp (HUT) (9,109 BTC)
This Canadian infrastructure firm which mines cryptocurrencies also runs cloud data center facilities to cater to computing services seeking clients. Hut 8 Mining Corp. joined hands with US Bitcoin in 2023 to become New Hut, after which it has 6 facilities of 825 megawatts for crypto mining.
The company's Bitcoin holdings stood at 75% of the current market cap, which is underlined as a protective measure for investors and source for capital growth.
Until June, Hut 8 was second in Bitcoin mining with 9,102 BTC in reserve, which provided it substantial liquidity to benefit from the price rally.
At present, the company’s Bitcoin holdings is 82% of its market cap, as it are worth $592 million.
Marathon Digital Holdings (25,945 BTC)
Florida based Marathon Digital Holdings is a well-known player in the Bitcoin mining industry since it started business in 2010. This publicly traded company has an installed hash rate of 29.9 EH/S.
Hash rates are used to measure the computational capacity required to process Bitcoin transactions and mining.
Although Marathon Digital Holdings mostly prioritised retaining the Bitcoin it mined from Sept-Oct last year, it sold about 1,700 BTC to recover operational costs.
However, these sales didn't dent the company's overall Bitcoin holding focus, as it sold only the portion necessary for reinvestment.
Marathon Digital Holdings currently has 25945 BTC, and the strength of its pool lies in the 32% increase in the blocks, which rose to 170 from 129. During this time in May, the company's share of miner awards rose to 4.2% from 3.2%, and it managed to reduce the April Haliving event impact as it won more blocks. This led to more Bitcoin productions and reduced the decline to 27%.
Coinbase (~9,000 BTC)
Crypto exchange Coinbase is one of the leading publicly traded Bitcoin holders despite a significant decrease in its BTC holding in April this year.
The crypto exchange lost over 85,000 BTC in a span of 30 days, making it the second-largest net outflow record for a month. A similar thing happened in March 2021 when 86,000 BTC were withdrawn from Coinbase.
Since March 2020, the crypto exchange has seen a steady decline in its Bitcoin balance, which resulted in a dwindling figure of 730,000 BTC holding in July 2021, down from 1 million BTC seen in December 2020. That's a 270,000 BTC loss when the price went up to $60,000 from $10,000.
Recently, the downward trend has further accelerated as Bitcoin ETFs got approved in January 2024, resulting in Coinbase holding 411,000 BTC. This shows that institutional and retail investors are rapidly withdrawing Bitcoin holdings from the crypto exchange.
Riot Platforms Inc. (10,019 BTC)
The last major publicly traded Bitcoin holder is the BTC mining company Riot Platforms, which has recently planned to acquire Bitfarms for $2.30 per share, which could make it the largest BTC miner in the world
The merger would enhance Riot’s BTC production capacity, positioning it alongside CleanSpark Inc. and Marathon Digital Holdings Inc.
At present, the Colorado-based company has the largest Bitcoin mining facility in North America in Texas with 700 megawatts power capacity.
It's further expanding by setting up another mining facility in Texas, which will be of 1 gigawatt capacity. As per data from Bitcoin treasuries, Riot has 9084 Bitcoins, as of now.
Together, these 6 companies make up a significant portion of Bitcoin holdings, which provides them with enough liquidity.