Data Suggests That a Significant Portion of Bitcoin (BTC) Could Be in the Hands of a Limited Number of Larger Wallets

As Bitcoin (BTC) adoption grows, ownership continues to concentrate among larger wallets, leaving retail investors with a shrinking share

Bitcoin (BTC) adoption may be growing, but ownership continues to concentrate among larger wallets, leaving retail investors with a shrinking share, new data from Santiment shows.

As of May 13, wallets holding at least 10 BTC — worth about $1 million or more — controlled over 82% of the total mined Bitcoin supply.

Only around 17.5% of Bitcoin is held by wallets “holding less than $1 million in BTC,” which can be broadly classified as ‘mainly comprised of small institutional investors,’' according to Santiment analysts.

Wallets with 100 BTC or more — currently valued at over $10 million — now hold more than 60% of the total supply.

Institutions and liquidity providers prefer to hold BTC in larger quantities, and as such, they are known to hold more than 100 BTC.

“We're also estimating that 3 Million - 4 Million BTC could be gone forever due to lost private keys or inaccessible wallets. Plus, there's still 1.14M coins to be mined until the year 2140,” the analysts noted.

Some 3.47 million BTC remain in wallets holding fewer than 10 BTC, worth an estimated $358 billion.

Whether this smaller group will continue to hold or sell could depend on future market sentiment.

“Historically, major price retraces tend to instigate retail panic-selling, followed by larger wallets absorbing more of the loose coins that retail is no longer comfortable holding for the long run.”

According to the crypto analytics firm, at the current rate, it could take about 65 years to sell all of the 10 BTC or more wallets.

“At the current rate of 81.8% being held by 10+ BTC wallets & 17.5% being held by wallets holding less than $1M in BTC, it would take roughly 65 years to sell off all of the 10+ BTC wallets.”

Earlier this year, Bitcoin broke down a key resistance level at $50,000, and it could continue to rally towards another resistance at $80,000.

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