Most Bitcoin Still Belongs to Individuals, but Institutions Are Catching Up: Research

River says individuals inactive ain the bulk of bitcoin.

The U.S.-based bitcoin fiscal services steadfast revealed ownership organisation probe dated Aug. 25, 2025 successful a caller post connected X. The survey groups proviso into categories and shows the stock River attributes to each, utilizing nationalist filings, custodial code tagging and earlier blockchain research.

River estimates individuals power astir 65.9% of circulating BTC, oregon 13.83 cardinal coins. This bucket includes self-custodied wallets and speech accounts River classifies arsenic individual.

On the organization side, River divides holdings into businesses and ETFs and funds.

• Businesses — a planetary class covering firm treasuries and accepted firms that study bitcoin holdings — relationship for astir 6.2% of supply, oregon 1.30 cardinal BTC.
• ETFs and funds — spot ETFs and concern vehicles that custody coins for clients — power astir 7.8%, oregon 1.63 cardinal BTC.

Governments are shown astatine astir 1.5%, oregon 306,000 BTC, based connected sovereign addresses River tracks from nationalist sources.

Two peculiar categories circular retired the distribution:

• Lost bitcoin makes up astir 7.6%, oregon 1.58 cardinal BTC. River says this is inferred from property heuristics showing coins that person not moved for galore years and are apt unrecoverable.
• Satoshi/Patoshi holdings are pegged astatine astir 4.6%, oregon 968,000 BTC, based connected earlier probe into early-era mining patterns.

Finally, astir 5.2% of the supply, oregon 1.09 cardinal BTC, has yet to beryllium mined earlier the hard headdress of 21 cardinal is reached.

In plain terms, River’s probe is an effort to representation who holds bitcoin today, not to forecast aboriginal prices. The estimates are not definitive, since custodians aggregate galore clients, immoderate wallets are misclassified and ownership tin beryllium opaque.

River’s decision is that individuals inactive predominate holdings, but the organization stock is expanding, helped by the maturation of ETFs and companies that present dainty bitcoin arsenic a balance-sheet asset.