The US government appears to be one of the world’s largest holders of bitcoin (BTC). According to a recent report by crypto analysis company Arkham Intelligence, several countries are on the list of largest holders, including surprisingly the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, with the American government as the leader.
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The largest state holders of bitcoin
According to the Arkham platform, the US government currently owns 212,847 BTC, with an astronomical estimated value of around $15 billion. This makes them the largest bitcoin whale among the governments tracked by Arkham. In addition, the US also controls approximately $200 million in other crypto such as ether (ETH) and major stablecoins such as USDC and Tether (USDT).
Our team created a dashboard featuring the Governments with the largest crypto holdings.
For each country, you can see their current BTC balance, balance history in USD, and a real-time feed of their most recent transactions.
Some of the largest countries on Arkham are the US,… pic.twitter.com/jKRmKJCVfn
— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) April 12, 2024
The UK and Germany follow with 61,245 BTC and 49,858 BTC owned, making their crypto wealth significantly less compared to the US, but still impressive with around $4.5 billion and $3.5 billion worth of bitcoin respectively.
Rise of government influence in crypto
The United States has not only maintained its supply of bitcoin, but also significantly increased it. Since the beginning of 2023, the US government has added at least 5,000 BTC to their reserves. Much of this supply comes from confiscations related to things like the dark web marketplace Silk Road and the infamous Bitfinex crypto exchange hack.
This shows how active some countries, including the US, are in acquiring and managing significant amounts of cryptocurrencies. Although it is of course important to make it clear that in the case of the United States it is not about actively buying BTC for the state’s balance sheet. The vast treasury of BTC comes almost entirely from confiscations. Nevertheless, a supply of 15 billion BTC is no small feat. It is not known what the US, among others, plans to do with all these bitcoins.
The largest BTC whales are also countries
The revelation of extensive BTC holdings by governments such as the US, UK, and Germany sheds new light on the influence of states within the world of cryptocurrencies. In general, large holders of BTC, among other things, have a major influence on the market, we often call these whales, and we should actually include countries among them.
One scenario, for example, is that a country like the US sells a large part of its bitcoin treasury. At that moment, it is not crazy to expect the bitcoin price to take a sharp plunge. However, at the moment there are no indications that anything like this is about to happen.
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2024-04-13 18:12:51
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