The world of cryptocurrency has been growing exponentially since its inception, and many companies have begun to recognize the potential of Bitcoin as an asset. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the top 6 companies that hold Bitcoin in their assets and balance sheets.
1. MicroStrategy (~138,955 BTC)
This business intelligence and analytics company is headed by CEO Michael Saylor and as of 24 December 2022, it has been reported that MicroStrategy owns approximately 132,500 bitcoins. It started to buy Bitcoins since 2020 and has been holding them ever since because it has become a part of its corporate strategy. MicroStrategy is listed on NASDAQ under ticker symbol (MSTR).
The average purchase price was $30,415 per Bitcoin with a total cost of US$4.027 billion, making it the largest publicly traded company to hold the digital asset. So, as for now in February 2023, the company still faces losses in its investment in Bitcoin but they are in the business for the long term.
Recent Update!
It was reported that MicroStrategy has just bought an additional 6,455 Bitcoins in the 1st quarter of 2023, which will bring its total holdings to approximately 138,955 Bitcoins!
2. Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd (~16,400 BTC)
Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. is founded in 2018 by Mike Novogratz as a digital asset management and trading firm. Its main purpose is to provide asset management, trading and advisory services to institutional and individual investors. The company is also publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (Ticker symbol: GLXY).
Its journey of investing in digital assets has begun right after it was established on 2018 and now currently holds about 16,400 BTC, which is worth around US$529 million.
3. Marathon Digital Holdings (~11,418 BTC)
The company began investing in Bitcoin in February 2021 and slowly increasing its holding to about 11,418 Bitcoins now. It is considered as one of the largest publicly traded companies that have invested in Bitcoin and is valued at around US$ 270 Million.
4. Tesla Motors (~ 10,800 BTC)
Tesla Inc. needs no introduction. Its current CEO is Elon Musk and has made headlines over and over again on his achievements in the electric vehicles sector. The first move that the company took to invest in Bitcoin was back in February 2021 as it announced to the public that it has bought US$1.5 Billion worth of BTC, which was approximately 43,200 bitcoins.
As the years go by, the company has sold about 75% of its Bitcoin holdings and now owns roughly US$184 million worth of Bitcoin (about 10,800 BTC). As many of you also know, Tesla is a publicly traded company (ticker: TSLA) under NASDAQ.
5. Block Inc. (Formerly known as Square) (~8,027 BTC)
Block Inc., which was previously known as Square Inc., was founded by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey which started off as a payment services company that allows users and merchants to make transactions easier by using their platform. The most popular product developed by them, which is Cash App, has recorded about 36 million active users as of the first quarter of 2021. The company later was rebranded to Block Inc. to better reflect the company’s commitment towards developing and promoting blockchain technology.
Jack Dorsey’s payment processor currently owns about 4709 BTC, which is valued around US$170 million dollars. Block Inc. is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol SQ.
6. Riot Platforms Inc. (Formerly known as Riot Blockchain Inc.) ( ~6,952 BTC)
Riot Platforms Inc. has an interesting past. It was formerly known as Bioptix Inc., which was a biotech firm. Due to the fact that the former CEO Michael Beeghley noted that this field too small of a market and they were spending more than what they can earn, so the management team decided to abandon this field completely and switch its focus towards blockchain and cryptocurrency businesses on October 2017. On 4 January 2023, the company changed its name again to Riot Platforms as they are diversifying their business operations to adapt the ever-changing blockchain and crypto environment.
The company mainly focuses on crypto mining operations such as Bitcoin and Ethereum (now Ethereum Classic since Ethereum has switched from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake) and are developing other blockchain-based applications and products.
Riot Blockchain started to invest in Bitcoin since 2017 and currently holds roughly 6,952 BTC which is estimated about US$ 160 million, after selling a portion of it back in 2022.
Bonus!
Grayscale Investments LLC (~630,420 BTC)
Grayscale Investments LLC is a financial institution based in the United States that provides digital currency investing services to clients. It was founded in 2013 and was later acquired by Digital Currency Group (DCG) in December 2017. The main products and services that Grayscale offers are Grayscale® Bitcoin Trust, Grayscale® Ethereum Trust, Grayscale® Future of Finance ETF, and many more.
At its launch in 2013, Grayscale held a total of 618 Bitcoins. Fast forward to a few years afterwards on February 2021, Grayscale holds over 630,420 Bitcoins, which is worth over $15 billion. The majority of these bitcoins are held in Grayscale’s flagship fund, which is the Grayscale® Bitcoin Trust.
All the companies above are making great strides towards mainstream cryptocurrency adoptions through various different ways like institutional investment, trading, custody services, etc…So far, they have collectively invested over 700,000 Bitcoins into circulation representing more than US $16 Billion in value now!
(Disclaimer: The info and data above may vary after the time of writing due to rapid changes and volatility in the market. More details, you can go to the original content https://medium.com/@the.bitcoinrealm/top-6-companies-that-hold-the-most-bitcoins-in-2023-62fceb2e5caa)