Bitwise: If Governments Want Bitcoin, They’ll Have to Buy from Individuals Willing to Sell

Bitwise highlights the ownership dynamic around Bitcoin, showing the dominance of individual investors.

With an endless stream of reports of institutional buys from exchange-traded funds and corporations like MicroStrategy in recent months, it is hard to blame market participants for increasingly believing that Bitcoin is becoming an institutionally controlled asset.

However, this could not be further from the truth, per data recently highlighted by Bitwise.

Bitcoin Price in the Hands of Individuals

Bitwise, a $5 billion asset manager, has recently highlighted Bitcoin’s ownership dynamic.

In an X post on Monday, February 10, Bitwise shared an excerpt of its Q4 2024 crypto market report showing that as of December 31, 2024, individuals were by far the largest holders of BTC, with 69.4% of the supply, compared to only 6.1% by investment funds, 4.4% by businesses, and 1.4% by governments.

Stressing the importance of these numbers, the asset manager wrote: 

“If companies and governments want to buy bitcoin, they’ll largely have to buy it from individuals who are willing to sell.”

This statement is more impactful, considering that only about 5.7% of the supply, or about 1.2 million coins, is left to mine.

The data adds more nuance to Bitcoin’s scarcity narrative, especially as demand grows among institutions and nation-states.

Meanwhile, from the report, Bitcoin ETFs and other investment products have gobbled up 6.1% of the total supply, now holding more than businesses. Further, Satoshi holds about 4.6% of the supply, while 7.5% are estimated to be lost.

Warburg Serres Investments Managing Partner Tom Serres highlighted that the supply dynamic raises questions about how corporate and government treasuries seeking to build reserves will source the assets.

Meanwhile, as Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley highlighted, the data shows that the price of Bitcoin is largely in the hands of the individuals who hold it.

Unsurprisingly, the data has triggered impassioned calls to “hodl,” a crypto slang for holding onto one’s tokens regardless of the market condition, as some anticipate that a supply shock will soon send the asset’s price soaring.