8 Largest Bitcoin Wallets in the World

Cryptocurrencies have become popular due to their anonymity and versatility, and countless people around the world dream of hitting it big with their coin of choice. However, through the rise and fall of so many different options, many still swear by the original: Bitcoin. These devoted investors squirrel away as much as they can in private Bitcoin wallets.

So, just how much are the largest Bitcoin wallets worth? Today we’ll be ranking 8 of the largest Bitcoin wallets in the world according to their approximate value in US Dollars, as well as learning some fun facts about the ones who own them.

8. Tim Draper

  Source: wikimedia.org

Venture capitalist Tim Draper is famous for having founded Draper University, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the Draper Venture Network, and Draper Associates. He’s also an outspoken fan and advocate of Bitcoin, claiming that people will be laughed at for using fiat currencies, or national currencies, in under a decade. He also stated that his university would be the first to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment.

Draper was an auction winner of a sizeable chunk of the cryptocurrency seized by the FBI. He said that he was delighted to see Bitcoin receiving a larger spotlight, declaring his belief that Bitcoin was good for humanity and should be embraced by federal regulators.

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Draper sees Bitcoin as being quite secure, pointing out that while plenty of wallets have been hacked, the underlying blockchain has never been compromised.

7. Barry Silbert

  Source: flickr.com

Barry Silbert is the founder and CEO of DigitalCurrencyGroup, a venture capital company that primarily focuses on digital currency. He is also the founder of SecondMarket and the creator of the Bitcoin Investment Trust.

Silbert is a big advocate of Brainwallet, which enables people to maintain exclusive knowledge of the key that accesses their Bitcoin wallet. The idea is that you can learn your own special key phrase and store it in your memory, meaning that no one else can touch your cryptocurrency.

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Silbert says that, while plenty of other cryptocurrencies are headed nowhere, Bitcoin will remain strong and steady in the future.

6. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss

  Source: wikimedia.org

This twin pair of Olympic athletes became even more famous for a 2008 lawsuit in which they sued Mark Zuckerberg. They claimed that he’d stolen their “ConnectU” idea in order to create Facebook, and wound up settling for the pretty penny of $65 million. The whole event was attention-grabbing enough to be portrayed in the movie “The Social Network,” although the twins seemed miffed about how the movie portrayed them.

The Winklevoss brothers invested their settlement money in Bitcoin during its earlier days, with their sizeable contribution transforming the cryptocurrency’s value.

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Despite their hefty settlement, the Winklevoss Twins still maintain their claims that Zuckerberg stole their social media idea, viewing the settlement as a compromise.

5. FBI

  Source: wikimedia.org

The FBI once boasted the second-largest Bitcoin wallet in the world after shutting down the online drug marketplace known as the Silk Road. The vast majority of the criminally-obtained Bitcoin belonged to Ross Ulbricht, the operator of the Silk Road who also went by the name “Dread Pirate Roberts”.

The original amount of Bitcoin confiscated from Ulbricht was reported to have been a stunning 600,000! However, the FBI was unable to access the full amount because much of it was secured with high-level encryption.

Many people were uncomfortable with the idea of a government-run agency holding such a high amount of Bitcoin, since an aversion to government currency control is what drives so many users to cryptocurrency in the first place.

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Plenty of users figured out how to send messages to the FBI’s Bitcoin wallet and have sent it a series of sassy notes and memes.

4. BitFinex

  Source: wikimedia.org

BitFinex is one of the more well-known cryptocurrency exchanges, allowing users to trade and convert their cryptocurrencies online. They also happen to own one of the largest Bitcoin wallets in the world: a cold wallet where they store their wealth in order to protect it from hackers and cybersecurity breaches.

BitFinex has a bit of a checkered reputation, having experienced multiple security breaches and been subpoenaed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission following accusations of mishandling their wealth. The company has denied all accusations of attempting to cover wealth and recently withdrew nearly $90 million from its cold wallet.

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BitFinex’s most well-known breach occurred in 2016, and the company was only recently given 27.66270285 by the United States Government in order to recoup its losses.

3. Bulgaria

  Source: wikimedia.org

You might be surprised to learn that the country of Bulgaria has one of the largest stashes of Bitcoin in the world. The value of Bulgaria’s Bitcoin reserves actually surpasses that of their gold holdings, which is a historic milestone since it’s the first nation to ever reach that point.

Bulgaria’s methods of stockpiling their Bitcoin has been noticeably covert, with incomplete stories circulating in an attempt to explain how they got it. They were rumored to have seized their massive amount of Bitcoin from a group of cyber criminals. The bust purportedly involved raiding over 100 different addresses to apprehend the hackers.

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If Bulgaria were to sell off its stash of Bitcoin, the resulting profits could wipe out a fifth or more of its national debt.

2. Micree Zhan

  Source: wikimedia.org

Electronics engineer Micree Zhan and his associate Jihan Wu are the founders of Bitmain, which makes computer chips specifically for Bitcoin mining. Bitmain sells ASIC-chip miners and boasts the status of being the largest digital currency mining company in China. Micree became extremely wealthy off the fruits of his own labor when the mining chips he engineered functioned well and became successful.

Micree Zhan and Jihan Wu are both rumored to be stepping down from their joint CEO positions, leaving many people wondering about the future of the company. Despite financial losses during the recent past, the reported value of the Bitmain company is an impressive $14 billion dollars.

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Bitmain is said to have provided up to 80% of the world’s cryptocurrency mining machines.

1. Satoshi Nakamoto

  Source: wikimedia.org

Satoshi Nakamoto owns the largest Bitcoin wallet in the world by USD value. The inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi is heavily shrouded in mystery. In fact, for years, no one even knew whether the name belonged to an individual or a group! Today, it is theorized that “Satoshi Nakamoto” was actually a pseudonym for the three original founders of Bitcoin: Dorian Nakamoto, Craig Wright, and Nick Szabo.

The number of Bitcoins that Satoshi owns is also heavily debated, but it’s rumored to be upwards of one million. The fact that Satoshi owns such a large percentage of the Bitcoin currency has led people to suspect that it’s a Ponzi Scheme.

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Despite people theorizing that Dorian Nakamoto was one of the founders of Bitcoin and faces of the Satoshi name, he has officially denied knowing anything about it.