Is the Bitcoin Supply Centralized?

Here is a graphic from our partner, River, breaking down Bitcoin supply ownership:

At first glance, you can see that Individuals own most of the supply.

Also, another important fact is that Bitcoin was NOT premined.

By looking at the chart, you can see that “Satoshi” controls roughly 1.1 million coins.

These coins were fairly mined and not pre-issued.

This is believed to be Satoshi because the addresses tied to those coins are the same addresses that received the first block rewards.

When the mining hashrate started to grow, Satoshi quit mining.

The coins associated with those addresses have never been moved.

This chart entirely contradicts the notion that the Bitcoin supply is centralized.

And this is not just a guess.

This can be verified on-chain, unlike the supply distribution of the traditional fiat financial system.

As of January 2021, the Bitcoin supply distribution across these cohorts looked like this:

As you can see, Bitcoin supply ownership is not at all centralized. It is a distributed monetary base owned by individuals, businesses, entrepreneurs, corporations, investors, governments, and nations.

In the United States specifically, the Nakamoto Project recently surveyed 3,538 adults in the US.

They found that most Americans who own Bitcoin are simply those who have taken the time to study the technology and formed positive attitudes about it.

The research aligns with this simple chart: