Number of Bitcoins in Self-Custody by Investors Named

Out of the total volume of self-custody, analysts at River categorized 7.95 million bitcoins, or 37.9% of the supply, as coins held in active wallets. Another 1.62 million $BTC (7.7%) are considered by on-chain experts to be irretrievably lost. Over 90% of these losses occurred up to and including 2011.

Centralized cryptocurrency exchanges currently hold 2.91 million $BTC (13.9%), while third-party custodial services control 4.66 million coins (22.2%). Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) own 1.51 million $BTC (7.2%), and public companies hold 1.05 million bitcoins (5%).

The prevalence of self-custody was linked by River representatives to the ownership structure of the asset. More than half of all bitcoins were mined before the widespread adoption of crypto exchanges. Over 12 million $BTC have not moved in the past year, and more than 6 million bitcoins have remained immobile for at least five years.

Simultaneously, the market for custodial services is changing. In 2021, exchanges controlled more than half of the bitcoins held by intermediaries, but now their share is only 38%. The remaining volume is predominantly concentrated with specialized cryptocurrency storage services. Meanwhile, almost half of the coins on trading platforms are backed by publicly verifiable reserves, River specialists reported.

Earlier, analysts from the on-chain platform Santiment reported that the share of the first cryptocurrency on centralized crypto exchanges has fallen to a six-year low — 5.6% of the asset's total supply.