Global BTC Holders Estimated to Number Just Over 825K
River, a U.S.-based Bitcoin financial services firm, estimates that approximately 825,000 individuals worldwide hold at least one whole BTC. This figure represents about 0.01% of the global population, or roughly one person in every 10,000.
The analysis began with around 972,000 on-chain addresses containing at least 1 BTC. To derive this estimate, River excluded addresses managed by companies, governments, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and cryptocurrency exchanges, which can hold assets for millions of users.
River assumed that the distribution of Bitcoin holdings among exchange users mirrors the distribution observed on-chain. Based on this methodology, they concluded that the number of individual holders with at least 1 BTC is around 825,000, with a plausible range of 600,000 to 1 million.