For years, it was thought absurd that publicly traded companies would buy Bitcoin as part of their reserve. For many years, the idea that a publicly traded corporation would buy Bitcoin for their reserves was laughed at.
The taboo surrounding Bitcoin has now been broken. In recent years, a large number of institutional investors have purchased Bitcoin.
In August and September of 2020, cloud software firm Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), bought Bitcoin worth $425,000,000. Payment processor Block, and Tesla electric cars were among those who followed.
BitcoinTreasuries reports that public companies now hold 2.8% of all 21,000,000 BTC. The following are the top Bitcoin holders at this time.
1. Strategy
Strategy, the popular business analytics platform that is now a Bitcoin treasury, chose BTC for its reserve asset. MicroStrategy was the company’s previous name, but it changed to Strategy in February of 2025. Co-founder Michael Saylor said that “Strategy has a lot more power and positive energy.”
This firm that produces cloud-based software and mobile applications has been aggressively buying Bitcoin, accumulating millions of dollars’ worth. It holds more than 46 billion dollars and 478.740 BTC as of February 2025.
Michael Saylor claimed that at one time he purchased $1,000 of Bitcoin per second. Saylor stated that in Q1 2024, the company had achieved 10x-30x better performance than rivals enterprise software firms.
Unlike other executives who typically shy away from discussing their personal investments, Saylor has made it public that he personally purchased 17,732 BTC—currently worth over $1.6 billion and still holds them as of September 2024. The co-founder of Strategy, who claimed in 2013 that Bitcoin was destined to die out, has made a complete 180-degree turn.
“We're at the beginning of the stage of rapid institutional adoption of digital property in the form of Bitcoin,” Saylor said during the company’s Q1 2024 earnings call. In the future, Bitcoin would not be competing with other crypto assets but instead against gold, art, equities real estate bonds and other forms of money that can serve as store of value.
Strategy plans to buy even more Bitcoin in the near future, as it’s in the midst of raising a planned $42 billion to do just that, and Saylor is making the pitch to other public companies as well—like Microsoft, though shareholders ultimately voted against the proposal.
2. Marathon Digital Holdings Inc.
Unsurprisingly, Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital is also one of the largest holders of Bitcoin. According to its latest update from January 2025, it had 45,659 BTC stored in its corporate treasurer. At today’s price, that’s more than $4 billion.
The company, which aims to build "the largest Bitcoin mining operation in North America at one of the lowest energy costs," originated as a patent holding firm (and was often referred to as a patent troll) before its pivot into crypto mining.
Marathon Digital will have more than 250.000 Bitcoin mining machines by July 2024. These miners are capable of 31.5 EH/s with an operational hashrate of 26.3%.
In an effort to “minimize the impact”, the firm said that it was accelerating its plans for growth following the Bitcoin halving in 2024. It had previously stated that the firm aimed to increase its scale in mining operations by 2024.
In Q3, 2024 the company’s revenue increased by 35%, from $98 millions in Q2 to $132million. Recent convertible notes raised over $2 billion, which was mostly used to buy Bitcoin.
3. Riot Platforms, Inc.
Another crypto mining outfit, U.S.-based Riot Platforms, holds 18,221 BTC—worth just under $1.8 billion at today’s prices.
In 2021 the Nasdaq company, whose valuation jumped from under $200 million dollars in 2020 to over six billion dollars in 2021 went on an aggressive growth drive. The company spent $650 million in April of 2021 to build a Bitcoin-mining facility with a capacity of one gigawatt in Texas. They expanded in 2022 and rebranded as Riot Platforms by 2023 to diversify the business model.
The stock dropped gradually from early August to late October, and it was below $10 in mid-August. The stock rose along with the Bitcoin market and other cryptocurrency stocks after Donald Trump’s election as President in November.
In 2024, the company attempted to take over Bitfarms – a Bitcoin mining firm.
4. Tesla
Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla joined the ranks of companies holding Bitcoin in December 2020, with an SEC filing revealing that the company invested "an aggregate $1.5 billion" in Bitcoin. According to the December 2024 10-K, today’s company has 11,509 BTC.
After its first purchase, the company sold 10% of its Bitcoin holdings in Q1 2021; according to CEO Elon Musk, this was "to prove liquidity of Bitcoin as an alternative to holding cash on balance sheet."
The company's Bitcoin play followed months of speculation, after CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter (aka X) to discuss the cryptocurrency. In late 2020, Strategy's Saylor offered to share his "playbook" for Bitcoin investing with Musk, after arguing that a move into Bitcoin would be doing Tesla shareholders a "$100 billion favor."
Musk and Tesla’s relationship with Bitcoin has been on and off. Tesla announced in March 2020 that it would accept Bitcoin payments for all its services and products. However, two months later, the CEO of the company abruptly stated that Tesla no longer accepted Bitcoin payments.
Arkham Intelligence says that the Tesla Bitcoin holdings have increased due to the Bitcoin payment acceptance. The current total is 11,509 BTC, compared with the 9,720 BTC reported previously based on previous sales and purchases. Tesla’s most recent financial reports support the amount of 11,509.
Musk said that he is “open to the possibility of increasing Tesla’s Bitcoin holdings at some point in the future.”
Musk may be best known for being a strong advocate of Dogecoin. Tesla now allows Dogecoin purchase for some products, and Musk leads the Department of Government Efficiency. This has resulted in new meme currencies as well a quick rise of Dogecoin.
5. Galaxy Digital Holdings
Galaxy Digital Holdings is a cryptocurrency-focused bank that holds 11,242 BTC, according to a data release from November 2024. The information was based off of having $711 million in Bitcoin on September 30, 2024. As of the time of writing this article, Bitcoin was worth approximately $1.18 billion.
Michael Novogratz founded the company in January 2018 to provide asset management services and digital infrastructure to institutions that want to access digital assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Novogratz, as you might expect, is a big advocate for Bitcoin. In March 2024 he predicted that Bitcoin’s value would not drop below $50,000 ever again. Months later, he said that Bitcoin will reach $100,000 by year-end.
Galaxy Digital, one of several firms that manage a U.S. Bitcoin ETF after their historic approval by SEC in Jan 2024. Novogratz recently stated that Trump’s victory in the Presidential elections was “the biggest day for crypto.”
6. CleanSpark
CleanSpark is a U.S. Bitcoin Mining Company that holds 10,556 BTC. This amount amounts to just $1.06 billion in today’s price.
The firm has expanded operations ahead of 2024’s Bitcoin halves. It purchased three Bitcoin mines in Mississippi, for $19.8 Million, and added 2.4 EH/s. A third facility was added to the company’s lineup in Dalton Georgia, which has a capacity of 0.8 EH/s.
CleanSpark announced in June 2024 that they had produced 417 BTC during the month of may, and claimed to have outperformed the industry’s expectations in their first month following the half-off. In the next few days, CleanSpark plans to expand its operations to Wyoming.
Stocks of both the company and its competitors nearly doubled after the recent election. The stock value of the company was more than 3 billion dollars at the time this article was written.
While other public companies on the list have made it a habit of buying Bitcoin for their treasuries, Cleanspark CFO Gary Vecchiarelli said in February 2025, “We continue to invest in ourselves because why buy bitcoin at current spot prices when we can mine it for $34,000?"
7. Hut 8 Corp
Hut 8, a Canadian Bitcoin miner, holds 10,208 BTC at current exchange rates. This is worth less than $1 billion according to the most recent update for January 2025.
In June 2021, the company was listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the HUT ticker, with the company's SEC filing noting that it's "committed to growing shareholder value by increasing the number and value of our Bitcoin holdings."
The company also explained that it generates fiat income by leveraging its reserve of self-mined and held Bitcoin, "via yield account arrangements with leading digital asset prime brokerages."
The firm announced that it merged in November 2023 with US Bitcoin. It is now a “energy infrastructure firm targeting Bitcoin mining centers and data centres.” These mining centers, located in six locations across Alberta, Texas and New York with an estimated 7.5 EH/s self-mining capability, are situated at sites throughout these three states.
After the Presidential Election, its market capitalization nearly doubled, reaching more than two billion dollars.
8. Coinbase Global, Inc.
Coinbase is the largest crypto company on this list. In April 2021, it went public via a Nasdaq direct listing.
Coinbase disclosed in February 2021 that the company held $230,000,000 in Bitcoin in its account. According to its September 2024 10-Q, the company held 9,363 BTC worth approximately $980,000,000 in its treasury.
After the Presidential Election of 2024, Coinbase’s shares have risen back up to their previous highs. The company continues to innovate in Bitcoin and recently launched its own Bitcoin wrapped product cbBTC. Coinbase has also restarted its Bitcoin lending service.
9. Block, Inc.
Block’s $50,000,000 investment, made in October 2020 by Square parent company Block in Bitcoin along with Tesla has ignited institutional interest in Bitcoin.
By the end of 2024 the company will hold 8,363 Bitcoins, which is worth $876 Million.
The investment is perhaps unsurprising, considering that CEO Jack Dorsey is an enthusiastic advocate for Bitcoin—even running his own Bitcoin node and describing the coin’s whitepaper as “poetry.”
At the time of its initial investment, the company described it as "part of Square’s ongoing commitment to Bitcoin," noting that "the company plans to assess its aggregate investment in Bitcoin relative to its other investments on an ongoing basis."
This firm invested heavily in Bitcoin, developing its ASIC Bitcoin chip as well as launching a Bitcoin wallet. Square, the payment service subsidiary of Square’s parent company announced in April 2024 that businesses would be able to convert automatically a percentage of their daily sales using Cash App into Bitcoin.
The firm said that in May 2024 it will reinvest 10 percent of the profits generated from Bitcoin related products and services back into BTC. This is called a DCA or dollar cost average purchase program.
10. Bitcoin Group SE
Bitcoin Group SE, a venture capitalist firm based in Germany, is ranked last on the list. According to the latest financial report, the company has approximately 3,678 Bitcoins, which are worth about $385 Million.
Its investments include crypto exchange Bitcoin.de and Futurum bank, which merged in October 2020 to form "Germany's first crypto bank."
The move followed the German parliament's decision to enable banks to sell and store cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin Group SE managing director Marco Bodewein highlighting the opportunity to introduce the bank's institutional investors to crypto's "high returns and safety features."
The majority of Germany’s confiscated Bitcoin was sold over the course of the summer.
Daniel Phillips has contributed to the reporting.
Editor's note: This article was first published in July 2022 and last updated with new details on February 16, 2025.
Andrew Hayward edited the book
