0.5% of all Bitcoin in existence was just moved to the same wallet
If it's Bakkt's new wallet, it proves that Bakkt will instantly be a major player as soon as it launches.
Meet the world's fifth-richest Bitcoin wallet, which just received a tidy influx of over 94,505 Bitcoin valued at $1,015,444,859.79 at the time of writing.
It's not known who this crypto billionaire is, but there are suspicions that it's the Bakkt custodial wallet, based on the fact that Bakkt is opening its custodial service today ahead of its launch.
It's now in the company of a series of other exchange wallets, and it kind of stands out.
The hoard represents over 0.5% of all Bitcoin in existence, which once again raises questions about the consolidation of Bitcoin's wealth. But you might be surprised to find that it's actually considerably less concentrated than the current state of traditional finance.
The world's largest fund manager, Blackrock, has some $6.5 trillion in assets under management, while the second to fifth largest fund managers have $5.1 to $2.8 trillion in assets under management. The total amount of wealth in the world is estimated at $317 trillion.
So Blackrock's $6.5 trillion under management is equal to about 2.05% of total global wealth, while the world's richest Bitcoin wallet (the Binance cold wallet) has only 0.91% of all Bitcoin. Meanwhile, Vanguard Group has 1.6% of global wealth, Charles Schwab Corporation has 1.05%, UBS has 0.97% and the fifth-largest, State Street Global Advisors, has 0.88%.
Traditional finance does appear to be a good bit more consolidated than Bitcoin in this case.
But there are two important points to make when drawing these comparisons:
- The same entities hold multiple rich-list wallets. That said, eyeballing the Bitcoin rich list suggests that no single exchange has as much as 2% of all Bitcoin in total. Traditional financial institutions may still be more generally consolidated than Bitcoin financial institutions.
- This fifth-richest Bitcoin wallet emerged instantly. It came out of nowhere to pick up 0.5% of global Bitcoin wealth.
That second part is pretty impressive, and is in some ways a testament to the power of crypto-finance, as well as how quickly the ecosystem can change.
It's also worth putting this wallet into perspective next to the other rich cold wallets. If it is Bakkt's new custodial wallet, it shows that Bakkt will certainly be hitting the ground running and becoming a major player in the space as soon as it launches.
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Disclosure: The author holds BNB and BTC at the time of writing.
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