Sources & method
The numbers behind the register
Current data coverage
Snapshot: 17 Sept 2026Price and circulating supply
Retrieved from CoinGecko on 17 Sept 2026. A snapshot date is not a live price indicator.
Corporate holdings
180 company records, totaling 1,294,037 BTC, from the CoinGecko treasury API. Each company page links to its recorded source. Retrieval dates may be later than the underlying company disclosure.
Fund holdings
The main ledger uses 784,526 BTC for IBIT, dated 15 Sept 2026. Other investment funds are absent from that total. The weekly refresh reads IBIT directly from the issuer’s dated holdings CSV. The fund records retain their original dates and sources.
Government estimates
Selected records from 2025, totaling 217,143 BTC. Seizures, transfers, and sales may have changed these balances. Coverage is incomplete.
Calculating estimated retail holdings
We subtract corporate holdings, the IBIT fund figure, government estimates, and 3,700,000 assumed lost coins from circulating supply.
The result is 14,089,866 BTC, or 70.1% of the supply in this snapshot.
See the full calculation →Why retail is an estimate
Retail means individual investors. We use the supply left after recorded institutional holdings and estimated losses as a proxy for their bitcoin holdings. Missing institutional records can make that estimate too high.
Fund shares can also belong to individuals. Classifying coins by the vehicle that holds them does not establish the identity of the end investor.
The lost-coin assumption
This calculation assumes 3.7 million BTC are lost or inaccessible. The actual amount cannot be measured precisely. This is 17.6% of Bitcoin’s maximum supply. A different assumption would change the retail estimate by the same amount.
One starting point for the overview and scenarios
The overview, supply breakdown, and scenario chart use the same snapshot, fund total, and loss assumption. Each starts at 70.1% estimated retail, with 784,526 BTC in recorded fund holdings (IBIT only). Future data refreshes update them together.
Historical estimates and scenarios
Historical observations combine company disclosures, reported ETF totals, and reconstructed values. A row marked “Includes reported data” may still contain estimates for other categories.
The chart starts on 31 Aug 2026 and plots only consecutive snapshots with the same fund coverage and loss assumption. Earlier estimates are archived separately on the scenarios page. They are excluded from the graph because their inputs are not comparable.
The former jump from 66.6% to 70.1% came from replacing a 1.5 million BTC fund estimate with an 802,823 BTC IBIT-only record. That reduced the amount subtracted from retail by 697,177 BTC. It did not establish any change in who owned those coins.
The scenario lines assume fixed annual additions to identified holdings. They use a constant 164,250 BTC of annual issuance until the supply cap, rather than a future halving schedule. The calculation is intended to illustrate the effect of different assumptions.
Changes to the company file
The current refresh uses CoinGecko’s company list. Two supplemental records included in the 15 August edition are no longer in that file. Older research notes describe the edition in which they were written.
Reading the source dates
Companies, supply, and IBIT are refreshed from their respective sources. Their observation dates can differ. Government estimates remain older records. A change between snapshots can reflect newly available information; it does not date a purchase or sale.
Government records
Older estimatesUnited States (seized / forfeiture)
198,012 BTCAs of 31 Dec 2025 · Public reporting, incomplete
An incomplete estimate of seized or forfeited bitcoin. Sales and transfers may have changed the balance.
El Salvador
6,102 BTCAs of 31 Dec 2025 · Government / on-chain trackers, incomplete
An older estimate of sovereign holdings. It has not been refreshed against current government disclosures.
Bhutan
13,029 BTCAs of 31 Dec 2025 · Public on-chain attribution, incomplete
Estimated holdings linked to state-backed mining. Attribution and balances may have changed.