Crypto Winter Wipes Out 70% of Bitcoin Millionaires

A new study has found that there has been a 70% drop in Bitcoin millionaires this year alone as a result of the on-going ‘crypto winter’.

The study compiled by Bitstacker.com reveals that over 72,000 of Bitcoin millionaires were no longer crypto millionaires as a result of their holding dropping below $1 million worth of BTC.

Bitstacker used the WayBackMachine web archive tool to calculate the number of Bitcoin addresses holding more than $1,000,000 in BTC assets. The research uncovered a fall of over 73.19% Bitcoin millionaires in November 2022 when compared to January 2022.

There were 99,092 Bitcoin millionaires in January 2022 compared to just 26,564 in November this year. This is a fall of over 72,528 Bitcoin addresses holding more than $1,000,000 in BTC.

So far, 2022 has been a catastrophic year for Bitcoin. The original cryptocurrency was trading at $46,208 on January 1, 2022, while a single Bitcoin was only worth $15,759 at the time of writing this report.

The rise of the Bitcoin mega-rich

The research also showed that there were still 3,577 accounts that held over $10,000,000 in Bitcoin at the time that the research was carried out. In contrast, there were over 34 million addresses that had at least $1 in Bitcoin assets.

With just four addresses containing an overall Bitcoin balance of between 100,000 and 1,000,000 BTC, it shows just how unequally distributed these digital assets have become.

The 100 richest Bitcoin addresses

The study revealed some interesting facts about the richest Bitcoin investors. The richest address showed an account registered to a Binance cold wallet that featured a balance of 252,597 BTC. This is the equivalent to $4,050,008,980 and it currently holds 1.31% of all coins.

Interestingly, the next richest Bitcoin account after this has nearly half the amount of Bitcoin assets, with the account holding 168,010 BTC at a current value of $2,693,782,202.

The research shows that there are currently 10 ‘billionaires’ in terms of the amount of Bitcoin held in their crypto wallets. Even the 100th-placed account has 10,000 BTC at a value of $160,334,852 with 0.05205% of the total amount of Bitcoin.

What’s behind the fall of Bitcoin millionaires

Such a dramatic decrease in the number of Bitcoin millionaires is linked to the prevailing trend of a fall in value of Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency reached its highest value of over $68,000 in November 2021 after starting the year with a value of just $30,000.

Since that high watermark, Bitcoin’s growth has been hampered by a variety of factors. From the skyrocketing inflation rates to the implementation of several interest rate rises, it has made the speculation on ‘risky’ assets such as Bitcoin less attractive.

This has been compounded by the numerous scandals and failures within the cryptocurrency industry. Most notably, the recent collapse of the FTX crypto exchange has sent shockwaves through the crypto community. With over $1 billion in customer funds now unaccounted for, it has sent the value of Bitcoin to its lowest position since October 2020.

Although those super-rich Bitcoin investors will be safeguarded from the more serious effects of this slide in value, for casual investors in crypto, it will be a deeply unsettling time.