San Francisco, CA – In a revelation that has sent shockwaves through the cryptocurrency community, Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, is reported to be safeguarding a staggering $25 billion in Bitcoin reserves. This monumental sum has positioned Coinbase on par with Bitcoin’s elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, in terms of holdings.
Arkham Intelligence, a prominent cryptocurrency analytics firm, unveiled this revelation in a recent post on Saturday. According to Arkham’s findings, approximately $25 billion worth of Bitcoin is securely stored across roughly 36 million wallets linked to Coinbase, serving as repositories for the digital tokens. Among these holdings, the most substantial cold wallet, which is said to contain approximately 10,000 Bitcoin, presently stands at an impressive valuation of around $265 million, as per Coingecko data at the time of reporting.
It’s worth noting that Arkham’s estimate is exclusively derived from wallets explicitly associated with Coinbase. Nevertheless, the firm has posited that this colossal sum is notably commensurate with the speculative size of Bitcoin holdings attributed to its enigmatic founder.
“This [amount] makes Coinbase the largest Bitcoin entity in the world on Arkham, with almost 5% of all BTC in existence,” the company proclaimed in a tweet, underlining the sheer scale of Coinbase’s cryptocurrency assets.
The true identity of Nakamoto continues to elude discovery even fifteen years after the publication of the Bitcoin white paper on an online cryptographers’ forum. Likewise, the precise extent of Nakamoto’s Bitcoin holdings remains an enigma. Historical accounts suggest that between January and July 2009, Nakamoto is believed to have mined a sum exceeding 1 million BTC, a period when the cryptocurrency’s value languished below a single cent. In the context of today’s valuations, these holdings could surpass $26 billion, theoretically making Nakamoto one of the most substantial cryptocurrency whales. However, conclusive evidence confirming Nakamoto’s ownership of these wallets remains elusive.
Bitcoin and Bitcoin trading pairs play a pivotal role in Coinbase’s operational landscape. According to its latest quarterly earnings report, Bitcoin transactions accounted for a substantial 40% of the exchange’s overall trading volumes, and approximately 39% of its transaction-related revenue.
Arkham Intelligence acknowledges that the estimate linked to wallets associated with Coinbase may represent an incomplete figure, given the exchange’s publicly disclosed financial data. In its most recent 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Coinbase reported holding approximately $60.7 billion in customer assets and liabilities linked to Bitcoin.
