Five crypto exchanges hold 10% of all Bitcoin in circulation

October 15, 2020
By Sam Grant

Chain.info, a blockchain data service platform, shows that a total of five exchanges have custody of an overwhelming 10% of BTC’s circulating supply

These leading centralised exchanges heading the ranks are Binance, Coinbase, Huobi, Kraken and OKEx. According to Chain.info, these exchanges collectively bear roughly 10.6% of all Bitcoin in circulation.

The Bitcoin volume held by these exchanges translates to more than 1.96 million BTC. Coinbase tops the list of these mega exchanges with a total of 944,904 BTC spread across over four million unique addresses. It is worth noting that Coinbase bears almost three times as much Bitcoin as the next exchange.

Huobi comes in at second place with 323,665 BTC distributed across 901,600 wallets addresses. Binance follows closely with a total of 289,961 BTC that are held in 2.7 different addresses. Fourth place is OKEx with 276,184 BTC in 339,000 wallet addresses. Kraken completes the list with 126,510 BTC — less than half of OKEx – held in 672,000 separate addresses

The next seven exchanges collectively have custody of 210,000 Bitcoins. They are Bitflyer, Bitfinex, BIttrex, Bitstamp, Coincheck, Gate.io and Poloniex.

Chain.info’s report also highlights a major security issue. According to the data service platform, the majority of crypto users have generally accepted the plausible risks that come from keeping crypto holdings on centralized exchanges.

There is a probability that the volume of the Bitcoin supply held in the five mega exchanges could exceed 10%. Chainalysis reckons that about 3.7 million of the Bitcoin in circulation that has not been moved or even touched for the past five years could be lost. This volume represents 20% of Bitcoin at the moment.

Should that be the case, the volume of Bitcoin held by the top 5 exchanges may increase to about 15%.