Galaxy: 55% of Bitcoin Supply Has No Known Owner
Galaxy Research estimates that about 11.1 million BTC—55% of the roughly 20.1 million bitcoin mined—cannot be linked to a known owner. The October 2026 snapshot suggests that substantial Bitcoin holdings remain unattributed despite institutional buying, spot Bitcoin ETFs and expanding crypto custody services.
Galaxy research chief Alex Thorn said the figures may reflect continued self-custody by individual investors. However, unattributed Bitcoin could also include lost coins, unidentified institutional wallets, over-the-counter trading balances and holdings spread across complex custody arrangements. The estimate does not distinguish among these possibilities.
Galaxy attributes the remaining 45% of Bitcoin supply to known entities or groups, including exchanges, ETFs, the U.S. government and early miners. About 1.12 million BTC are associated with the Patoshi mining pattern, which is linked to Bitcoin’s early mining activity but does not establish the miner’s identity. For traders, the estimate offers context on Bitcoin ownership and the limits of blockchain attribution, not a direct price signal; unidentified supply should not be treated as available market liquidity.
Neutral
The estimate does not identify a new source of buying or selling, and it does not show that the 11.1 million unattributed BTC are available to trade. The figure therefore offers no clear short-term price catalyst for Bitcoin. Traders may monitor ownership and exchange-flow data, but should not interpret unidentified supply as imminent sell pressure or hidden demand.
Over the longer term, the estimate highlights how difficult it is to establish who controls Bitcoin, even as institutional adoption and ETF ownership grow. If investors interpret the high share of unattributed supply as evidence of widespread self-custody, it may reinforce confidence in Bitcoin’s distributed ownership. But the data cannot confirm that interpretation: lost coins and unidentified institutional or custody wallets may also account for part of the total. Similar ownership estimates can influence sentiment, but without evidence of changes in active supply, liquidity or demand, the most supportable price-impact assessment is neutral.