Which Countries Hold the Most Bitcoin in 2025? 7 BTC-Backed Nations

Calls to establish a national “strategic Bitcoin reserve” in the U.S. have grown since Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential election win.

Meanwhile, the U.S. holds the most Bitcoin in the world at a country level due to seizures made from criminal activities in the 2010s.

Why does the U.S. lead? And are countries accumulating Bitcoin through seizures, investments, or mining activity? We explore the top seven countries that hold the most Bitcoin (or is that hodl?).

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. Bitcoin Ownership by Country: USA to Venezuela
3. The Bottom Line
4. FAQs
5. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. Bitcoin Ownership by Country: USA to Venezuela
3. The Bottom Line
Show Full Guide
4. FAQs
5. References

Bitcoin Ownership by Country: USA to Venezuela

Top holders of Bitcoin among nations. The data was sourced from Bitcointreasuries.net on December 16, 2024. Note that there may be several governments whose Bitcoin holdings are not public knowledge yet.

1. United States

The U.S. was the top government holder of Bitcoin as of December 2024, with a stockpile of 208,109 Bitcoins.

Bitcointreasuries.net attributed the U.S. government’s Bitcoin holdings to seizures made from the infamous online black market called Silk Road, which was active from 2011 to 2013.

According to crypto analysis firm Chainalysis, the marketplace accounted for over 20% of Bitcoin’s daily transactions at one point in time.

Silk Road closed when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested its founder, Ross William Ulbricht, shut down the website, and seized about 173,991 Bitcoins ($18.2 billion as of December 16, 2024) in connection with the Silk Road case.

Moving forward in time, Cynthia Lummis, a pro-crypto U.S. senator from Wyoming, introduced a Bitcoin Purchase Program bill in July 2024 with the plan of buying 1 million BTC over a five-year period to provide the U.S. economy with a hedge against “economic uncertainty and monetary instability.”

Whether or not this bill comes to pass is a question for 2025 when the Trump-led government takes office.

Separately, in November 2021, U.S. law enforcement officials seized 50,676 Bitcoins ($4.98 billion) from a hacker who had stolen the cryptocurrency from Silk Road. Other notable Bitcoin seizures include the arrest of the hackers of the crypto exchange Bitfinex.

Note that the U.S. government has auctioned a part of its Bitcoin holdings.

2. China

China’s known Bitcoin holding of about 190,000 Bitcoins is attributed to tokens seized from the PlusToken Ponzi scheme.

In 2018-2019, a crypto project called PlusToken attracted over 200,000 Bitcoins from investors who were promised high monthly returns on their investments.

According to Chainalysis, PlusToken insiders initially maintained the illusion of returns by paying back early investors but started transferring investor funds to their personal wallets and cashed out at least $185 million worth of Bitcoin through over-the-counter brokers.

Accomplices of the PlusToken scam were arrested in June 2019.

3. United Kingdom

Like the U.S. and China, the UK’s known Bitcoin holdings came from asset seizure from a crypto fraud and money laundering scheme.

The nation’s largest crypto seizure involved the confiscation of a wallet storing about 61,000 Bitcoins by the Metropolitan Police.

The UK Government is now on Arkham.

The UK Metropolitan Police seized 61,000 Bitcoin (currently worth $4B) from Jian Wen and Zhimin Qian in 2018, gaining access to the seized BTC in July 2021.

Qian had reportedly purchased the Bitcoin with funds from an investment fraud… pic.twitter.com/BVqRAkE1TW

— Arkham (@arkham) March 4, 2024

4. Ukraine

Ukraine has mainly accumulated its Bitcoin holdings with the help of donations from across the world in the wake of its war with Russia.

Since the start of the Ukraine-Russia war in February 2022, Ukraine has received billions of dollars in donations, a part of which has come in the form of cryptocurrencies.

At the start of the war, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation, shared official donation wallet addresses on X (formerly Twitter).

On-chain data showed Ukraine’s official Bitcoin wallet (357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P) has received about 651 Bitcoins ($63.38 million) to date.

Bitcointreasuries.net’s data compiled Ukraine’s Bitcoin holdings across multiple wallets, which showed that the Eastern European country had Bitcoin holdings worth $4.8 billion as of December 16, 2024.

Stand with the people of Ukraine
Now accepting cryptocurrency donations. Ethereum. Bitcoin and Tether (USDTtrc20)

BTC — 357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P

ETH — 0x165CD37b4C644C2921454429E7F9358d18A45e14

USDT (trc20) — TEFccmfQ38cZS1DTZVhsxKVDckA8Y6VfCy

— Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) February 26, 2022

5. Bhutan

The landlocked Himalayan nation of Bhutan has the most unique story from this list of Bitcoin holdings by country.

Bhutan’s Bitcoin holdings of over 12,218 Bitcoins have mainly been massed through Bitcoin mining operations.

According to a Forbes report, Bhutan has four Bitcoin mining facilities, which was confirmed by the nation’s sovereign investing arm Druk Holdings & Investment (DHI) in 2023.

Bhutan’s plentiful hydroelectric power generated by its fast-running rivers has attracted Bitcoin mining companies like Nasdaq-listed Bitdeer, which set up a Bitcoin mining facility in the South Asian nation in 2023.

According to local newspaper The Bhutanese, Bhutan’s Bitcoin stockpile was used to fund pay hikes to civil servants in 2023.

BREAKING: BHUTAN GOVERNMENT’S $750M BTC NOW ON ARKHAM

Bhutan’s Bitcoin holdings are now labeled on Arkham. These holdings come from Bitcoin mining operations carried out by the Kingdom of Bhutan’s investment arm, Druk Holdings.

Arkham is the first to publicly identify these… pic.twitter.com/a8ScUNJJ9F

— Arkham (@arkham) September 16, 2024

6. El Salvador

In 2021, El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Since then, the Central American nation, under the leadership of President Nayib Bukele, has consistently purchased Bitcoin from the open market for its treasury.

El Salvador is also accumulating Bitcoin via geothermal-powered Bitcoin mining operations.

Additionally, the country is planning to issue Bitcoin-backed bonds known as “volcano bonds” to fund the construction of the world’s first “Bitcoin City.”

We have @nayibbukele just casually posting the El Salvador bitcoin portfolio on his instagram story hahaha pic.twitter.com/Byghd7OJDA

— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) November 21, 2024

7. Venezuela

Venezuela’s ailing economy has looked keenly to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a hedge against hyperinflation and currency depreciation.

In 2020, the South American nation legalized Bitcoin mining and created a centralized system to oversee Bitcoin mining activity through the National Mining Pool program.

Furthermore, U.S. sanctions on Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuelan government have forced companies like state-run oil company PDVSA to accelerate crypto adoption for exports, Reuters reported in April 2024.

The Bottom Line

Elsewhere, we explore the top 10 holders of Bitcoin, but the numbers based on nations show a different perspective on how Bitcoin is viewed across the world.

The seven countries mentioned above are by no means a conclusive list of the top Bitcoin-holding states, and there is a high probability that some nations choose not to disclose their Bitcoin investment and mining activities publicly.

Nevertheless, Bitcoin’s status as a store-of-value asset is becoming hard to ignore.

2024 saw gold prices surge as central banks across the world stockpiled the precious metal on the back of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

Imagine what might happen with Bitcoin prices if central banks and governments were to do the same with Bitcoin in 2025.

FAQs