Corporate Giants on Track to Gobble Up Half of Bitcoin Supply by 2045
Wall Street’s appetite for Bitcoin isn’t slowing down—and the math looks brutal for retail holders. New projections suggest institutional players could control 50% of all circulating BTC within two decades.
Who needs decentralization when you’ve got quarterly earnings targets? The very whales Satoshi wanted to disrupt are now building the biggest treasure chests.
One hedge fund manager quipped: ’We’ll call it ’digital gold’ right up until we’ve cornered the market—then it’s just gold.’
In brief
- By 2045, 50% of bitcoins could be owned by companies, thus centralizing a major share of the asset.
- This concentration threatens decentralization, affecting liquidity, governance, and trust in the bitcoin network.
The rise of corporations in bitcoin ownership
Today, companies use complex financial strategies to massively accumulate bitcoins. MicroStrategy, now Strategy, perfectly illustrates this dynamic. Through high-yield bond issuances, this company raises institutional capital to buy BTC at large scale. Bonds offering coupons of 8 to 10%, rare in traditional markets, attract investors seeking yield in a low-interest-rate environment.
Other players like Metaplanet in Japan or 21 Capital, backed by heavyweights such as SoftBank and Tether, follow this path. These companies form a new Bitcoin treasury industry, channeling enormous capital flows—estimated at $318 trillion in total—towards BTC acquisition. Jesse Myers, COO of Onramp, anticipates they will hold 10.5 million bitcoins, representing 50% of the total supply by 2045. This phenomenon is no longer marginal but a structuring market trend.
What impact for individual investors and the bitcoin ecosystem?
For small bitcoin holders, this growing concentration poses a double challenge. On one hand, market liquidity could decrease, making buying and selling transactions more costly and complex. On the other hand, their market influence would be weakened against the growing power of large companies.
However, the massive arrival of institutional capital offers some notable advantages for BTC. Among them:
- Increased recognition and stability, likely to support bitcoin’s valuation and longevity;
- A stronger structuring of the ecosystem and deeper integration into traditional financial circuits.
This evolution forces the bitcoin community to rethink its positioning. It then becomes crucial to preserve:
- A balance between institutional adoption and maintaining real decentralization;
- The promise of a free and democratic asset, which must not be overshadowed by purely capitalistic logics.
Consequences for decentralization and network control
Unfortunately, this growing concentration of bitcoin in the hands of corporations weakens its fundamental principle: decentralization. Indeed, when half of the BTC is held by a limited number of companies, its financial power will be centralized. This could:
- Influence market liquidity;
- Affect volatility;
- Grant a minority of players indirect control over the economic governance of the ecosystem;
- Cause market manipulation;
- Create insecurity on the bitcoin network, which today relies on a wide dispersion of actors;
- Affect user trust, the foundation of BTC’s legitimacy.
Bitcoin enters a new era dominated by corporations, disrupting its decentralized ideal. This concentration raises a crucial debate: will BTC remain a tool for financial freedom or become an asset controlled by corporate interests? The future of crypto now depends on this choice.
Maximize your Cointribune experience with our "Read to Earn" program! For every article you read, earn points and access exclusive rewards. Sign up now and start earning benefits.
