On the 12th of December, 2021, Bitcoin’s total capped supply has reached exactly 90% meaning thereby that only 10% of Bitcoins are left which will be required to be minted on or before the expiry of 119 years from 12th December. Out of these 90% Bitcoins already issued (which totals at 18,899,800 in number), 1.8 million Bitcoins are resting with the top-five leading Bitcoin trading firms amongst whom, Coinbase is at the top because it is in the custody of at least 51% of the 1.8 million Bitcoins.
At presently there have been more than thousands of crypto trade and exchange platforms. However, only a handful of them has done most of the crypto trade and exchange businesses locally and internationally. They have become trusted names and earned a reputation across the globe and are categorized as ‘tier-A’ exchanges. Amongst these tier-A exchanges, are Binance, Huobi, Okex, Coinbase, and Kraken. These are the top 5 crypto exchanges of the world presently.
As of 12th December 2021, these five exchanges alone have been possessing at least 8% of Bitcoin’s supply. This 8% of Bitcoin’s supply can be described in numbers as 1.8 million.
Since its inception, there have been a total of 21 million BTC coins that have been mined. This meant that 90% of Bitcoin’s capped supply (i.e. 18,899,800) has made its way in the global crypto market till 12th December 2021. Only 10% of Bitcoins can further be minted and they have to be mined on or before the expiry of 119 years from 12th December.
There have been at least 2.6 million Bitcoins which are assumed to be lost in the mist. For instance, it is assumed that the creator of Bitcoin had himself mined a total of 1.2 million Bitcoins. However, the inventor then sided with the crypto community and social media as well. So these coins are assumed as “lost” by the crypto community. Similarly, there are 1.5 million Bitcoins which too are assumed to be “lost”, apparently because the owners have forgotten access keys to their Bitcoin assets.
But amongst the top-5 crypto firms, they are holding exactly 1,673,460 Bitcoins. The value of these coins can be estimated to be more than US$ 81.6 Billion as of 12th December. The major chunk of the 1,673,460 Bitcoins i.e. 853,530 is however under the custody of crypto firm, Coinbase. Coinbase’s Bitcoin holding presents more than 51% of the Bitcoin supply available with these five firms. At number two is Binance with 290,000 Bitcoins under its possession.
Both Binance and Coinbase, are regarded as the number one firm in the global crypto space. However, very recently, Coinbase became a NASDAQ-listed company while Binance continues to be a purely decentralized crypto exchange. It has however been intended by Binance that it will become a centralized exchange in the UK only.
