River says individuals still own most of Bitcoin.
The US-based Bitcoin Financial Services Company revealed ownership distribution surveys dated August 25, 2025 in a recent post about X. The study groups deliver to categories and show Share River attributes to each with the help of public archives, custody address and previous blockchain research.
River estimates individuals controls approx. 65.9% of circulating BTC or 13.83 million coins. This bucket includes self -defense wallets and the Exchange Accounts River classifies as individual.
On the institutional side, River Holdings divides into companies and ETFs and funds.
- Companies – a global category that covers corporate tax boxes and conventional companies reporting Bitcoin Holdings – accounts for approx. 6.2% of the supply, or 1.30 million BTC.
- ETFs and funds – SPOT ETFs and investment vehicles that are custody of clients – controls approx. 7.8%or 1.63 million BTC.
Governments appear in approx. 1.5%or 306,000 BTC based on sovereign addresses river traces from public sources.
Two special categories end the distribution:
- Lost Bitcoin is approx. 7.6%or 1.58 million BTC. River says this is derived from age heuristics that show coins that have not moved for many years and are probably not recyclable.
- Satoshi/Pathoshi Holdings is linked to approx. 4.6%or 968,000 BTC based on previous research in mining of the time period.
Finally, approx. 5.2% of the supply, or 1.09 million BTC, has not yet been extracted until the hard ceiling of 21 million has been reached.
In general, River’s research is an attempt to map who has Bitcoin today, not to predict future prices. The estimates are not definitive as depotmen gather many clients, some wallets are misleading and ownership can be opaque.
River’s conclusion is that individuals still dominate possessions, but the institutional proportion is expanded, helped by the growth of ETFs and businesses that now treat Bitcoin as a balance active.
