By
Temitope Olatunji
April 26th, 2024
According to Arkham, Coinbase owns about 5% of all Bitcoin currently in existence, nearly as much as BTC creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s holdings.
Blockchain analysis and intelligence platform Arkham Intelligence has announced that major crypto exchange Coinbase holds $25 billion worth of Bitcoin in its reserves, which amounts to about 1 million Bitcoin.
According to an Arkham post, the amount of Bitcoin held in Coinbase reserves makes the giant exchange ”the largest Bitcoin entity in the world”. The post also adds that the Bitcoin in Coinbase’s coffers is nearly 5% of all Bitcoin in existence, noting the amount is “about as much as Satoshi Nakamoto”, the anonymous Bitcoin creator. However, CoinGecko data states that Coinbase owns only $207.7 million worth of Bitcoin.
Nakamoto reportedly owns between 750,000 and 1,100,000 Bitcoin. At Bitcoin’s current price of $26,484, according to CoinMarketCap data, the upper limit of this range would put Nakamoto’s Bitcoin holdings at more than $29 billion.
In a follow-up post, Arkham added that it identified and tagged 36 million deposit and holding Bitcoin addresses in Coinbase’s control. Noting that the company’s largest cold wallet contains about 10,000 Bitcoin, Arkham suggests that “Coinbase likely has thousands more BTC not yet labeled.”
According to Arkham, Coinbase holds 1.685 million Ether worth $2.68 billion and $233 million worth of USDC. In addition, the exchange’s reserves hold more than $488 million worth of LINK and over $193 million in BNB.
Early this month, Arkham named the Grayscale Ethereum Trust the second-largest global entity by ETH holdings, with $5 billion worth of the asset. Arkham said Grayscale split the funds across more than 500 addresses, each with a maximum of $30 million.
Coinbase to Support Bitcoin Lightning Network
Last week, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced that the company has plans to integrate the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Initially proposed with a whitepaper in January 2016, the Lightning Network is a layer-2 protocol designed to increase the Bitcoin blockchain’s scalability with cheaper transactions. Bitfinex officially integrated the Lightning Network in 2018, with Kraken following suit in 2020.
In July, Binance officially announced that the exchange’s integration of the network was complete. Before then, several members of the Bitcoin community had criticized Binance and Coinbase for their delay in integrating the Lightning Network. After Binance’s integration, the criticism increased. In a July post, X co-founder Jack Dorsey queried Armstrong about Coinbase ignoring the Lightning Network. In addition to Dorsey, Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood also encouraged Armstrong to integrate the Lightning Network. Although Armstrong has confirmed official Coinbase plans, the CEO did not provide a timeframe.
Coinbase vs SEC
Coinbase has had its fair share of regulatory troubles since the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused the exchange of several violations. In July, the SEC secured an indictment against Coinbase in a New York Federal Court for operating as an unregistered national securities broker and exchange.
Last month, Coinbase asked the court to dismiss the case for several reasons. CEO Armstrong has argued that the SEC is only regulating by enforcement approach, and has accused the Commission of misleading the exchange.
Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal has said he expects Coinbase to win the case. Grewal added that the exchange, in addition to winning, looks forward to working with the Commission and lawmakers to establish regulatory clarity.
