Arkham Intelligence, a cryptoanalytics firm, has identified the addresses of the second-largest Bitcoin (BTC) holder in the world, it says. These are the addresses of the large asset manager Grayscale Investments.
Arkham says there are a total of 1,750 addresses with a total value of more than $16 billion worth of Bitcoin. If this is true, then Grayscale is the largest Bitcoin owner in the world after the legendary Satoshi Nakamoto.
Breaking News: Arkham has identified Grayscale Bitcoin Trust’s on-chain holdings.
It is the second largest BTC company in the world, holding >$16 billion worth of BTC.
Although Grayscale publicly reports financial statements, they refused to provide the trust’s on-chain addresses. pic.twitter.com/p9GfrthoKR
– Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) September 6, 2023
Bitcoin asset manager Grayscale in the spotlight
You may have heard about Grayscale in the last few weeks. The asset manager was recently in crypto news in connection with the lawsuit over its application for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), or exchange-traded fund.
Grayscale wants to convert its massive Bitcoin fund (GBTC) into an ETF. However, this application was rejected by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However, according to the judge, the reasons for the rejections were unfounded, so the SEC must reconsider the application.
Arkham’s reveal puts Grayscale back in the spotlight. There have long been doubts as to whether the asset manager actually has that much BTC because he never made the addresses public. However, Arkham’s numbers are very similar to Grayscale’s official claim. In total, Grayscale’s total BTC is more than 627,000 Bitcoins, valued at $16 billion.
Arkham’s crypto analysis work
With the reveal of Arkham, a lot of new information becomes available in one fell swoop. This certainly benefits the transparency of the Bitcoin world. However, Grayscale itself will not be too happy about its Bitcoin addresses being made public.
After some criticism Is it immoral for Arkham to reveal such sensitive information? However, Arkham’s CEO believes it is important for such information to be public. The company’s goal is to “de-anonymize” the Bitcoin blockchain. Arkham even rewards crypto detectives with tokens for identifying unknown addresses.