📰 News from the market #106

Mt Pelerin sent this email to their subscribers on November 6, 2024.

🔎 Who actually owns Bitcoin?

If you are reading this email, you probably hold some Bitcoin in your wallet. But have you ever wondered who owns the most Bitcoin, and how is its circulation distributed?

As you can probably imagine, companies such as MicroStrategy and Tesla are among the big names of Bitcoin owners.

But since the beginning of this year, institutional players such as BlackRock and Grayscale have joined the fray and now hold enormous amounts of Bitcoin.

In addition, many individual investors - the so-called whales - possess huge holdings. Then, entire countries such as the USA and El Salvador have large treasuries as well, and of course, Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous inventor of Bitcoin, is the largest individual owner.

If we put all these categories of owners in a chart, it looks like this:

Bitcoin Ownership Distribution Other 81.7-130.4M Individuals Businesses Governments 818K BTC 683K BTC 517K BTC 11.97M BTC 3.9% 57% 3.3% 2.5% 21 million bitcoin 4.6% 17.6% 6.0% Satoshi/Patoshi Lost BTC by estimation To be mined 968K BTC 3.7MBTC 1.25M BTC Data source: bitcointreasuries.net, BitMEX Research RIVER

As we can see, Satoshi holds a quite significant share with 4.6%, worth currently about $70 billion.

In addition, an estimated 3.7 million bitcoins are lost forever due to their owners having lost their secret phrases / private keys, and thus access to their BTC.

The remaining holdings are distributed among private investors, companies, ETFs and governments. Private investors represent the largest group with 57%.

Companies account for 3.3% and governments for 2.5%. ETFs account for 5.2%, although this figure has increased significantly these past months.

6% or around 1.25 million bitcoins remain to be mined and are therefore not yet in circulation.

The website bitinfocharts.com regularly publishes an overview of the current holdings of all wallets worldwide and divides them into different groups:

Bitcoin distribution Balance, BTC Addresses % Addresses (Total) BTC (0-0.00001) 5935886 10.91% (100%) 3396 BTC [0.00001-0.0001) 11100328 204%(89.09%) 466.55BTC [0.0001 - 0.001) 13066435 24.02% (6869%) 5006 BTC [0.001-0.01) 11632800 21.38% (4467%) 42716 BTC [0.01-01) 8007236 14.88% (2329%) 275587 BTC 01-1) 3562883 6.55% (8.41%) 1,100,326 BTC [-10) 858078 1.58% (1.86%) 2133478 BTC [0 - 100) 136381 0.25% (0.28%) 4,343,317 BTC [100 - 1.000) 14203 0.03% (0.03%) 4133315 BTC [1.000 - 10,000) 1976 0% (0%) 4713696 BTC [10.000-100,000) 95 0% (0%) 2321679 BTC [ 100,000 - 1,000.000) 4 0% (0%) 704,858 BTC usD % BTC (Total) $2,322,863 0% (100%) $31.912,544 0% (100%) $342,304.243 $2,921,860.355 $18.850,487,165 §75.263,714,023 $145,932.581,255 $297,088.379,319 $282,723,993,571 $322,422,801,472 23.84% (39.14%) $158,805.819,382 11.74% (15.31%) $48,213,190,570 3.56% (3.56%) 0.03% (100%) 0.22% (99.97%) 1.39% (99.76%) 5.56% (98.36%) 10.79% (92.8%) 21.96% (82.01%) 20.9% (60.04%)

Although it should be noted that very few investors store all their funds in a single wallet, this table provides a good overview of how many individual wallets are out there and, above all, how they have developed over time.

If you look at the table, for example, you can see that four addresses each hold between 100k and 1 million BTC. The second largest group consists of 95 addresses, which together currently hold 2,321,679 BTC, or 11.74% of the total amount of Bitcoin in circulation.

Almost all of the groups mentioned above can be found in the overview below. Coinbase and Binance as companies and centralized exchanges, Satoshi as an anonymous founder, BlackRock as an ETF provider and governments such as the US:

Bitcoin Top 20 Entities (sep2020) Rank Entities BTC Value Total Share Held for Clients il @ Coinbase 2,256,287 ¢ $134.5b 10.74% Yes 2 (@ satoshi* 968,452 $57.7b 4.61% No 3 &+ Binance 636,209 $377b 3.03% Yes 4 mass BlackRock 357,509 — $21.3b 1.70% Yes 5 @ MicroStrategy 252,220 — $146b 1.20% Yes 6 & Grayscale 224,751 $13.4b 1.07% No 7 £ Us. Gov. 213,246 $13.0b 1.02% No 8 © Bitfinex 207,429 $12.5b 0.99% Yes 9 okx OKX 195,182 $11.9b 0.93% Yes 10 @ Kraken 190,998 $116b 0.91% Yes n @ Chinese Gov. 190,000 $11.2b 0.90% No

Let's take a closer look at companies, which use their treasury funds to acquire Bitcoin and hold it on their balance sheet.

This strategy, which pioneered by MicroStrategy, Tesla and Galaxy Digital, helps companies to hedge their reserves against inflation, or at least that's the idea.

In addition, these companies can issue corporate bonds with low interest rates, thereby taking on cheap debt and generating liquidity that can then be used to buy Bitcoin.

The theory behind is that the value of fiat currencies falls while the price of Bitcoin rises, meaning that less Bitcoin is needed to pay off the fiat debt later on.

Bitcoin Holdings of Countries & Governments % OF COUNTRIES # OF BTC VALUE TODAY M Brc LAST UPDATED 9 529,365 $36,145,942,078 2.521% October 06, 2024 Countries Holding Bitcoin (BTC) usa China UK Ukraine (govt) Royal Government of Bhutan El Salvador Finland Georgia (govt) Germany (gort) 0 20k 40k 60k 80k 100k 120k 140k 160k 180k 200k 220k

As of October this year, nine countries were holding Bitcoin, including the USA, China, the UK and El Salvador.

These holdings mostly originate from the confiscation of Bitcoin from criminal organizations or individuals.

Only El Salvador actively buys Bitcoin and pursues a reserve strategy, which we have already presented several times in previous newsletters.

To summarize, there will never be more than 21 million bitcoins, but if we deduce Satoshi's holdings that have been dormant for years and the 4 million forever lost bitcoins, we can say that there will probably only ever be about 16 million bitcoins in circulation.

💰 Tether CEO presents the USDT reserves

During the PlanB Forum in Lugano (Switzerland), the CEO of Tether, Paolo Ardoino, presented a breakdown of his company's reserves.

According to him, the company holds around $100 billion in US government bonds, more than 82,000 bitcoins worth $5.5 billion and about 48 tons of gold.

Transparency All Tether tokens are pegged at 1-to-1 with a matching fiat currency and are backed 100% by Tether's Reserves. Information about Tether Tokens in circulation is typically published daily.! The Tether Issuers’2 combined assets exceed their combined liabilities. Tether Tokens in Circulation The net circulation metrics below provide information on Tether Tokens in circulation and are for transparency only. These metrics are typically refreshed daiy. USDT in Tether $120,576,741,184.33 (Net Circulation) CNHT in Tether ¥20,503,468.90 (Net Circulation) XAUT in Tether 3246,524.33 (Net Circulation) EURT in Tether €25,639,699.48 (Net Circulation) MXNF in Tether Mex$19,562,400.00 (Net Circulation)

Recently, the company and its stablecoin have been the subject of renewed unrest. According to an article from the Wall Street Journal, US authorities are investigating the company for violations of money laundering laws:

Paolo Ardoino denies this as old rumors and reminds that Tether regularly cooperates with law enforcement agencies to prevent and prohibit illicit usage of USDT.

Since 2014, the company has helped recover around $109 million from criminal activities.

🇨🇭 UBS launches tokenized fund on Ethereum

Swiss banking heavyweight UBS has taken a new step in the crypto world by launching a tokenized fund on Ethereum, confirming investor interest in tokenized financial assets.

The fund goes by the name of “UBS USD Money Market Investment Fund Token”, a launch that did not go unnoticed in the crypto space:

Mario Nawfal’s Roundtable X @Roundtablespace - Follow UBS LAUNCHED FIRST-EVER ETH-BASED FUND Switzerland's biggest bank, UBS, just levelled up with an Ethereum-based tokenized fund - the first of its kind. This move is like putting ETH right into the heart of traditional finance. If big banks are ready to play, it's only a... Show more 12:34 AM - Nov 2, 2024 o 101 @ Reply (@ Copy link Read 51 replies

A year ago, UBS had launched a pilot project on tokenized money market funds via the bank's internal tokenization service “UBS Tokenize”.

However, UBS is not alone and Franklin Templeton has also created a tokenized fund on Base, Polygon and Arbitrum. Libeara has already published an on-chain fund for US government bonds as well.

Last but not least, BlackRock also has its own tokenized treasury fund with the “USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund”. Asset tokenization therefore seems to be picking up speed among large institutions.

🔥 Crypto hotter than stocks and real estate?

This appears to be at least the case in Turkey, as a new study reports. The younger generation there is increasingly turning to digital currencies instead of traditional forms of investment such as shares and real estate.

#) Have you heard of cryptocurrency? < People who have heard of cryptocurrency No = 2024 99 2023 99 02 7 2021 70 2020 16 Yes 985% BASIS: 3483

While only 16% of respondents had heard of cryptocurrencies in 2020, this figure had already risen to 77% in 2022 and 99% in both 2023 and 2024.

o Can you indicate how much you trust each investment instrument listed below? " — Roal ostate H— T CUITenCY | e — i e Individual Pension System (ips) I—— P TTeNTY Turkish lra (TRY ) — 0 BASIS: 2002 People who e have heard of cryptocurrency BASIS 541 Cryptocurrency traders zg| nn Bonds/Bills — 7

Although trust in cryptocurrencies as an investment lags behind gold and real estate and even other fiat currencies, it is still ahead of Turkey's national currency, the lira, which suffers from severe inflation issues.

#) Which of the following investment or savings instruments do you prefer? Gold Forelgn currency Cryptocurrency Real estate Stock exchange/Mutual fund Individual Pension System (IPS) *Turkish lira (TRY) FX-rate-protected TRY term deposit Bonds/Bills car n W 2024 W 2023

However, according to the study, investments in gold and cryptocurrencies are preferred to traditional investments in real estate and one's own share portfolio.

Awareness of cryptocurrencies appears to be growing and spreading to a larger section of the population.

👏 Adam Back praises adoption of BTC by financial institutions

In an interview with Forbes, Adam Back, one of the former developers of Bitcoin, praised the institutional adoption of Bitcoin, which contributes to the resilience of the leading cryptocurrency:

FORBES > FORBES DIGITAL ASSETS PREMIUM « EDITORS' PICK Satoshi’s First Bitcoin Collaborator Reveals What's Next For The $1.4 Trillion Blockchain

Bitcoin has developed, says Back. Many initial risks, such as a possible bans in Europe, China or the USA, have disappeared. Bitcoin is therefore sufficiently strong today. However, he also sees space for improvement, notably in scaling the blockchain. In this context, he sees Lightning as a reliable and good solution, but whichc still needs to be further improved.

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This Newsletter is for informational purposes only. Any information herein does not constitute any legal, financial, tax or investment advice and is not intended as and is not to be taken as a recommendation, offer or solicitation for buying, trading or selling cryptocurrencies in any jurisdiction, including those in which such an offer or solicitation is not authorised or to any person to whom it is unlawful to make such a solicitation or offer. Mt Pelerin is in no way whatsoever responsible for any kind of damage or loss arising from the use of the information contained in this Newsletter.

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Mt Pelerin animated logo 🔎 WHO ACTUALLY OWNS BITCOIN? If you are reading this email, you probably hold some Bitcoin in your wallet. But have you ever wondered who owns the most Bitcoin, and how is its circulation distributed? As you can probably imagine, companies such as MicroStrategy and Tesla are among the big names of Bitcoin owners. But since the beginning of this year, institutional players such as BlackRock and Grayscale have joined the fray and now hold enormous amounts of Bitcoin. In addition, many individual investors - the so-called whales - possess huge holdings. Then, entire countries such as the USA and El Salvador have large treasuries as well, and of course, Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous inventor of Bitcoin, is the largest individual owner. If we put all these categories of owners in a chart, it looks like this: Bitcoin Ownership Distribution Other 81.7-130.4M Individuals Businesses Governments 818K BTC 683K BTC 517K BTC 11.97M BTC 3.9% 57% 3.3% 2.5% 21 million bitcoin 4.6% 17.6% 6.0% Satoshi/Patoshi Lost BTC by estimation To be mined 968K BTC 3.7MBTC 1.25M BTC Data source: bitcointreasuries.net, BitMEX Research RIVER As we can see, Satoshi holds a quite significant share with 4.6%, worth currently about $70 billion. In addition, an estimated 3.7 million bitcoins are lost forever due to their owners having lost their secret phrases / private keys, and thus access to their BTC. The remaining holdings are distributed among private investors, companies, ETFs and governments. Private investors represent the largest group with 57%. Companies account for 3.3% and governments for 2.5%. ETFs account for 5.2%, although this figure has increased significantly these past months. 6% or around 1.25 million bitcoins remain to be mined and are therefore not yet in circulation. The website bitinfocharts.com regularly publishes an overview of the current holdings of all wallets worldwide and divides them into different groups: Bitcoin distribution Balance, BTC Addresses % Addresses (Total) BTC (0-0.00001) 5935886 10.91% (100%) 3396 BTC [0.00001-0.0001) 11100328 204%(89.09%) 466.55BTC [0.0001 - 0.001) 13066435 24.02% (6869%) 5006 BTC [0.001-0.01) 11632800 21.38% (4467%) 42716 BTC [0.01-01) 8007236 14.88% (2329%) 275587 BTC 01-1) 3562883 6.55% (8.41%) 1,100,326 BTC [-10) 858078 1.58% (1.86%) 2133478 BTC [0 - 100) 136381 0.25% (0.28%) 4,343,317 BTC [100 - 1.000) 14203 0.03% (0.03%) 4133315 BTC [1.000 - 10,000) 1976 0% (0%) 4713696 BTC [10.000-100,000) 95 0% (0%) 2321679 BTC [ 100,000 - 1,000.000) 4 0% (0%) 704,858 BTC usD % BTC (Total) $2,322,863 0% (100%) $31.912,544 0% (100%) $342,304.243 $2,921,860.355 $18.850,487,165 §75.263,714,023 $145,932.581,255 $297,088.379,319 $282,723,993,571 $322,422,801,472 23.84% (39.14%) $158,805.819,382 11.74% (15.31%) $48,213,190,570 3.56% (3.56%) 0.03% (100%) 0.22% (99.97%) 1.39% (99.76%) 5.56% (98.36%) 10.79% (92.8%) 21.96% (82.01%) 20.9% (60.04%) Although it should be noted that very few investors store all their funds in a single wallet, this table provides a good overview of how many individual wallets are out there and, above all, how they have developed over time. If you look at the table, for example, you can see that four addresses each hold between 100k and 1 million BTC. The second largest group consists of 95 addresses, which together currently hold 2,321,679 BTC, or 11.74% of the total amount of Bitcoin in circulation. Almost all of the groups mentioned above can be found in the overview below. Coinbase and Binance as companies and centralized exchanges, Satoshi as an anonymous founder, BlackRock as an ETF provider and governments such as the US: Bitcoin Top 20 Entities (sep2020) Rank Entities BTC Value Total Share Held for Clients il @ Coinbase 2,256,287 ¢ $134.5b 10.74% Yes 2 (@ satoshi* 968,452 $57.7b 4.61% No 3 &+ Binance 636,209 $377b 3.03% Yes 4 mass BlackRock 357,509 — $21.3b 1.70% Yes 5 @ MicroStrategy 252,220 — $146b 1.20% Yes 6 & Grayscale 224,751 $13.4b 1.07% No 7 £ Us. Gov. 213,246 $13.0b 1.02% No 8 © Bitfinex 207,429 $12.5b 0.99% Yes 9 okx OKX 195,182 $11.9b 0.93% Yes 10 @ Kraken 190,998 $116b 0.91% Yes n @ Chinese Gov. 190,000 $11.2b 0.90% No Let's take a closer look at companies, which use their treasury funds to acquire Bitcoin and hold it on their balance sheet. This strategy, which pioneered by MicroStrategy, Tesla and Galaxy Digital, helps companies to hedge their reserves against inflation, or at least that's the idea. In addition, these companies can issue corporate bonds with low interest rates, thereby taking on cheap debt and generating liquidity that can then be used to buy Bitcoin. The theory behind is that the value of fiat currencies falls while the price of Bitcoin rises, meaning that less Bitcoin is needed to pay off the fiat debt later on. Bitcoin Holdings of Countries & Governments % OF COUNTRIES # OF BTC VALUE TODAY M Brc LAST UPDATED 9 529,365 $36,145,942,078 2.521% October 06, 2024 Countries Holding Bitcoin (BTC) usa China UK Ukraine (govt) Royal Government of Bhutan El Salvador Finland Georgia (govt) Germany (gort) 0 20k 40k 60k 80k 100k 120k 140k 160k 180k 200k 220k As of October this year, nine countries were holding Bitcoin, including the USA, China, the UK and El Salvador. These holdings mostly originate from the confiscation of Bitcoin from criminal organizations or individuals. Only El Salvador actively buys Bitcoin and pursues a reserve strategy, which we have already presented several times in previous newsletters. To summarize, there will never be more than 21 million bitcoins, but if we deduce Satoshi's holdings that have been dormant for years and the 4 million forever lost bitcoins, we can say that there will probably only ever be about 16 million bitcoins in circulation. Read more > 💰 TETHER CEO PRESENTS THE USDT RESERVES During the PlanB Forum in Lugano (Switzerland), the CEO of Tether, Paolo Ardoino, presented a breakdown of his company's reserves. According to him, the company holds around $100 billion in US government bonds, more than 82,000 bitcoins worth $5.5 billion and about 48 tons of gold. Transparency All Tether tokens are pegged at 1-to-1 with a matching fiat currency and are backed 100% by Tether's Reserves. Information about Tether Tokens in circulation is typically published daily.! The Tether Issuers’2 combined assets exceed their combined liabilities. Tether Tokens in Circulation The net circulation metrics below provide information on Tether Tokens in circulation and are for transparency only. These metrics are typically refreshed daiy. USDT in Tether $120,576,741,184.33 (Net Circulation) CNHT in Tether ¥20,503,468.90 (Net Circulation) XAUT in Tether 3246,524.33 (Net Circulation) EURT in Tether €25,639,699.48 (Net Circulation) MXNF in Tether Mex$19,562,400.00 (Net Circulation) Recently, the company and its stablecoin have been the subject of renewed unrest. According to an article from the Wall Street Journal, US authorities are investigating the company for violations of money laundering laws: Paolo Ardoino denies this as old rumors and reminds that Tether regularly cooperates with law enforcement agencies to prevent and prohibit illicit usage of USDT. Since 2014, the company has helped recover around $109 million from criminal activities. Read more > 🇨🇭 UBS LAUNCHES TOKENIZED FUND ON ETHEREUM Swiss banking heavyweight UBS has taken a new step in the crypto world by launching a tokenized fund on Ethereum, confirming investor interest in tokenized financial assets. The fund goes by the name of “UBS USD Money Market Investment Fund Token”, a launch that did not go unnoticed in the crypto space: Mario Nawfal’s Roundtable X @Roundtablespace - Follow UBS LAUNCHED FIRST-EVER ETH-BASED FUND Switzerland's biggest bank, UBS, just levelled up with an Ethereum-based tokenized fund - the first of its kind. This move is like putting ETH right into the heart of traditional finance. If big banks are ready to play, it's only a... Show more 12:34 AM - Nov 2, 2024 o 101 @ Reply (@ Copy link Read 51 replies A year ago, UBS had launched a pilot project on tokenized money market funds via the bank's internal tokenization service “UBS Tokenize”. However, UBS is not alone and Franklin Templeton has also created a tokenized fund on Base, Polygon and Arbitrum. Libeara has already published an on-chain fund for US government bonds as well. Last but not least, BlackRock also has its own tokenized treasury fund with the “USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund”. Asset tokenization therefore seems to be picking up speed among large institutions. Read more > 🔥 CRYPTO HOTTER THAN STOCKS AND REAL ESTATE? This appears to be at least the case in Turkey, as a new study reports. The younger generation there is increasingly turning to digital currencies instead of traditional forms of investment such as shares and real estate. #) Have you heard of cryptocurrency? < People who have heard of cryptocurrency No = 2024 99 2023 99 02 7 2021 70 2020 16 Yes 985% BASIS: 3483 While only 16% of respondents had heard of cryptocurrencies in 2020, this figure had already risen to 77% in 2022 and 99% in both 2023 and 2024. o Can you indicate how much you trust each investment instrument listed below? " — Roal ostate H— T CUITenCY | e — i e Individual Pension System (ips) I—— P TTeNTY Turkish lra (TRY ) — 0 BASIS: 2002 People who e have heard of cryptocurrency BASIS 541 Cryptocurrency traders zg| nn Bonds/Bills — 7 Although trust in cryptocurrencies as an investment lags behind gold and real estate and even other fiat currencies, it is still ahead of Turkey's national currency, the lira, which suffers from severe inflation issues. #) Which of the following investment or savings instruments do you prefer? Gold Forelgn currency Cryptocurrency Real estate Stock exchange/Mutual fund Individual Pension System (IPS) *Turkish lira (TRY) FX-rate-protected TRY term deposit Bonds/Bills car n W 2024 W 2023 However, according to the study, investments in gold and cryptocurrencies are preferred to traditional investments in real estate and one's own share portfolio. Awareness of cryptocurrencies appears to be growing and spreading to a larger section of the population. Read more > 👏 ADAM BACK PRAISES ADOPTION OF BTC BY FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS In an interview with Forbes, Adam Back, one of the former developers of Bitcoin, praised the institutional adoption of Bitcoin, which contributes to the resilience of the leading cryptocurrency: FORBES > FORBES DIGITAL ASSETS PREMIUM « EDITORS' PICK Satoshi’s First Bitcoin Collaborator Reveals What's Next For The $1.4 Trillion Blockchain Bitcoin has developed, says Back. Many initial risks, such as a possible bans in Europe, China or the USA, have disappeared. Bitcoin is therefore sufficiently strong today. However, he also sees space for improvement, notably in scaling the blockchain. In this context, he sees Lightning as a reliable and good solution, but whichc still needs to be further improved. Read more > Referral animation INVITE FRIENDS & EARN Invite your friends to use Mt Pelerin and earn 25% of their fees in reward! Get started > Share Share Share Share Share Share Forward Forward Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Instagram © 2024 Mt Pelerin Group SA, all rights reserved. This Newsletter is for informational purposes only. Any information herein does not constitute any legal, financial, tax or investment advice and is not intended as and is not to be taken as a recommendation, offer or solicitation for buying, trading or selling cryptocurrencies in any jurisdiction, including those in which such an offer or solicitation is not authorised or to any person to whom it is unlawful to make such a solicitation or offer. Mt Pelerin is in no way whatsoever responsible for any kind of damage or loss arising from the use of the information contained in this Newsletter. Mt Pelerin Group SA Microcity, rue de la Pierre-à-Mazel 39 Neuchâtel 2000 Switzerland Add us to your address book or 💔

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