Who is Hoarding Bitcoin? A Look at the Bitcoin Holdings of the Top Ten Public Companies

Ten publicly traded companies currently hold over 1 million bitcoins combined, and the gap between Wall Street winners and losers has never been so vast.

Written by: Jamie Redman

Compiled by: Baihua Blockchain

In 2026, Strategy (MSTR) remains significantly ahead

Strategy, the world's largest corporate holder of bitcoin founded by Michael Saylor, still leads with 843,775 bitcoins on its balance sheet. At current prices, this amounts to approximately $58 billion, spread across a company that now almost entirely funds more bitcoin purchases through debt and equity issuance.

However, in 2026, the scale of a company's bitcoin holdings has diverged into two distinctly different stories from its stock price movements. Mining companies are rebounding, while treasury companies are facing penalties.

The following top ten list, compiled from data by bitcointreasuries.net, lists the ten companies with the largest bitcoin holdings as of July 25, 2026.

Top 10 Corporate Bitcoin Holders

• Strategy (MSTR): 843,775 BTC
• Twenty One Capital (XXI): 43,514 BTC
• Metaplanet (MPJPY): 43,000 BTC
• Mara Holdings (MARA): 36,303 BTC
• Bullish (BLSH): 24,300 BTC
• Strive (ASST): 19,921 BTC
• SpaceX (SPCX): 18,712 BTC
• Coinbase Global (COIN): 16,492 BTC
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): 15,680 BTC
• Cleanspark (CLSK): 13,924 BTC

Strategy's lead is unassailable. Its holdings of approximately 843,775 BTC are more than 19 times that of the second-largest holder, Twenty One Capital. Saylor began purchasing bitcoin for the company, then known as Microstrategy, in 2020, when it seemed unconventional for a Nasdaq-listed software company to convert its treasury assets into bitcoin.

Five years later, this decision has reshaped the company. Strategy's current trading performance is largely a high-leverage bet on bitcoin prices, which explains why, despite its increasing bitcoin holdings, the company's stock fell 40% in 2026. This year, Strategy abandoned its long-held "never sell" policy, making this change particularly notable after years of treating every bitcoin purchase as a permanent holding.

Stock performance of Strategy (MSTR) on July 24, 2026.

The company sold 32 BTC for the first time in late May to fund preferred stock dividend payments, marking its first net sale of bitcoin in years. A few weeks later, between late June and early July, it sold another 3,588 BTC, cashing out approximately $216 million to meet stock-related obligations and replenish cash on its balance sheet. Even after these transactions, Strategy remains the world's largest corporate bitcoin holder, with a significant advantage, indicating that these sales reflect capital management rather than a deviation from its long-term bitcoin strategy.

Mining Companies Winning in the Stock Market

Setting aside the total amount of bitcoin, clearer patterns emerge from stock prices. Mining companies are performing strongly, while companies that merely hold bitcoin as treasury assets are not.

The reason is simple. First, mining companies can accumulate bitcoin at production costs often below current market prices, giving them an advantage that most corporate buyers cannot match. Second, many publicly traded mining companies have focused on building artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure over the past few years, creating a second line of business that helps diversify revenue beyond bitcoin mining.

For example, Riot Platforms has risen 73% year-to-date, performing the best among the top ten holders. Cleanspark's stock has increased by 39% as it expands its mining data centers and battery storage projects in North America. Mara Holdings has risen 31% with its mining and treasury strategy while maintaining its 36,303 BTC holdings and continuing to expand its mining footprint.

Cleanspark and Riot charts, data from tradingview.com.

Although Twenty One Capital (XXI) was only established in March 2025, it quickly became the second-largest corporate bitcoin holder. This Austin-based company has received support from cryptocurrency powers, including Tether, and was initially led by entrepreneur Jack Mallers, who left last week. Its entire business model revolves around providing direct bitcoin price exposure to stock market investors, without the software or mining operations that other listed companies possess.

Metaplanet, a Tokyo-listed company that transitioned from hotel development, has seen its stock price drop 49% as of July 25, 2026. The company still holds 43,000 BTC, ranking third on the list, but its stock price movements have closely mirrored bitcoin's price fluctuations. As of Friday's close, Twenty One Capital, despite having the second-largest reserve on the list (43,514 BTC), has dropped 48% this year.

Investors seem to reward companies that can produce bitcoin and provide AI infrastructure rather than those that merely buy and hold BTC, especially when these holding companies rely on issuing new shares or debt to continue increasing reserves. Mining companies have years of experience, and some can control their production costs. In contrast, treasury companies depend on capital markets to remain open and willing to fund their further purchases.

Two names in the middle of the list illustrate how severe this year's divergence has been. Bullish, a Cayman Islands trading platform operator that went public via SPAC in August 2025, holds 24,300 BTC, but its stock price has fallen 37% due to low cryptocurrency trading volumes and losses related to negative equity.

Strive, a Dallas asset management company built around bitcoin treasury, holds 19,921 BTC and has seen a relatively mild decline of 24% since the beginning of the year. These two companies show that even within the treasury company group, the extent of the decline largely depends on how each company finances its bitcoin purchases and the amount of debt taken on behind that strategy.

Coinbase and Riot Platforms sit next to each other on the holdings list, but tell a completely opposite story on stock price charts. Coinbase, the San Francisco trading platform founded by Brian Armstrong, holds 16,492 BTC, but its stock price has fallen 31% this year as trading volumes across the industry cool. Riot Platforms holds slightly fewer bitcoins, at 15,680 BTC, but its stock price has surged 83.4% due to its core business of producing new coins rather than merely holding them on the balance sheet.

SpaceX Joins the List After Historic IPO

SpaceX's position on this list is vastly different from when it conducted its initial public offering (IPO). The company completed its IPO on June 12, 2026, with an offering price of $135, raising approximately $85.7 billion, setting a record for the largest IPO in history, surpassing Saudi Aramco's listing record in 2019. The stock began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, opening at $150, and briefly pushed SpaceX's market value above $2.6 trillion during a peak of $225.64 on June 16. However, this surge did not hold.

The stock price fell below the IPO offering price in mid-July, and as of the close on Friday, July 24, it was trading around $115, about 15% lower than the offering price and down 45% to 50% from its June peak. SpaceX disclosed in its IPO filing that it holds 18,712 BTC, valued at approximately $1.45 billion at the time, and even though its stock price has sharply cooled since its debut, this holding still ranks ahead of Coinbase, Riot Platforms, and Cleanspark on the bitcoin holdings list.

A Tokyo Hotel Company Transforms into a Bitcoin Treasury

Metaplanet's story is the most distinctive entry on this list. Founded in 1999, the company spent most of its history developing and operating hotels in Japan. It only began accumulating bitcoin in recent years and announced plans to hold the asset long-term on the Tokyo stock exchange. This transformation has made Metaplanet the third-largest corporate bitcoin holder globally, with 43,000 BTC, although its stock has also struggled under the broader price fluctuations of bitcoin in 2026. Its bitcoin treasury has reached heights that other listed companies in Japan cannot match.

How This Trend Spreads

Strategy's approach has not remained unique for long. Once Saylor demonstrated that publicly traded companies could raise funds specifically to purchase bitcoin and let their stock prices trade at a premium to these holdings, other companies began to follow suit. Some companies (like Metaplanet and Twenty One Capital) built entire business models around the exact same idea. Others (like the mining companies on the list) added bitcoin purchases on top of businesses that were already capable of producing the asset. This difference in starting points helps explain why, even though every company on the list is exposed to the same underlying bitcoin price risk, the group has diverged into such stark winners and losers this year.

What the Future Holds

This divergence between mining companies and treasury companies may continue to shape how investors approach bitcoin-related stocks for the remainder of 2026. Companies that mine their own bitcoin can control production costs and expand capacity when conditions are favorable. In contrast, companies that merely purchase bitcoin rely on capital markets to remain open, and when stock prices fall and dilution risks increase, this financing channel may quickly tighten.

For now, the ten companies on this list hold more bitcoin than most national governments. Their collective decisions on whether to continue purchasing, start selling, or change strategies will continue to impact the cryptocurrency market and their own stock prices, with effects that extend far beyond July 2026. For everyday market observers watching bitcoin from the sidelines, these Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) company stocks provide a window into how publicly traded companies manage large bitcoin treasuries and how the market responds to these strategies.

Whether this risk can yield rewards will ultimately come down to the same dividing line that defines this list today: the distinction between companies that produce bitcoin and those that merely purchase bitcoin.