There are just six bitcoin billionaires in the world, new crypto super-rich report says

Hundreds of millions of people around the world have some form of crypto holdings, whether that is in bitcoin or one of the many other digital currencies.

To be exact, 425 million people use crypto, according to Henley & Partners’ Crypto Wealth Report, which was released by the investment migration consultancy on Tuesday.

Crypto may no longer be booming in the same way as it did at the peak of its popularity, but it remains a highly common investment. For example, over half of Gen Z (between the ages of 18 and 25) have invested in it, a report by the CFA Institute and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s Investor Education Foundation showed earlier this year.

Seventy-five percent of Americans however aren’t sure that investing in, trading or using cryptocurrency is currently safe or that they can rely on the currently available tools to do so, a Pew Research survey found in April. Forty-five percent of those surveyed also said their investments hadn’t done as well as they thought they would — and only 15% said it had exceeded expectations.  

But some seem to have found more success with crypto, and now have holdings worth millions or even billions of U.S. dollars, according to Henley & Partners.

The firm’s report on Tuesday says says 88,200 people have crypto assets worth at least $1 million — less than 1% of overall crypto users. Some 40,500 of them hold their investments in bitcoin, just under 46% of the total.

Far fewer people are so-called centi-millionaires who have crypto holdings valued at over $100 million. Just 182 such investors exist, with a reported 78 of them focused on bitcoin.

And 22 people have crypto holdings worth at least $1 billion. Six of them hold their investments in bitcoin — a far smaller proportion than among the crypto millionaires and centi-millionaires.

For comparison, the total value of the crypto market, at the time the report was written, was $1.18 trillion.

As part of its report, Henley & Partners also developed a Crypto Adoption Index which considers a wide range of factors including public adoption of crypto, the regulatory environment and how crypto is taxed.

The adoption of crypto infrastructure, innovation and economic factors related to the use of crypto were also taken into account.

The index is designed to show “the most appealing investment migration program options for crypto investors,” Henley & Partners explained in a statement published alongside the report.

Singapore topped the overall index, followed by Switzerland in second and the United Arab Emirates in third place, while the U.S. and U.K. ranked in fifth and seventh respectively.

Other countries in the top 10 included Australia in sixth place, as well as Canada, Malta and Malaysia that ranked eighth, ninth, and tenth.

Both Singapore and the UAE received top marks for being tax-friendly for crypto investors. In this category the U.S. and U.K. fell far behind and dropped out of the top 10. Public adoption and interest is however high in the two countries, with the U.S. placing third and the U.K. fourth in this category. The UAE and Singapore again take the top spots, coming first and second, respectively.

The U.S. and U.K. also both managed to secure the top spot in some categories. The U.S. leads the table for infrastructure adoption, which considers how common crypto ATMs are, if digital asset exchanges exist and how local banks integrate cryptocurrencies, while the U.K. tops the innovation and technology category.

Investing in cryptocurrencies has become highly popular in recent years, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic when retail trading apps surged. Economists and investing advisors have however urged caution as crypto is seen as a highly volatile asset that can quickly lose value, and many countries have not yet regulated crypto investing and trading, or companies in the crypto space. Users and their money are therefore less protected and may be vulnerable to crises like the collapse of crypto exchange FTX last year.