What is the Bitcoin 21 Million Club and How Many Members Are There?

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Clubs that thrive on exclusivity have existed for centuries, and now there’s one for Bitcoin too.

The 21 Million Club is only open to those who are fortunate enough to own 1 whole Bitcoin, each costing around £41,500 at the time of writing in November 2021.

But why is it so exclusive, aside from the financial requirement?

The reason is that there will only ever be just shy of 21 million Bitcoins in existence (20,999,987.5769 to be precise), with the last coins being minted around the year 2140.

However, when you factor in all the Bitcoins that have been lost forever, the actual number of coins in existence is considerably smaller.

Some estimates suggest that nearly 4 million Bitcoins have been irretrievably lost out of the 18.5 million currently circulating.

Whale accounts limit membership further

Then you need to factor in some of the ‘Whale’ Bitcoin addresses, such as that of the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous name given to the person or people behind the creation of Bitcoin.

It is thought he/she/they possess in the region of 1 million Bitcoins, with some speculation that for whatever reason they will never be spent.

There are many other Whale accounts as well, where large numbers of Bitcoins are held by either individuals or institutions.

Conversely, all the fractional accounts where many thousands of individuals hold small amounts of Bitcoin (known as Satoshi) further dilute the possibility of becoming a member.

In reality, the number of people who can gain access to the 21 Million Club is a lot less than 21 million.

In fact, some estimates put the maximum number of possible 21 Million Club members at just around 800,000, or even lower.

When you compare this to the population of the world – currently around 7.6 billion it becomes a reasonably exclusive club to belong to.

The One in A Million Club is even more exclusive

But if that’s not enough for you, there’s a another, even more exclusive group called the ‘One in A Million Club’.

To join you need to own 21 Bitcoins at a cost of £871,500, or more, at the time of writing.

Bear in mind that currently membership of these clubs is purely symbolic and there is not actual badge to pin on your shirt or venue to gather at, as far as we know.

There is, however, a wide selection of merch available if you want to flaunt your membership of the Bitcoin clubs.

The Bitcoin rich list

Here are some further stats that put the whole thing into perspective: only 10% of all people who hold Bitcoins own more than 0.1 BTC, with only around 1,600 wallets in the world holding more than 1,000 coins.

When it comes to the super rich, there are only around 100 individual wallets that have more than 10,000 Bitcoins in them.

If you want to take a look at the current Bitcoin ‘Rich List’ then you can see the top 100 wealthiest wallets here.