Countries with Bitcoin Reserves: Who Holds How Much and Why?

Short answer: Countries holding bitcoin together hold around 646’000 BTC, a good 3% of all 21 million bitcoin. The largest holdings are in the US (around 328’000 BTC), China (around 190’000 BTC) and the United Kingdom (61’000 BTC). Almost all of these coins come from seizures, not purchases. The one country that has deliberately bought is mainly El Salvador (as of Nov 13, 2026).

"The US is building a bitcoin reserve." "Germany sells 50’000 bitcoin." Headlines like these make it sound as if governments are competing for bitcoin. The reality is more sober: most countries holding bitcoin took the coins from criminals and don't yet know exactly what to do with them. Here you can see who holds how much, where the coins come from and what that means for you as a long-term holder.

Which countries hold bitcoin?

A state can get bitcoin in three ways: it seizes them in criminal cases, it mines them itself, or it buys them. The first route is by far the most common. The following table shows the known holdings.

Sources: El Salvador and the United Kingdom from bitcoin-powerlaw.com's treasury overview (dashboard of the government of El Salvador, UK Crown Prosecution Service CPS). Other countries: estimates by bitcointreasuries.net based on wallet analyses, as of Nov 13, 2026. For China, the Emirates and Kazakhstan there is no official confirmation.

For Ukraine, trackers list around 46’000 BTC. But these are the bitcoin that Ukrainian politicians declare in their asset declarations, not state assets. That is why they are missing above.

For comparison: the US spot ETFs hold around 1.27 million BTC (more in the article Bitcoin ETF flows and holdings), Strategy alone 849’327 BTC. So all countries together hold only around half as much as the ETFs.

USA: the largest state bitcoin reserve

The US has seized bitcoin again and again since 2013: from the darknet marketplace Silk Road, from the 2016 hack of the Bitfinex exchange and most recently, in October 2025, around 127’271 BTC from Cambodia's Prince Group. The Justice Department called it the largest forfeiture action in its history. Together that comes to around 328’000 BTC by estimates.

The authorities used to auction off such coins. That ended on Mar 6, 2025: President Trump ordered a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve by executive order. Bitcoin that finally belong to the state go into it and may not be sold. The government may only acquire new bitcoin in a "budget-neutral" way, i.e. without additional taxpayers' money.

You should know three limitations:

1. Not everything belongs to the state yet. In the Prince Group case, proceedings are still ongoing; a court ruled on claims at the end of September 2026, but the forfeiture is not complete.
2. Part goes back to victims. For around 94’643 BTC from the Bitfinex hack, prosecutors requested in January 2025 that they be returned to the exchange.
3. Nothing has been bought so far. Congress has not passed a law that would require purchases (as of Nov 13, 2026).

Individual US states go further. Texas created its own bitcoin reserve by law in 2025 and invested for the first time in November 2025, initially around $5 million via the IBIT ETF. That is tiny compared with the federal government, but it is a real purchase with taxpayers' money.

China, the United Kingdom and other countries holding bitcoin

China seized around 190’000 BTC in 2019 in the PlusToken case, a Ponzi scheme. In 2020 a court ordered the coins to be confiscated and disposed of "according to law". Whether China has sold them or still holds them is not publicly known. Bitcoin trading and mining have been banned there since 2021, and Beijing is not planning a reserve. What this ban achieved is shown in Can bitcoin be banned?.

The United Kingdom holds 61’000 BTC from the Zhimin Qian case. She had used them to launder money from an investment fraud in China; London police seized the coins from 2018 onwards. The High Court declared them forfeitable in January 2026. It is open how much of it the Chinese victims will receive. The government has not announced a reserve.

Bhutan is a special case. From 2019 the Himalayan state mined bitcoin with cheap hydropower through its sovereign wealth fund Druk Holding & Investments. At the end of 2024 it held around 13’000 BTC. Since then it has sold almost all of them and spent the money domestically. According to trackers, around 518 BTC remain (as of Sep 15, 2026).

The Czech Republic is the first EU country whose central bank has bought bitcoin, though only as a test: on Nov 13, 2025, the Czech National Bank announced a $1 million test portfolio with bitcoin, a dollar stablecoin and a tokenised deposit. It sits outside the currency reserves and is not meant to grow.

El Salvador: the only country buying bitcoin continuously

El Salvador made bitcoin legal tender in September 2021. Since November 2022 the country has bought one bitcoin every day. The National Bitcoin Office shows the reserve addresses publicly on bitcoin.gob.sv, so anyone can check the holdings themselves.

For a loan from the International Monetary Fund, El Salvador amended its bitcoin law in early 2025: merchants no longer have to accept bitcoin, and taxes are only paid in dollars. The daily purchases continued anyway.

Germany, Austria and Switzerland

Germany held around 50’000 BTC at the start of 2024. They came from the operator of the illegal film site Movie2k, who had voluntarily handed them over to the authorities. The Dresden Public Prosecutor General's Office sold them between Jun 19 and Jul 12, 2024 in a so-called Notveräußerung (emergency sale): the law allows seized items to be sold if they are at risk of losing much of their value. The proceeds of €2.64 billion are held in deposit until the criminal proceedings end. Since then, Germany has held no significant bitcoin.

Austria has no state bitcoin reserve and no known larger holdings. Like the Bundesbank, the Oesterreichische Nationalbank holds gold and foreign currency, but no bitcoin.

In Switzerland, a popular initiative wanted to oblige the National Bank to hold bitcoin as a reserve alongside gold. Signature collection began at the end of 2024. In May 2026 the initiators gave up: they had only around half of the 100’000 signatures needed. SNB chairman Martin Schlegel had rejected bitcoin as too volatile for currency reserves.

Why countries hold or sell bitcoin

The reasons depend on how a state got the coins:

The last point matters: with seized bitcoin, it is often not the government but criminal law that decides. In Germany, the prosecutors had to act according to the law. In the US, a coin only belongs to the state once a court confirms the forfeiture and victims have been compensated.

Rule of thumb: Most countries didn't buy their bitcoin, they seized it. So a state reserve says little about whether a government believes in bitcoin.

What countries holding bitcoin mean for you

For you as a holder, two things count: the supply a state could bring to market, and the demand if states buy.

Supply: when a state sells, large amounts hit the market at once. When Saxony sold in summer 2024, bitcoin was in the "fair" zone according to the Power Law model. The price fluctuated, but the market absorbed 50’000 BTC in four weeks. With the US executive order, the largest possible supply is locked away for now.

Demand: if large states genuinely bought, that would be new demand for an asset of which there will never be more than 21 million units. So far, though, this only happens on a small scale: El Salvador, Texas, the test portfolio in the Czech Republic. How scarce 21 million really is and who protects the limit is explained in Why there are only 21 million bitcoin.

So don't build your planning on state purchases. On Nov 13, 2026, bitcoin stood at 0.64 times its long-term trend, in the accumulation zone and around 4% above the floor of €60’575 (CHF 55’923). The floor is a model value, not a guarantee; how the model is built is in the methodology.

Where the floor will be on a particular day in the future, you can work out in the floor calculator.

State, company, ETF: who holds bitcoin how?

How companies buy bitcoin and what that means for their shares is explained in the overview Bitcoin treasury companies. The largest corporate holder is presented in the profile of Strategy stock (MSTR). All recorded holders with live figures and a world map are in the treasury overview.

Why countries find bitcoin interesting at all

Central banks hold gold because no other state can print or freeze it. Bitcoin has the same property, digitally and with a fixed supply. At the same time, euro, franc and dollar lose purchasing power every year; why that is so is shown in the article Inflation and loss of purchasing power. For most central banks, what speaks against bitcoin as a reserve is its strong volatility and the lack of a legal mandate to hold it as a reserve. Whether bitcoin will nevertheless one day lie next to gold and dollars in central bank vaults is examined in the article Bitcoin as a reserve currency.