The United Arab Emirates (UAE) holds about $700 million in Bitcoin, which has been accumulated mostly from mining operations, according to the blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence.
Arkham said in an X post on Monday that it has become one of the first to publicly identify the UAE government’s wallets, finding that their wallet addresses hold about 6,300 Bitcoin (BTC).
The Bitcoin was mined through Citadel Mining, which is majority owned by the UAE government-owned conglomerate, the International Holding Company (IHC).
“Unlike the US and UK, the UAE’s holdings do not come from police asset seizures but from mining operations with Citadel Mining,” Arkham said.
The reported Bitcoin holdings are far less than what was rumored. Speculation frequently placed the UAE’s holdings at around 420,000 Bitcoin collected from sources such as criminal seizures and worth $46 billion, which would have made the Emirates the world’s biggest nation-state Bitcoin holder.
UAE mining firm connected to royal family
Arkham said in conjunction with Phoenix Group, a public UAE mining company, and the IHC, Citadel built a Bitcoin mining facility in Abu Dhabi in 2022.
“We were able to corroborate the timeline of onchain mining activity with time-lapse satellite imagery of facility construction,” the firm said.
“On-chain transactions between Phoenix and Citadel also match amounts disclosed in official reports.”
In total, Arkham estimates that through Citadel, the UAE has mined a total of 9,300 Bitcoin.
Citadel Mining is 85% owned by holding company 2pointzero, which is owned by the IHC, which the UAE Royal Group, a conglomerate owned by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, of Abu Dhabi’s royal family, has a 61% stake in.
How does the UAE stack up to other countries
With its newly reported holdings, the UAE would have the sixth-largest Bitcoin stash out of all countries, behind Bhutan with 11,286 and ahead of El Salvador with 6,246, according to BitBo.
The US is still the largest nation-state holder of Bitcoin, with 198,012, made mostly from criminal seizures. China is second with 194,000, most of which came from its 2019 crackdown on the PlusToken scam. The UK is third with 61,245 Bitcoin.
BitBo estimates 517,000 Bitcoin are held in sovereign vaults, representing about 2.4% of the total supply, with a total worth of over $56 billion.
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However, Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, is believed to hold 1.096 million Bitcoin across thousands of wallets, according to Arkham, giving them the largest stash, while Michael Saylor’s company, Strategy, is the largest corporate holder with a treasury of 629, 376 Bitcoin, or 2.9% of the total supply, and is still growing.
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