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There’s a crypto hierarchy that essentially only applies to Bitcoin.

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Interestingly, even though most people have heard of the term crypto ‘whale’, a Bitcoin whale isn’t the biggest possible fish in the hierarchy.

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That particular title belongs to the Humpback.

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From Shrimps to Humpbacks, find out what FISH you are in the Bitcoin chart depending on how much, or how many, BTC you hold.

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Shrimp (<1 BTC)

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A Shrimp is anybody who holds any amount of BTC under 1 BTC.

So whether you hold $250 or $25,000 worth of BTC, at today’s rate, you’re still a Shrimp.

As of January 2024, 99.7 percent (!) of Bitcoin holders are Shrimps.

Some people also use the term Plankton, referring to people who hold less than 0.0001, 0.001, 0.01 etc, but for the sake of brevity, I think we should skip that.

At the time of writing, Shrimps own between 1 and 2 million coins.

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Crab (1-10 BTC)

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Crabs are Bitcoin holders who own anywhere between 1 and 10 BTC.

This is the second largest group of holders, with with over 860,000 unique addresses, around 1.94 percent of the total, with over 2.1 million BTC.

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Octopus (10-50 BTC)

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Octopuses, or octopi, hold around 4.4 million BTC in total, around 22.52 percent of the circulating supply.

There are over 130,000 addresses in this group, which is less than 0.30 percent of the grand total of active addresses.

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Fish (50-100 BTC)

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It should be noted that some people ignore this group altogether and simply put holders who own between 50 or 100 BTC in the Octopus group.

Fish own around 4.7 percent of the total supply.

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Dolphin (100-500 BTC) and Shark (500-1,000 BTC)

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These two groups are sometimes included in the same category.

They own around 7 million BTC in total, with around 10,000 active addresses.

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Whale (1,000-5,000 BTC) and Humpback (5,000+ BTC)

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People generally refer to a Whale as somebody who owns over 5,000 BTC. But there’s another category, Humpbacks, the Whales who hold more than 5,000 BTC.

At the time of writing, there are less than 2,000 addresses but they hold a significant chunk of the grand total of BTC, well over 7 million.

In other words, the top 2,000 addresses own nearly as much as all the other holders combined.

And to think BTC was created precisely to avoid that.

The lead image for this article was created using AI by the Bitcoinea team