As of July, only two public companies among the ten largest Bitcoin holders were in unrealized profit, according to CoinGecko.
Experts at the service calculated that by the end of the month MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor’s company, held 152,333 BTC. The return on investment in the cryptocurrency stood at 11.07%, equivalent to $456.7 million of profit.
Among the other top-10 companies, unrealized profit from Bitcoin investments ranged from 9.79% (Block) to 106.3% (Marathon Digital Holdings).
“Paper” losses were borne only by NEXON and Tesla, at -48.32% and -5.97%, respectively.
The highest profitability figures are attributed to mining companies such as Hut 8 Mining, Riot Platforms, Hive Blockchain and Marathon, since, by nature of their business, the initial price of Bitcoin for them is effectively zero. The methodology does not account for costs such as labour, equipment and electricity, which go into mining cryptocurrencies.
Four of the seven companies remaining in the 2021 ranking increased their Bitcoin holdings. MicroStrategy bought the largest amount of the asset — 22,634 BTC. The other three added 2,910 BTC (Marathon), 10,766 BTC (Coinbase Global) and 2,237 BTC (Hut 8 Mining).
Two firms in this seven (Block and NEXON) kept their crypto reserves unchanged, while Hive Blockchain reduced them by 24.56%.
Over two years, three new companies joined the ranking: Galaxy Digital Holdings (12,545 BTC), Tesla (10,500 BTC) and Riot Platforms (7,275 BTC).
Tesla experienced the largest swings in crypto-asset volumes over this period. In February 2021, Elon Musk’s company purchased Bitcoin for about $1.5 billion at an average price of $36,000 per coin.
However, in the second-quarter 2022 financial report the firm said it sold 75% of its cryptocurrency with a profit of $64 million. The decision at Tesla was explained by environmental concerns and the need to rebalance the asset portfolio.
The company has continued since then holding the remaining ~10,500 BTC, without buying or selling coins.
Since 2021, MicroStrategy has increased its Bitcoin portfolio by 17.45%. The only sale the company made was in December 2022, selling 704 BTC at an average price of $16,776.
By the end of June, the company controlled 0.725% of the market supply of digital gold. However, due to large deals in 2021, such as the purchase of 19,452 BTC at about $52,765 (roughly 44% above current quotes), MicroStrategy’s return on investment in Bitcoin is comparatively low. Earlier in August, Michael Saylor’s company purchased 467 BTC for $14.4 million.