Henley & Partners: 290 people worldwide hold over $100M in crypto

The ultra-wealthy have found a new favorite asset class, and the numbers are starting to show it. Henley and Partners’ Crypto Wealth Report 2026, released September 8, 2026, puts 290 individuals worldwide in the $100 million-plus crypto bracket, with the global crypto market sitting at a $2.6 trillion total capitalization.

Bitcoin is doing the heavy lifting. Of those 290 mega-holders, 151 carry that wealth in Bitcoin alone, which says something about how seriously the oldest crypto is being treated as a long-term store of value.

The shape of crypto wealth

Zoom out from the top tier and the full picture is just as striking. There are 135,694 crypto millionaires globally, 92,272 of whom built that status primarily through Bitcoin holdings. At the very top, 23 individuals qualify as crypto billionaires, with 9 of them holding Bitcoin as their sole digital asset.

These figures come with an important methodological footnote. Henley used a new on-chain methodology for this report, which means direct year-over-year comparisons to prior editions are not reliable benchmarks. The numbers reflect a fresh counting approach, not necessarily a clean growth trend from last year’s figures.

The broader user base is large and still expanding. An estimated 742 million people now hold some form of crypto globally, with roughly 371 million specifically holding Bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s market cap stands at $1.6 trillion, representing about 60% of the total crypto market.

The 38% drop that context demands

One number in the report deserves extra attention: Bitcoin is trading roughly 38% below its October 2025 peak. More people hold crypto now than at any previous point, even as prices sit well off peak.

For the 290 individuals with nine-figure crypto positions, a 38% drawdown still leaves them extraordinarily wealthy. For the 135,694 millionaires in the report, the margin is tighter, and some of those millionaire designations may look different if Bitcoin’s price was measured at its October 2025 high versus the August 31, 2026 snapshot date used here.

Where the wealthy are planting their flags

Geography matters more in crypto wealth planning than most people expect. Henley runs a parallel Crypto Adoption Index alongside the wealth data, and Singapore has topped that index for the fourth consecutive year. The UAE, Hong Kong, the US, and Switzerland round out the top five for 2026.

These rankings reflect the regulatory and tax environments that high-net-worth crypto holders are actively choosing. Singapore’s consistent top position reflects its clear licensing frameworks and relatively crypto-friendly tax treatment. The UAE has positioned itself aggressively on digital asset regulation, drawing significant inflows of wealthy residents in recent years. Hong Kong’s re-entry into a prominent spot marks a deliberate policy pivot toward becoming a regional crypto hub.

The Henley report frames this through the lens of investment migration, which is a core part of what Henley as a firm actually does for clients. The portability of crypto assets makes residence and citizenship planning a different calculation than it was for traditional wealth. A stock portfolio tied to a brokerage account in one jurisdiction is harder to move cleanly than crypto holdings secured by private keys.

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