Glassnode co-founder counts 6.26 million BTC with exposed public keys

Nearly a third of all Bitcoin now sits behind public keys that anyone can read on the blockchain.

On October 8, 2026, Glassnode co-founder Rafael Schultze-Kraft put the figure at more than 6.26 million BTC, or 31.2% of circulating supply. That number has been climbing faster than Bitcoin itself, which is the part that deserves a second look.

The exposed pile keeps growing

Back in May 2026, the same metric stood at 6.04 million BTC, equal to 30.2% of supply. Five months later, the exposed balance is 222,000 BTC larger.

Over that same stretch, Bitcoin’s total supply grew by just 64,000 BTC. Exposure is expanding more than three times as fast as new coins are being created.

So the increase is not simply new Bitcoin landing in visible addresses. Existing coins are moving into a state where their public keys are on display.

Every Bitcoin wallet runs on a key pair: a private key that authorizes spending and a public key derived from it. Many address formats keep the public key hidden behind a hash until the owner spends from that address. Once revealed, the key stays on the public ledger permanently.

Exchanges are doing the heavy lifting

The biggest single contributor to the jump is the exchange sector. Trading platforms added 123,000 BTC to their exposed holdings since May, which accounts for more than half of the total increase.

Exposed Bitcoin on exchanges now totals 1.79 million BTC. That makes centralized platforms a major chunk of the overall 6.26 million figure.

The spread between individual platforms is striking. According to Schultze-Kraft’s data, Coinbase has approximately 10% of its holdings tied to exposed keys. Binance sits at 83%. Some platforms, including Robinhood, show 100% exposure.

Why anyone is counting this

The reason analysts track exposed public keys comes down to one word: quantum. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could, in theory, work backward from a visible public key to the private key behind it. Coins sitting at exposed addresses would be the first ones within reach if that day arrives.

That is what makes Schultze-Kraft’s trend line notable. The concern is not that 31.2% of supply is exposed in isolation, but that the share is rising rather than shrinking while the quantum conversation gets louder.

What this means for holders and custodians

The most immediate implication may be scrutiny of exchange security practices. Platforms with high exposure rates, like Binance and Robinhood, could face questions from customers about how their reserves are structured.

There is also a coordination problem worth watching. A meaningful share of exposed coins may belong to owners who will never move them, whether because keys are lost or holders are inactive. Those coins cannot be migrated to safer addresses by anyone except their owners.

For exchanges, the fix is more within their control. Migrating reserves to fresh addresses is an operational task, not a protocol overhaul, so platforms with high exposure have a relatively clear path to lowering their numbers if they choose to.

The key metric to watch is the direction of travel. If the share keeps climbing past 31.2%, the gap between quantum talk and quantum preparation will be harder to ignore. For now, the 1.79 million BTC on exchanges is the part of the pile where change could happen fastest.