A total of 135,694 crypto millionaires worldwide was tallied. A different calculation method from a year earlier was applied, making it difficult to directly compare with last year’s figure.

On Sept. 15, European fintech outlet Fintech News Switzerland reported that Henry & Partners’ “2026 Crypto Wealth Report” put the number of people holding $1 million or more in cryptocurrencies at 135,694 as of Aug. 31, 2026. Stablecoins were excluded from the tally.

The 2025 report estimated 241,700 crypto millionaires under the same threshold. Henry & Partners applied a new methodology in the 2026 report based on public blockchain data. It said the figures should not be interpreted as a simple 43.9 percent drop because the methodology adjusted for exchange and fund wallets, lost assets, multiple addresses held by the same owner, and indirect holdings through spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

The number of large holders also fell. The number of crypto centimillionaires holding $100 million or more was estimated at 290, and crypto billionaires were estimated at 23. Of these, 92,272 people held $1 million or more in bitcoin alone.

Weakness in the crypto market also persisted. As of Aug. 31, 2026, total crypto market capitalisation was tallied at about $2.62 trillion, while bitcoin’s market capitalisation was about $1.56 trillion. According to Henry & Partners, bitcoin fell to $78,008 on Aug. 31, 2026, from about $105,869 in June 2025.

A shift in fund flows was also cited as a backdrop to the market weakness. Morningstar analysed that much of this year’s decline was due to money flowing out of U.S.-listed spot crypto ETFs. That means a key source of demand that drove the crypto market’s rise in 2025 has weakened.

Chris Perkins (크리스 퍼킨스), head of Franklin Templeton’s active digital assets management division, told Morningstar that retail investors’ risk capital has moved to artificial intelligence (AI). “Retail risk capital has shifted to AI as a new object of obsession,” he said. “Institutional buildout has not stopped, and the fundamental network fundamentals continue to strengthen,” he said.

Investment in AI companies also continued to increase. Global investment in AI companies in 2025 was $223 million, up 77 percent from $126 million in 2024, according to Crunchbase data. In the first half of 2026, $394 million was raised, exceeding the full-year total for the previous year by 76.7 percent.

By contrast, the crypto user base expanded. According to Henry & Partners, the number of funded bitcoin addresses rose 4.9 percent in the year through Aug. 31, 2026. Based on that, the number of bitcoin holders is estimated at 371 million, and applying the assumption that bitcoin accounts for 50 percent of all crypto holders puts total crypto holders at an estimated 742 million. The holder base increased despite the price decline.