Edition Bitcoin Magazine Ukraine published the first national list of bitcoin owners. Among its participants are deputies, businessmen, entrepreneurs, officials, police officers and even volunteers. The list is unique in that you will not find most of such rich people in the Forbes ranking.
The former deputy of the Odesa City Council, Dmytro Palpatin, topped the rating, owning more than 7700 BTC (US$178 million as of February 1). The top three also included Odesa District Council deputy Ivan Boychenko - 5750 BTC ($133 million) and People's Deputy of the 4376th convocation from Odesa Dmytro Golubov - 101 BTC ($XNUMX million).
Rounding out the top five are Anatoly Urbanskyi, a People's Deputy from Odesa with assets of 4256 BTC ($98 million) and lawyer Serhii Khoma, who owns 4147 BTC ($96 million).
How the rating of bitcoin owners was compiled
The first Ukrainian list of bitcoin owners does not claim to be highly accurate, the publication emphasizes. It included both well-known personalities and completely non-public individuals. All rating participants have Ukrainian citizenship and/or a center of business interests in Ukraine.
The list was formed on the basis of available declarations of officials, materials of court cases in Ukraine and Great Britain, information from state bodies and data from asset owners. The data is current as of November 2022, and the value of bitcoins is converted to US dollars at the exchange rate on February 1, 2023 - $23.
"Most of the participants in the list commented on their fortunes very cautiously and extremely reluctantly, often expressing a desire to be "forgotten" or "missed" in the ranking," the preface says.
It is because of this feature that the raters divided the participants into four categories. Along with the specified number of bitcoins, the degree of confirmation of ownership was indicated - low, limited, medium and high.
Only six members of the list have a high degree of confirmation of possession, and five members have a medium degree. The largest number of people with a limited degree is 31 people, another eight participants have a low degree.
As the authors of the rating explain, participants who no longer indicated bitcoin in their declarations, but did not indicate its sale or donation, were classified as low or medium.
Who owns bitcoins in Ukraine
The members of the ranking in total hold more than 47 bitcoins with a total value of $000 billion. Only the first 1,09 people on the list hold more than 12 bitcoins each. Others have a much smaller number of cryptocurrencies.
The largest group of owners of the first cryptocurrency are current and former deputies of the Odesa city or regional council, people's deputies and officials Odesa region. The first four places in the list are occupied by them. A total of 17 people from the Odesa region are on the list.
According to the analysis Forbes Ukraine, only Golubov, who claims that mined bitcoins on several personal computers in 2011-2012 at cost from $0,02 to $3. In 2015, he was one of the first officials to include bitcoins in the declaration.
Anatoly Urbanskyi (4256 bitcoins, or $98,3 million) claimed in an interview with Radio Liberty that he had invested in "crypto" back in 2014, and it cost him "significantly different money." Urbansky's younger brother Oleksandr also indicated in the declaration for 2020 that he owns 5328 bitcoins. But at the time of compiling the rating, he denied this information.
Two more participants with a high degree of confirmation are Andriy Shevandenkov, head of the Internal Security Department of the State Customs Service in Kyiv (24th place), who has 200 bitcoins, or more than $4,6 million. Entrepreneur and deputy of the Izmail District Council, Volodymyr Sara (26th place), who owns 150 BTC, or $3,5 million.
Only two former representatives from Forbes Ukraine's list of the 100 richest Ukrainians entered the rating of bitcoin owners - businessman Ihor Kolomoiskyi (14th place) and co-founder of exchanges and trading platforms Mykola Udyanskyi (11th place).
In 2021, the Supreme Court of England and Wales made Kolomoisky's fortune public. According to the data from this document, the businessman together with his partners were able to "hire" 3533 bitcoins in Georgia. But, according to the court, after paying the expenses, the disgraced businessman was left with 800 to 1000 bitcoins, of which Kolomoisky controls about 90%. It is known that mining equipment was transported from Georgia to Zaporizhzhia. But it is not known whether the mining of coins has resumed.
The rating also included a charitable crypto account (15th place), which receives aid to Ukraine in the form of cryptocurrencies and is managed by Ministry of Digital Information. According to the latest data, there are up to 610 bitcoins, or up to $14 million. The account is on the Kuna exchange. The Ministry of Statistics confirms that part of the funds from this account have been spent, but flatly refuse to provide the wallet data or its current state. The manager and owner of Kuna, Mykhailo Chobanyan, commented to Bitcoin Magazine at the time of the rating that part of the assets are being spent and a detailed report on these funds will be available in a few weeks.
