Every Norwegian citizen has at least 0.000115578 BTC
Norway has a public investment fund generated by excess oil profits that holds stakes in MicroStrategy and Square.
- Oljefondet owns 1.51% of MicroStrategy and 0.83% of Square, which represents ownership of the companies‘ Bitcoin reserves.
- Each Norwegian currently indirectly owns approximately $2.20 of Bitcoin through this fund.
- The Trust Project is an international consortium of media organisations based on transparency standards.
The Scandinavian countries are famous for their natural beauty and progressive health systems. Now, at least for Norway, all its citizens own at least a fraction of Bitcoin.
Unearthed by the redditor „ThiaSCSGOSkins“, who seems to be the first to investigate this issue, Norwegian citizens own Bitcoin through a state fund. This Bitcoin Up fund is capitalised by surplus profits from the oil sector which are invested on behalf of Norwegian citizens. Thus, although not all Norwegian citizens are direct owners of Bitcoin, they own it through this oil fund known as Oljefondet.
If you are following current events in Norway, you may have heard about the Oljefondet, or the state-run oil profit fund. The Norwegian government set up the fund in the 1990s to invest the surplus income generated by the Norwegian oil sector for its citizens.
A closer look at the stake that Oljefondet controls shows two companies with large stakes in Bitcoin, MicroStrategy and Square. Oljefondet holds a 1.51% stake in MicroStrategy and 0.83% of Square. According to the Norwegian Bureau of Statistics, Statistics Norway, the population of Norway was 5,367,580 as of January 1, 2020.
Calculation of BTCs held
According to bitcointreasuries.com, an aggregator that tracks the Bitcoin holdings of private and public companies, MicroStrategy currently holds BTC 40,824. Given that Oljefondet owns 1.51% of MicroStategy, Oljefondet holds its proportional share of Bitcoin, or 616,4424 Bitcoin. When you divide this figure of BTC by more than 5 million Norwegians, this breaks down to each citizen owning 0.00011485 of MicroStategy’s Bitcoin reserve, worth approximately $2.
Oljefondet also holds an interest in Square. This payment processing company, owned by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, purchased $50 million worth of Bitcoin. Oljefondet owns 0.83% of Square, which owns 4709 Bitcoin. Norway’s ownership accounts for 39.0847 of Square’s Bitcoin, or an additional 0.000000728 satoshis per citizen. Overall, each Norwegian currently indirectly owns 0.000115578 Bitcoin worth approximately $2.20 through its state-run oil fund.
Institutional investors such as Microstrategy are announcing additional purchases of Bitcoin. They are even raising funds for this. Microstrategy’s last announcement included the issuance of debt to purchase $650 million of Bitcoin. As such, the indirect ownership of Norwegian citizens in Bitcoin will continue to increase.