Glassnode says 35.4% of Bitcoin supply, or 7.12M BTC, has exposed public keys
In brief
- Bitcoin supply with exposed public keys hit 35.4%, or 7.12 million BTC, as of November 10, 2026, per Glassnode.
- Address reuse accounts for 25.8% and exchange balances for 11.6% in Glassnode's breakdown.
- Exposed-key share has climbed from 24.8% in early 2021, and the current reading is the series high.
- Legacy P2PK outputs hold about 1.71 million BTC, a significant share attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto.
- Quantum computers capable of breaking Bitcoin's encryption don't exist, and no timeline is settled.
Where the exposure comes from
Address reuse is the biggest bucket. Glassnode's breakdown puts address reuse at 25.8%, covering wallets where earlier transactions had already revealed the key. Exchange balances sit at 11.6%, per the same breakdown. (The source doesn't say how the two categories overlap.)
The number has only gone one way. Exposure stood at 24.8% in early 2021, rose to 30.2% by May 2026 and reached 31.2% by October 2026 before the latest reading. Independent data from ChainQuery put exposed supply at around 35.6% as of early November 2026, which is close to Glassnode's own figure.
Satoshi-era coins and Taproot
Legacy P2PK outputs are an early transaction format that records the public key directly. According to Crypto Briefing, they held approximately 1.71 million BTC, and a significant share of those coins is attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto.
Taproot outputs held around 222,000 BTC and may carry structural characteristics that expose keys. The research stated those coins aren't at immediate risk unless someone actively works to discover the corresponding private keys.
Crypto Briefing drew a clear line here. Address reuse can be fixed one user at a time, but the 1.71 million BTC in P2PK outputs can't (especially the portion linked to Satoshi).
What the figure does and doesn't mean
Under Bitcoin's current cryptography, deriving a private key from a public key is considered impractical. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could, in theory, make that derivation feasible.
No such machine exists today.
There's also no settled timeline for when, or whether, one will arrive. So the 35.4% figure measures how much supply would be exposed if that math ever changed. It doesn't describe an attack underway.
Glassnode co-founder Rafael Schultze-Kraft pointed to a straightforward fix for the largest bucket. He said moving coins from reused addresses to freshly generated ones eliminates reuse-related exposure, and the firm frames hashed, never-used addresses as a meaningful way to cut down on risk.
Frequently asked questions
Why is so much Bitcoin supply showing exposed public keys?
Glassnode's breakdown puts address reuse at 25.8%, covering wallets where earlier transactions had already revealed the key, and exchange balances at 11.6%. Legacy P2PK outputs, which record the public key directly, hold about 1.71 million BTC.
Are Bitcoin holders with exposed public keys at risk today?
Quantum computers capable of breaking Bitcoin's current encryption don't exist today, and there's no settled timeline for when, or whether, they'll arrive. Under current cryptography, deriving a private key from a public key is considered impractical.
How can Bitcoin holders reduce public key exposure?
Glassnode co-founder Rafael Schultze-Kraft said moving coins from reused addresses to freshly generated ones eliminates reuse-related exposure. Glassnode frames hashed, never-used addresses as a meaningful way to reduce risk.
