As Bitcoin adoption surges among corporations, analysts are drawing historical parallels with gold’s path to nationalisation in 1971 raising concerns that governments could one day seize corporate-held crypto reserves.

Corporate Bitcoin Holdings Top $100 Billion

Corporate treasuries have now amassed more than $100 billion in digital assets, according to recent data. Bitcoin-focused treasury firms alone hold around 791,662 BTC, worth roughly $93 billion. This represents almost 4% of Bitcoin’s total circulating supply.

Source: Chris Kuiper

The surge in institutional holdings follows a trend of accelerating adoption. In the past two weeks, 35 publicly traded companies have each surpassed the milestone of holding more than 1,000 BTC on their balance sheets.

For Bitcoin advocates, these developments are a key step towards the cryptocurrency’s long-term vision of becoming a dominant global monetary standard. However, some analysts warn that growing centralised corporate ownership could also create a single point of vulnerability, making Bitcoin more susceptible to government intervention.

Parallels with the 1971 Gold Standard Collapse

Prominent crypto analyst Willy Woo has compared Bitcoin’s growing corporate concentration to the historical precedent of gold’s nationalisation path before 1971.

At the time, the US operated under the Bretton Woods system, which pegged the dollar to gold at $35 per ounce. As global pressures mounted, President Richard Nixon suspended dollar convertibility into gold, effectively ending the gold standard and seizing control of the nation’s gold reserves.

Pictured left to right: Willy Woo, Preston Pysh, Max Kei, speaking at ‘Bitcoin’s Institutional Phase: Trojan Horse or Tipping Point? panel at Batlic Honeybadger 2025. Source: Cointelegraph

Woo suggested that a similar playbook could unfold with Bitcoin:

“If the US dollar is structurally getting weak and China is coming in, it’s a fair point that the US might do an offer to all the treasury companies and centralise where it could be then put into a digital form… You could then rug it like happened in 1971. The whole history repeats again.”

In such a scenario, governments could compel corporate custodians to surrender their Bitcoin holdings, centralise them, and potentially reissue them in a controlled digital format.

Why Whales Could Be Targets Too

The risk isn’t limited to corporate treasuries. Preston Pysh, co-founder of the Investors Podcast Network and Bitcoin venture fund Ego Death Capital, believes Bitcoin whales, individuals or private entities with large BTC holdings could also be targeted.

Preston Pysh, co-founder of the Investors Podcast Network

“They’re going to take the Bitcoin because it’s going to have an institutional custodian that does not want to go to jail,” Pysh explained. He added that initial targets would likely be private entities with substantial Bitcoin reserves, especially if these holdings are stored with regulated custodians.

In essence, the very institutionalisation that could drive Bitcoin’s mainstream acceptance may also make it easier for governments to locate and seize large pools of coins.

Massive Upside Despite Risks

Despite these nationalisation concerns, analysts remain extremely bullish on Bitcoin’s long-term potential. Woo points out that Bitcoin has grown into a $2 trillion asset in just 16 years and could still expand 100 times over decades to come.

Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream

He estimates a $100 trillion market opportunity, echoing similar forecasts from Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, who has called Bitcoin a potential $200 trillion global market in the long run.

Back described the scenario as:

“A sustainable and scalable $100-$200 trillion trade front-running hyperbitcoinisation, scalable enough for most big listed companies to move to BTC treasury.”

Hyperbitcoinisation refers to the hypothetical future where Bitcoin replaces fiat currency as the dominant medium of exchange and store of value, driven by its fixed supply and decentralised nature.

The Balancing Act Ahead

Institutional adoption remains a double-edged sword for Bitcoin. On one side, it is essential for the cryptocurrency to achieve the scale necessary to challenge the US dollar and surpass gold as a global monetary standard. On the other, it introduces centralised chokepoints, corporate custodians that could be leveraged by governments to exert control.

The history of gold’s nationalisation shows that state intervention in valuable assets is not unprecedented. While Bitcoin’s decentralised design offers some protection, the concentration of coins in regulated institutions could undermine that safeguard.

As Bitcoin’s corporate boom accelerates, the coming years may determine whether this wave of adoption cements its position as the backbone of a new financial era or sets the stage for a modern replay of 1971.