Original author: Bradley Peak

Original translation: Felix, PANews

Key points:

• Around 61% of all ETH is held by just 10 addresses, but most of them belong to staking contracts, exchanges, or funds, rather than individual whales.
• Nearly half of all ETH is held in a single smart contract: the Beacon deposit contract, which powers Ethereum’s proof-of-stake system.
• Large institutions and listed companies such as BlackRock and Fidelity now hold millions of ETH, making ETH an important reserve asset.
• Ownership of ETH has shifted away from early adopters. Now, everything depends on the platforms and services built on top of it.

As of August 2025, on-chain data shows that the top 10 ETH holders control approximately 61% of the total circulating supply.

This makes one wonder: who holds most of the ETH? The answer points to protocol-level smart contracts, large exchanges, exchange-traded fund (ETF) trusts, and even publicly traded companies.

This article explores the ETH rich list in 2025, from the Beacon staking contract and Coinbase's hot wallet, to BlackRock's ETHA Trust, and Vitalik's holdings.

ETH addresses ranked by balance

As of mid-2025, the circulating supply of ETH is approximately 120.71 million. Following the Pectra upgrade in May, issuance has stabilized at near zero.

As briefly discussed above, as of September 2, 2025, the top ten ETH addresses hold 71.8 million ETH (approximately 60% of the total supply).

Looking more broadly, the top 200 wallets account for over 52% of all ETH, holding over 62.76 million ETH (most of which is related to staking contracts, exchange liquidity, token bridges, or custody funds). Unlike inactive BTC whale addresses, these ETH whale addresses are highly active on the Ethereum network, reflecting ETH's ability to fully support staking, DeFi, and institutional operations.

Who will own the most ETH in 2025?

As of September 2, 2025, the Beacon deposit contract holds approximately 68 million ETH, representing approximately 56% of the total circulating supply of 120.71 million ETH.

These figures are broadly consistent with a March 2025 report that estimated the share to be around 55.6% (see chart below).

This smart contract is the entry point for Ethereum validators. Each validator must deposit at least 32 ETH to participate in the security of the network.

Even after withdrawals are enabled in 2023, funds will not become liquid immediately. Validators must exit the active set, wait for an unbonding period of approximately 27 hours, and then rely on protocol-controlled sweeps to release their ETH.

This makes the Beacon contract the largest holder of ETH — not by an individual, but by the network itself.

While it ensures validators’ accountability through harsh penalties and organized exit mechanisms, some critics argue that concentrating half the supply in a single contract could pose systemic risks in the event of a coordinated exit or protocol-level bug.

The Wrapped Ether (WETH) smart contract is also one of the largest ETH holders, currently holding over 2.26 million ETH (approximately 1.87% of the circulating supply).

The second largest ETH wallet

As of September 2nd, the following exchanges and custodians are the second-largest ETH holders:

• Coinbase: 5.16 million ETH (approximately 4.2% of total supply)
• Binance: 4.06 million ETH (approximately 3.3%)
• Robinhood: 1.37 million ETH (about 1.1%)
• Upbit: 1.35 million ETH (about 1.1%).

These addresses represent an active infrastructure layer where ETH is used to support exchange liquidity, staking derivatives like cbETH, and cross-chain asset bridging.

The largest ETH wallets in 2025

As of late July 2025, BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) has driven a significant shift in institutional ETH ownership. ETHA has seen net inflows of $9.74 billion and currently (as of August 2025) holds over 3 million ETH (approximately 2.5% of the total supply), making it one of the largest ETH wallets in 2025.

Grayscale's ETHE remains a significant player in the market, managing 1.13 million ETH. Fidelity's Ethereum Fund (FETH), launched in 2024, has seen $1.4 billion in inflows, while Bitwise is shifting from solely investing in BTC to ETH-based delegated investments with staking capabilities.

These institutions currently control over 5 million ETH (4.4% of the total supply), changing the ETH holding pattern. They represent a new type of DeFi millionaires who are regulated, hold ETF assets, and focus on staking.

Enterprise Ethereum Whale Addresses

More and more public companies are following Strategy’s Bitcoin treasury plan (but adding staking) and treating ETH as an asset. For example (but not limited to):

• Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) holds over 1.8 million ETH (approximately $7.8 billion).
• SharpLink Gaming (NASDAQ: SBET) has purchased approximately 797,700 ETH (approximately $3.5 billion) since June.
• Bit Digital (NASDAQ: BTBT) holds approximately 120,300 ETH, having switched from BTC to ETH following its equity funding round.
• BTCS (NASDAQ: BTCS) reported holding approximately 70,028 ETH (approximately $307 million), funded by convertible bonds.

Most of this ETH is actively staked, earning an annualized yield of approximately 3% to 5%. These companies believe that Ethereum’s programmability, stablecoin ecosystem, and regulatory clarity (such as the GENIUS Act) are fundamental to their ETH treasury strategies.

This new list of ETH billionaires includes not only individuals but also people from businesses that are betting on the long-term value of ETH.

ETH Billionaires List

While smart contracts and institutions dominate the 2025 Ethereum Rich List, there are still a handful of individuals who are major holders of ETH.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin reportedly holds approximately 250,000 to 280,000 ETH (about $950 million), which is mainly stored in a few non-custodial wallets, including the well-known VB 3 address.

LHV Bank co-founder Rain Lõhmus bought 250,000 ETH during the 2014 initial coin offering (ICO) but later lost the private keys. His tokens remain unspent and are currently worth nearly $900 million.

Gemini's early investors and founders, brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, control between 150,000 and 200,000 ETH, not including the more than 360,000 ETH held in reserve by the Gemini exchange.

Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum and head of ConsenSys, holds approximately 500,000 ETH (about $1.2 billion), but this figure has never been officially confirmed.

Anthony Di Iorio, another Ethereum co-founder, reportedly holds between 50,000 and 100,000 ETH.

As of early 2025, Etherscan data showed that there were more than 130 million unique addresses on Ethereum, but less than 1.3 million addresses held at least 1 ETH, accounting for less than 1% of the total.

How to track ETH ownership distribution

Identifying the largest ETH holders in 2025 relies on tools like Nansen’s Token God Mode, Dune Analytics, and Etherscan. These platforms categorize wallets based on their behavior and associate them with exchanges, funds, smart contracts, or individuals.

• Token God Mode maps wallet clusters to known entities, tracks inflows/outflows, and ranks the largest ETH wallets in 2025.
• Dune Analytics uses pattern tables like “labels.addresses” to distinguish externally owned accounts (EOAs) from smart contracts and exchanges, generating insights into public Ethereum addresses and ETH holding patterns.
• Etherscan provides greater transparency into crypto wallets by tagging wallets based on transaction history, attribution, or user-submitted evidence. Together, these sources paint a picture of ETH ownership.

However, limitations remain. Reused deposit addresses can inflate numbers, cold wallets can evade cluster management, and privacy technologies can obscure true control. Even the top 200 Ethereum addresses by balance can include fragmented or mislabeled entities. The ETH address ranking reflects a combination of determinism and statistical inference, not complete visibility.