Key takeaways:
About 70% of all ETH is concentrated in just 10 addresses, primarily belonging to staking contracts, exchanges, or funds rather than individual investors.
Almost half of the total ETH is stored in a single smart contract: the Beacon Deposit Contract that underpins Ethereum’s proof-of-stake mechanism.
Major institutions like BlackRock, Fidelity, and publicly listed companies now control millions of ETH, establishing Ether as a significant treasury asset.
ETH ownership has shifted from early adopters to platforms and services that utilize it.
As of August 2025, on-chain data indicates that the top 10 Ether (ETH) holders possess approximately 83.9 million ETH (around 70% of the total circulating supply).
This has led to community inquiries: Who actually owns the majority of ETH? The answer highlights protocol-level smart contracts, large exchanges, ETF trusts, and even public companies.
This article delves into the Ether rich list of 2025, examining the Beacon staking contract, Coinbase’s hot wallets, BlackRock’s ETHA trust, and Vitalik Buterin’s remarkable holdings.
Top Ether addresses by balance
As of mid-2025, Ether’s circulating supply is roughly 120.71 million ETH. Following the Pectra upgrade in May, issuance has stabilized near net zero, setting the stage for understanding Ether ownership distribution.
As noted, the top 10 Ether addresses control 83.9 million ETH as of Aug. 4, 2025 (approximately 70% of the total supply).
Expanding the view, the top 200 wallets represent over 52%, holding more than 62.76 million ETH (mainly connected to staking contracts, exchange liquidity, token bridges, or custodial funds). Unlike inactive Bitcoin whale addresses, these Ether whale addresses are actively utilized infrastructure, demonstrating ETH’s capacity to support staking, decentralized finance (DeFi), and institutional functions.
Who owns the most Ether in 2025?
As of Aug. 4, 2025, the Beacon Deposit Contract contains approximately 65.88 million ETH, accounting for about 54.58% of the total circulating supply of 120.71 million ETH.
These figures align closely with March 2025 reports, which estimated the share at around 55.6% (see figure below).
This smart contract serves as the entry point for Ethereum validators, each of whom must deposit at least 32 ETH to secure the network.
Even after the withdrawal feature was activated in 2023, funds aren’t immediately liquid. Validators must exit the active set, wait approximately 27 hours for the unbonding period, and then depend on a protocol-controlled sweep to release ETH.
This positions the Beacon contract as the largest ETH holder—not an individual, but the network itself.
With slashing penalties and structured exits, it ensures accountability among validators. However, some critics argue that concentrating half the supply in a single contract could pose systemic risks in case of coordinated exits or protocol-level bugs.
Did you know? The Wrapped Ether (WETH) smart contract also ranks among the largest ETH holders, currently possessing over 2.26 million ETH (roughly 1.87% of the circulating supply).
The second-largest ETH wallets
As of Aug. 22, 2025, these exchanges and custodians are among the largest ETH holders:
Coinbase: 4.93 million ETH (around 4.09% of supply)
Binance: 4.23 million ETH (around 3.51%)
Bitfinex: 3.28 million ETH (around 2.72%)
Base Network bridge: 1.71 million ETH (around 1.4%)
Robinhood: 1.66 million ETH (around 1.37%)
Upbit: 1.36 million ETH (around 1.13%).
These addresses form a layer of active infrastructure where Ether is employed to support exchange liquidity, staking derivatives like cbETH, and bridging assets across chains.
Biggest ETH wallets in 2025
By late July 2025, BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) marked a significant shift in institutional ETH ownership. With $9.74 billion in net inflows, ETHA currently (August 2025) holds over 3 million ETH (approximately 2.5% of the total supply), making it among the largest ETH wallets of 2025.
Grayscale’s ETHE continues to be a major player, managing 1.13 million ETH. Fidelity’s Ethereum Fund (FETH), launched in 2024, boasts $1.4 billion in inflows, while Bitwise is transitioning from Bitcoin-only exposure to ETH-based strategies with staking features.
Collectively, these institutions now control over 5 million ETH (4.4% of supply), thereby altering the landscape of ETH holding patterns. They represent a new class of DeFi millionaires who are regulated, ETF-based, and staking-aware.
Corporate Ether whale addresses
A rising number of public companies are now adopting a strategy akin to Strategy’s Bitcoin (BTC) plan (but with staking) to consider ETH as a treasury asset. Examples include, but are not limited to:
Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) holds over 776,000 ETH (around $2 billion), financed by a $250-million PIPE round.
SharpLink Gaming (Nasdaq: SBET) has acquired about 480,000 ETH (approximately $1.65 billion) since June.
Bit Digital (Nasdaq: BTBT) maintains around 120,000 ETH, having shifted from Bitcoin following an equity raise.
BTCS (Nasdaq: BTCS) reports holding roughly 70,028 ETH (around $275 million), sourced from convertible notes.
The majority of this ETH is actively staked, yielding around 3%-5% APY. These firms cite Ethereum’s programmability, stablecoin ecosystem, and regulatory clarity (like the GENIUS Act) as foundations for their ETH strategies.
This emerging ETH billionaire list includes not just individuals but corporate treasuries investing in Ether’s long-term value.
The ETH billionaire list
While smart contracts and institutions dominate the Ethereum rich list in 2025, a few individuals still shine as significant ETH holders.
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, is widely believed to hold between 250,000 and 280,000 ETH (approximately $950 million), primarily across a small number of non-custodial wallets, including the notable VB3 address.
Rain Lõhmus, co-founder of LHV Bank, acquired 250,000 ETH during the 2014 initial coin offering (ICO) but lost access to the private key. His coins remain untouched, now valued at nearly $900 million.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, early investors and founders of Gemini, are believed to personally possess 150,000-200,000 ETH, distinct from Gemini’s exchange treasury exceeding 360,000 ETH.
Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum and head of ConsenSys, is estimated to retain around 500,000 ETH (about $1.2 billion), although this has never been officially confirmed.
Anthony Di Iorio, another Ethereum co-founder, reportedly holds 50,000-100,000 ETH.
Did you know? As of early 2025, Etherscan data revealed over 130 million unique addresses, yet fewer than 1.3 million hold at least 1 ETH, making that single ETH a rare asset on the Ether rich list of 2025.
How to track Ethereum ownership distribution
Identifying the top Ether holders in 2025 relies on tools like Nansen’s Token God Mode, Dune Analytics, and Etherscan. These platforms categorize wallets by behavior, connecting them to exchanges, funds, smart contracts, or individuals.
Token God Mode maps wallet clusters to known entities, monitors inflows/outflows, and ranks the largest ETH wallets in 2025.
Dune dashboards utilize schema tables such as “labels.addresses” to distinguish externally owned accounts (EOAs) from smart contracts and exchanges, yielding insights into public Ethereum addresses and ETH holding patterns.
Etherscan labels wallets based on transaction history, attribution, or user-supplied evidence, enhancing transparency among crypto wallets. These resources collectively help outline Ether ownership distribution.
However, limitations exist. Reused deposit addresses can inflate figures, cold wallets may evade classification, and privacy techniques can obscure real control. Even the top 200 Ethereum addresses by balance likely comprise fragmented or mislabeled entities. ETH address rankings reflect a mix of certainty and statistical inference, but not complete visibility.
Did you know? One of the oldest untouched ETH wallets (likely from the 2014 ICO) still holds around 250,000 ETH (approximately 0.2% of supply) and hasn’t moved a gwei in nearly a decade.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
