Ethereum (ETH) is held by millions of people worldwide, but a surprisingly large share of the supply sits with a few big players. Because Ethereum addresses are anonymous, pinpointing exactly who owns the most ETH is tricky.
However, by looking at on-chain data and known wallets, we can identify the biggest Ethereum holders in 2025 from massive exchange wallets and smart contracts to institutional funds and a handful of “Ethereum billionaires.”
In this article, we’ll break down who holds the most ETH, how the supply is distributed, and answer common questions about Ethereum ownership in 2025.
Key Takeaways
- Over 110M ETH addresses: More than 110 million unique addresses hold ETH, though many belong to the same individuals.
- Biggest holder is a contract: The Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Deposit Contract holds 68M ETH (56% of supply).
- Exchanges’ reserves: Coinbase, Binance, and other exchanges each hold 4-5M ETH for liquidity.
- Institutional entry: BlackRock’s Ethereum Trust (ETHA) owns 3M ETH; other funds like Grayscale also hold millions.
- Few known whales: Vitalik Buterin holds 250K ETH; a handful of early investors have six-figure balances.
- Ownership concentration: Top 10 addresses control 60% of ETH, mostly in staking and exchange wallets, while millions of small holders own smaller amounts.
8 Biggest Ethereum Holders
| # | Entity | Est. ETH held | % of supply | Type |
| 1 | Wrapped ETH (WETH) contract | ~7.6M ETH | ~6.3% | Smart contract (DeFi collateral) |
| 2 | Ethereum Foundation | ~300K ETH | ~0.25% | Non-profit / protocol developer |
| 3 | Vitalik Buterin | ~240K ETH (known wallets) | ~0.2% | Co-founder — some donated to charities |
| 4 | Binance (exchange wallets) | ~4M ETH | ~3.3% | Centralised exchange custody |
| 5 | Kraken | ~1.5M ETH | ~1.2% | Centralised exchange custody |
| 6 | ETH Beacon Chain deposit contract | ~35M ETH | ~29% | Staking (locked in PoS consensus) |
| 7 | BlackRock / iShares (ETH ETF) | Growing | Rising | Institutional — ETH spot ETF |
| 8 | Fidelity (ETH ETF) | Growing | Rising | Institutional — ETH spot ETF |
Other large holders just outside the top 10 include OKX exchange (several wallets holding a few hundred thousand ETH each, and some early-investor addresses. Notably, an address from Ethereum’s 2014 pre-sale linked to investor Rain Lõhmus still holds 250,000 ETH though he lost access to its keys, meaning those coins are effectively out of circulation. We’ll discuss more about individual big holders later on.
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Top Institutional Ethereum ETF Investors
Traditional finance institutions and funds have started to accumulate Ethereum in a big way by 2025. These institutional holders often hold ETH on behalf of investors through ETFs, trusts, or funds. Here are the top institutional players investing in ETH, which include some of the top 20 Ethereum holders.
- BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA): Launched in 2025, this fund quickly became the largest institutional ETH holder. By mid-2025, it gathered around 3 million ETH in its custody. That’s roughly 2–3% of the ETH supply held in one fund. BlackRock’s huge inflows (nearly $10 billion by August 2025) into ETHA demonstrate the surging institutional demand for Ethereum exposure
- Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE): Grayscale’s trust is an over-the-counter product that has been holding ETH for investors since before ETFs were around. As of 2025, Grayscale’s trust manages about 1.13 million ETH. While its market share has been partly overtaken by newer ETFs, ETHE remains a significant long-term holder of Ethereum and contributes to the Ethereum treasury.
- Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH): Fidelity launched a private Ethereum fund in 2024, which attracted roughly $1.4 billion in inflows by 2025. This likely translates to several hundred thousand ETH held by Fidelity’s custodians. Fidelity’s involvement signals that big asset managers consider ETH a legitimate investment they’re buying and holding ETH for the long haul (often also staking it for yield).
- Other Ethereum ETFs/Trusts: In addition to BlackRock and Grayscale, several other firms will have Ethereum-based investment products by 2025, joining the ranks of the top Ethereum holders. For example, Bitwise shifted from a Bitcoin-only strategy to include Ethereum in its funds, even exploring staking with ETH holdings. In Canada, ETFs like the Purpose Ether ETF also hold substantial ETH (tens of thousands of ETH) for investors. Across all these funds, institutions collectively control millions of ETH. One report noted that major institutions and ETFs together held over 5 million ETH (about 4.4% of supply) by late 2025.
How Many People Own Ethereum in 2026?
According to on-chain data, there are approximately 90–100 million unique Ethereum wallet addresses that have held ETH at some point. However, the number of actively holding addresses (those with a non-zero ETH balance) is around 120 million as of 2026. This figure includes exchange wallets that hold ETH on behalf of multiple users, so the number of individual human holders is likely lower.
- Unique ETH addresses: ~120 million (non-zero balance, 2026)
- Daily active addresses: ~400,000–600,000
- Countries with highest ETH adoption: USA, China, India, Germany, UK
For comparison, Bitcoin has approximately 50 million addresses with a non-zero balance — though Ethereum’s broader DeFi and NFT usage creates more wallet activity.
Ethereum Billionaires: The Few Known Individuals
Most Ethereum addresses are anonymous, so identifying individual holders is hard. However, a few individuals have publicly known or estimated ETH fortunes. These Ethereum billionaires (or near-billionaires) are typically early founders or investors in the project:
- Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum’s co-founder and the most recognizable figure in the community. Vitalik’s ETH holdings are estimated between 250,000 and 280,000 ETH At 2025 prices, that’s close to $1 billion worth of ETH. He has disclosed some of his main wallet addresses over time, which hold significant amounts of ETH. While Vitalik is extremely wealthy from Ethereum’s success, interestingly he’s not the absolute largest holder several exchange wallets and contracts dwarf any individual’s stash.
- Joseph Lubin: Another Ethereum co-founder and founder of ConsenSys, Joseph Lubin, is rumored to hold around 500,000 ETH in his Ethereum wallet. If true, that would make Lubin one of the richest individuals in ETH (over $1.2 billion worth). Lubin hasn’t confirmed the number, but he was a significant figure in Ethereum’s early development and likely accumulated a substantial amount of ETH at low cost.
- Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss: The Winklevoss twins (famous from Facebook’s early story) got into crypto early and launched the Gemini exchange. As investors, the Winklevoss brothers reportedly control between 150,000 and 200,000 ETH, which contributes to their status among the top Ethereum holders. Additionally, their exchange Gemini holds over 360,000 ETH in reserve for its operations and customers. The twins have often spoken about Bitcoin, but they have also built a sizable Ethereum position over the years, making them notable ETH holders.
- Rain Lõhmus: Rain Lõhmus, co-founder of Estonia’s LHV Bank, might have been the single largest individual owner of ETH except he can’t access it, which affects his potential as a top Ethereum holder. He purchased 250,000 ETH in Ethereum’s 2014 initial coin offering (ICO). Unfortunately, he later lost the private keys to that wallet. Those quarter-million ETH are still sitting unspent on the blockchain (worth nearly $900 million), effectively out of circulation. Lõhmus’s case is an extreme example of lost crypto wealth; on paper he “owns” a huge amount of Ethereum, but in practice it’s gone unless the keys are recovered.
- Anthony Di Iorio: An early Ethereum team member and investor, Anthony Di Iorio is reported to hold between 50,000 and 100,000 ETH. He was one of the project’s co-founders and also founded Decentral and Jaxx Wallet. His Ethereum holdings (worth in the hundreds of millions) place him among the top individual ETH owners, even if he’s behind the likes of Vitalik or Lubin.
The Ethereum Foundation also holds a significant amount of ETH to fund development, recently on the order of a few hundred thousand ETH in its treasury, which it sells gradually to support the ecosystem. However, no single individual or organization (aside from the staking contract) controls anywhere near the majority of ETH; ownership is decentralized in that sense, even if not perfectly evenly distributed.
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FAQ
Who is the largest holder of ETH?
The largest holder of ETH isn’t an individual at all, it’s the Ethereum Beacon Chain deposit contract, which holds the funds for staking. As of 2025, this contract holds roughly 56% of all ETH (around 68 million ETH). In other words, over half of all Ethereum is locked in the staking system, making “the network itself” the biggest holder of ETH as a treasury. Among exchanges, Coinbase and Binance are top holders (5.1 million and 4.0 million ETH, respectively) since they custody a lot of users’ coins. If we’re talking about individuals, it’s hard to know exactly but Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin is one of the largest known individual holders with an estimated quarter-million ETH in his wallets.
Does Mark Cuban own Ethereum?
Yes. Billionaire Mark Cuban (owner of the Dallas Mavericks and star of Shark Tank) is a well-known Ethereum believer and holder. He has publicly stated that Ethereum makes up about 30% of his crypto portfolio. In interviews, Cuban has even called himself “an Ethereum maxi” (maximalist) in spirit, because he sees Ethereum as the closest thing to a true digital currency with huge upside. He hasn’t revealed exactly how much ETH he owns, but given his wealth, even 30% of his crypto portfolio likely translates to a substantial amount of ETH. Cuban often praises Ethereum’s smart contracts and DeFi potential, and he’s invested in various Ethereum-based projects. So, while we don’t know the coin count, we do know Mark Cuban definitely owns and strongly supports Ethereum.
How much ETH does the average person own?
It’s difficult to pin down what an “average” person owns, because Ethereum’s supply is very unevenly distributed. If you simply divide the total ETH supply by the number of addresses, you’d get around 1 ETH per address on average (120 million ETH / ~110 million addresses). In reality, most people own far less than that, and a few whales own a ton more. The median holding (what most small holders have) is probably only a tiny fraction of 1 ETH. Many new users might have, say, 0.1 ETH or 1 ETH. Meanwhile, whales and early investors might hold thousands of ETH.
How many Ethereum millionaires are there?
We can’t know the exact number of individual millionaires, but we can estimate based on wallets. On-chain data suggests over 150,000 addresses hold at least $1 million worth of ETH (at current prices). Each of those addresses is essentially an “Ethereum millionaire” in terms of holdings. However, some wealthy individuals control multiple addresses, so the number of actual people is likely lower than 150,000. It’s also possible that one person with $10 million in ETH spreads it across 10 addresses of $1M each. That said, it’s safe to say there are tens of thousands of real Ethereum millionaires worldwide.
