Ethereum Whales Increase Supply Share, Now Control 43% Of All ETH

On-chain data shows the Ethereum Whales have continued to accumulate more cryptocurrency as their supply share has risen.

Ethereum Whales Now Hold Around 43% Of The Entire Supply

In a new post on X, the market intelligence platform IntoTheBlock shared an update on how the Ethereum supply concentration has been looking for the major holder groups on the network.

The groups in question here refer to the divisions of the asset’s userbase based on holding size. IntoTheBlock has defined three main cohorts: Retail, Investors, and Whales.

The first of these, the Retail, includes the smallest hands in the sector: those holding less than 0.1% of the ETH supply in circulation. This cohort represents the everyday investor who doesn’t have much influence in the market.

Once holders exceed this 0.1% mark, they start having a more important standing on the network, although their influence is still limited until the 1% mark. Users in this range are called the Investors.

Beyond this range are the most powerful entities on the network: the Whales. These holders carry more than 1% of the ETH supply in their balance, which converts to over $2.83 billion at the current exchange rate.

Below is the chart shared by the analytics firm, which shows how the distribution of the Ethereum supply has changed between these three groups over the history of the blockchain.

Ethereum Retail Vs Investors Vs Whales

Looks like the Whales have been increasing their supply share recently | Source: IntoTheBlock on X

The graph shows that the Retail cohort makes up almost half of the Ethereum circulating supply at the moment. More specifically, these small hands collectively own 48% of the ETH supply, with the Whales not too far behind with a 43% share.

While the Whales hold a significant part of the supply today, this wasn’t always the case. As the graph shows, just a few years back, these humongous entities held only a small market share.

Since then, however, large-money has seemingly become more interested in the coin, as it has constantly accumulated. Interestingly, the buying from the cohort has accelerated since 2023, when the Shanghai Upgrade went through.

The Shanghai Upgrade was a hard fork of the Ethereum network that enabled investors to unstake their holdings sitting locked in the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) contract.

The acceleration in the accumulation from the Whales coinciding with this fork may be due to the fact that investors became more interested in staking, with withdrawals becoming possible.

Many of these holders would have deposited their coins through staking pools, which collectively hold massive holdings, so with the rise in interest, these whale entities would have seen their supply share go up.

While the interest from the Whales may be bullish for the future growth in the cryptocurrency’s price, the centralization of supply on these few platforms/investors may not be so positive.