Ethereum (ETH) staking contracts, major exchanges and institutional investors now control the vast majority of the token's circulating supply, with the beacon deposit contract alone locking roughly 66% of all ETH.
Arkham ETH Holdings Breakdown
The report, published on Arkham's Intel Platform, found that the ETH2 Beacon Deposit Contract holds over 82 million ETH, worth approximately $169 billion. Validators securing the network account for that entire sum.
Coinbase leads among exchanges with 4.2 million ETH valued at $8.6 billion. Binance follows at 3.6 million ETH ($7.3 billion), while South Korea's Upbit ranks third with 1.7 million tokens. All three hold those assets on behalf of users for trading, withdrawals and staking.
On the institutional side, BlackRock holds over 3 million ETH ($6 billion) through its iShares Ethereum Trust ETF.
Treasury firm Bitmine has declared 4.7 million ETH, though Arkham has verified only 914,000 ETH on-chain. Bitmine has stated its goal is to accumulate 5% of the total ETH supply.
Among individuals, Estonian presale investor Rain Lohmus technically owns the largest personal stash at 250,000 ETH, worth $530 million. He lost access to his private keys after buying the tokens for $75,000 during the 2014 presale. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin holds 224,000 ETH ($480 million), making him the top individual holder with accessible funds.
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Ethereum Foundation Staking Pivot
In a separate finding, Arkham reported the Ethereum Foundation staked $46.64 million in ETH in a single day — its largest one-time deployment. That brought the Foundation's total staked position to roughly $96.59 million.
The move follows a February announcement to stake 70,000 ETH from its treasury.
Staking rewards are set to fund research, ecosystem grants and protocol development. The Foundation had previously relied on periodic ETH sales to cover expenses, a practice that drew criticism from the community over sell pressure.
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