BlockBeats News, November 20th, according to Arkham Data, Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s ETH holdings currently amount to approximately 244,000 ETH (including AETHWETH), worth about 7.4 billion U.S. dollars, ranking second in individual ETH holdings, second only to Ethereum ICO investor Rain Lohmus, who holds as much as 250,000 ETH. However, his ranking faces a double challenge from the Cryptocurrency Treasury (DAT) companies and spot ETF.
The three largest Ethereum Cryptocurrency Treasury (DAT) companies have surpassed Vitalik, with Bitmine holding 3.56 million ETH, SharpLink holding 869,000 ETH, and The Ether Machine holding 496,000 ETH. As for spot ETFs, BlackRock holds about 3.94 million ETH, accounting for approximately 3.27% of the total supply, and Fidelity and Grayscale spot ETH are also steadily rising.
The community has begun to worry that Vitalik’s influence may be weakened by the decrease in his holdings, as the founder’s governance influence is crucial for the future development of Ethereum. Vitalik himself recently issued a warning at the Argentina Devcon conference, stating that if institutional Ethereum holdings continue to expand, Ethereum will face two major threats. The primary risk is the potential alienation of those who truly care about decentralization and core developers, leading to community attrition. The secondary risk is the possibility of making incorrect technical choices, as institutional pressure may drive inappropriate technical decisions, such as a 150-millisecond block time, which is beneficial for high-frequency trading but hinders regular users from running nodes, resulting in geographical centralization. Vitalik emphasized that Ethereum should focus on globalization, permissionlessness, and censorship resistance protocol features, maintain a strong core community, and uphold the values that differentiate Ethereum from traditional finance.
