On-chain data shows that Ethereum Whales continue to accumulate more of the cryptocurrency and their share of supply is growing.
Ethereum whales currently hold about 43% of the total supply
In the novel fasting On Platform X, market intelligence platform IntoTheBlock shared an update on changes in the concentration of Ethereum supply among the major holder groups on the network.
The groups in question refer to divisions of the asset user base based on holding size. IntoTheBlock has defined three main cohorts: Retail, Investors, and Whales.
The first one, Retail, includes the smallest hands in the sector: those who hold less than 0.1% of the circulating supply of ETH. This cohort represents ordinary investors who do not have a immense impact on the market.
Once holders exceed this 0.1% threshold, they begin to have a more essential position in the network, although their influence is still confined to 1%. Users in this range are called Investors.
Outside of this range are the most powerful entities on the network: the Whales. These holders have over 1% of the ETH supply on their balance sheet, which at the current exchange rate is over $2.83 billion.
Below is a chart provided by the analytics firm that shows how the distribution of Ethereum supply has changed between these three groups throughout the history of the blockchain.
Looks like the Whales have been increasing their supply share recently | Source: IntoTheBlock on X
The chart shows that the retail cohort currently makes up almost half of Ethereum’s circulating supply. Specifically, these miniature hands collectively hold 48% of ETH’s supply, with Whales not far behind at 43%.
While Whales now command a significant share of supply, that wasn’t always the case. As the chart shows, just a few years ago these massive players held only a miniature share of the market.
Since then, however, massive money has clearly become more interested in the coin as it has been steadily accumulating. Interestingly, buying from the cohort has accelerated since 2023, when the Shanghai upgrade occurred.
The Shanghai Upgrade was a tough fork of the Ethereum network that allowed investors to recover assets locked in a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) contract.
The acceleration in Whale accumulation coincided with this fork and may be due to investors becoming more interested in staking, which enabled withdrawals.
Many of these holders would have deposited their coins into staking pools, which collectively hold a huge supply, so as interest grows, these whale entities would see their share of the supply augment.
While interest from Whales may support future price growth of the cryptocurrency, centralizing supply on these few platforms/investors may not be as beneficial.
ETH Price
At the time of writing, Ethereum is trading at around $2,350, down over 4% in the past seven days.
The price of the coin has made some recovery over the last few days | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView
Featured image from Dall-E, IntoTheBlock.com, chart from TradingView.com
