A new on-chain analysis shows most of Ethereum’s largest holders keep their wealth outside of ETH. Instead, it sits in ERC-20 tokens and stablecoins.
When ranked by ETH alone, the top 10,000 addresses hold $189 billion. But including other tokens, that figure jumps to $426 billion — more than double.
Nearly half of the biggest holders are invisible in ETH-only rankings. Only 537 of the top 1,000 addresses appear in both lists.
ETH now makes up just 42% of these holdings. Stablecoins account for 26%, and the rest is spread across ERC-20 tokens. Wealth has quietly shifted across protocols while prices stayed mostly stable.
Smart contracts play a major role. They now control almost 40% of top-holder capital, up from a minor share in ETH-only rankings. Risk has moved from individual holders to code and protocol design.
The study introduces the Printing-Press Index to track how much of a protocol’s holdings are its own self-issued tokens. For DeFi, around 50% of holdings are self-issued, creating potential fragility if confidence drops.
High self-issued token levels can trigger a “reflexive unwind,” similar to the LUNA-UST collapse, where value collapses rapidly under selling pressure.
The findings show Ethereum’s economy looks very different than traditional rankings suggest. Analysts say token composition and smart contract control are now crucial for understanding risk and resilience.
