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How Much ETH does it take to be a Whale? Everything you need to know

 

By Reel Coverage Jan 25, 2025

 

 

Ethereum(ETH) whales are major investors that control a large piece of ETH’s token supply. 

 

Onchain data shows that whales control over 45.82% of ETH’s circulating supply, making for a significant amount of influence in the asset’s market value. 

 

Most sources consider individuals or addresses holding over 10,000 ETH as whales, but this arbitrary figure does not represent how much ETH a real whale controls. 

 

At press time, 10,000 ETH is worth over $33.34 million. While this is a considerably large amount of money, it's merely 0.0083% of ETH’s market capitalization, hence a sell off would not amount to much price or market impact. 

 

A whale, when it comes to cryptocurrencies and/or assets, is any individual, institution or address that holds 1% or more of a token’s circulating supply. 

 

For example, one of Binance’s addresses holds approximately 1.99 million ETH, representing about 1.65% of the assets circulating supply and can be conveniently tracked from here. 

 

It takes owning approximately 1,205,100 ETH, minimum, to qualify as an ETH whale, given Ethereum’s ETH circulating supply of 120.51 million according to data from CoinMarketCap. 

 

This means that any ETH whale is worth a minimum $4.02 billion, by approximation. These individuals control 45.82% of ETH’s supply according to data from IntoTheBlock. Addresses holding ETH worth over $100k is less than 0.04% of over 364 million addresses, amounting to less than 150k, approximately. 

 

Interestingly, top 10 addresses are reported to control over 55.72% of ETH’s circulating supply, casting a centralization concern over the Ethereum blockchain’s governance and security. 

 

That said, data also reveals that only 5 addresses qualify to be called an ETH whale and every other address holds less than 1% of ETH’s circulating supply. However, further investigation into ETH’s supply distribution reviews that a significant amount of ETH — 56.4 million — is held in a staking contract called the Beacon deposit contract, representing a pool of ETH deposits by various individuals.

 

The Beacon can be tracked here. 

 

On this note, ETH whales could be more than 5 as most have their assets pooled or tied up in smart contracts and others on exchangers.