Eth2 staking contract ranks as single-largest Ether hodler with $21.5B
The Eth2 staking contract is now the single-largest address by Ether holdings. The staking contract for the Ethereum 2.0 blockchain is now the single-largest holder of Ether. According to blockchain analytics provider Nansen, the Eth2 staking contract has surpassed Wrapped Ethereum (wETH) to become the single largest holder of ETH. Unlike Ether, Wrapped Ether adheres to the ERC-20 standard, making it the favored representation of ETH among DeFi protocols that use ERC-20 tokens.
The findings were posted to Twitter by Alex Svanevik, CEO of blockchain analytics firm, Nansen, on Aug. 17. The data shows that the Beacon Chain’s deposit contract holds 6.73 million ETH — worth roughly $21.5 billion at current prices.
By contrast, Nansen’s data suggests the Wrapped Ethereum contract holds 6.7 million ETH ($21.4 billion), followed by Binance with 2.29 million ETH ($7.3 billion). The quantity of Ether locked staked on Eth2 currently represents 5.7% of Ethereum’s circulating supply, according to CoinMarketCap. There are now 210,000 validators for the Eth2 network according to Beaconcha.in.
Currently, Ether staked on Eth2 is locked up and cannot be withdrawn from the contract until Ethereum’s forthcoming chain-merge that will meld the Ethereum and Eth2 networks. The chain merge is currently expected to take place during the first half of 2022.
According to Staking Rewards, Eth2 is currently the third-largest Proof-of-Stake network by staked capitalization, ranking behind Cardano’s $49 billion and Solana’s $27.5 billion.
The news comes shortly after a major milestone for Ethereum’s Eth2 roadmap, with the network successfully deploying its London upgrades on August 5. The hard fork contained the highly anticipated Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559, which introduced a base transaction fee that is burned from supply into Ethereum’s fee market.
According to Ultrasound.Money, 54,916 ETH worth $175 million have been destroyed through transaction fees in the dozen days since London went live. At a current burn rate of 3.28 ETH, more than 140,000 ETH could be burned each month should network activity remain consistent. At the time of writing, ETH prices had retreated 3.3% over the past 24 hours to trade at $3,180.
Top Cryptocurrencies with Price Predictions
| # | Crypto | Prediction | Accuracy | CVIX | Price | 24h | 7d | Market Cap | 7d price change | |
| 1 |  BTC |
Bitcoin predictions | 92% | 9 | $37 728.33 | -0.28% | 1.52% | $737 856 932 993 |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 |  ETH |
Ethereum predictions | 80% | 36 | $2 038.68 | 0.16% | -0.93% | $245 131 600 170 |  |
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| 3 |  USDT |
Tether predictions | 92.4% | 1 | $1.000220 | 0% | 0.01% | $89 301 326 887 |  |
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| 4 |  BNB |
Binance Coin predictions | 84% | 28 | $227.46 | -0.15% | -1.99% | $34 505 061 094 |  |
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| 5 |  XRP |
XRP predictions | 82.8% | 34 | $0.602825 | -0.99% | -2.49% | $32 485 422 695 |  |
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| 6 |  SOL |
Solana predictions | 62.8% | 85 | $59.29 | -1.23% | 4.44% | $25 137 174 902 |  |
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| 7 |  USDC |
USD Coin predictions | 93.2% | 1 | $0.999963 | 0% | -0.01% | $24 401 486 928 |  |
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| 8 |  ADA |
Cardano predictions | 72.4% | 52 | $0.375998 | -2.65% | -1.88% | $13 274 525 826 |  |
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| 9 |  DOGE |
Dogecoin predictions | 76% | 43 | $0.083756 | 3.15% | 10.53% | $11 897 079 788 |  |
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| 10 |  STETH |
Lido stETH predictions | 91.2% | 1 | $2 941.39 | -0.40% | -3.32% | $10 258 752 564 |  |
|
| 11 |  TRX |
TRON predictions | 82.8% | 23 | $0.103586 | -0.21% | 1.87% | $9 171 440 677 |  |
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| 12 |  WTRX |
Wrapped TRON predictions | 86% | 26 | $0.102132 | -0.99% | 0.74% | $9 042 876 827 |  |
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| 13 |  TON |
Toncoin predictions | 82% | 29 | $2.41 | -0.17% | 0.51% | $8 280 016 543 |  |
|
| 14 |  LINK |
Chainlink predictions | 71.6% | 61 | $14.43 | -1.45% | -0.43% | $8 036 201 443 |  |
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| 15 |  AVAX |
Avalanche predictions | 60.4% | 89 | $21.02 | -0.56% | 1.31% | $7 673 673 520 |  |
