Ethereum Governance Under Strain as Vitalik Buterin’s ETH Holdings Are Outpaced by DAT Firms and Spot ETFs

Vitalik Buterin’s ETH stake remains sizable within Ethereum. Citing Arkham Data on November 20, COINOTAG places his holding at about 244,000 ETH (incl. derivatives), roughly $7.4 billion, second only to Rain Lohmus’s 250,000 ETH.

Institutional ownership is shifting as Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) and spot ETFs expand holdings. The top DAT wallets hold 3.56M ETH (Bitmine), 869k (SharpLink), and 496k (The Ether Machine). BlackRock leads spot ETH with ~3.94M ETH (3.27% of supply), followed by Fidelity and Grayscale.

This concentration may dilute governance. At the Argentina Devcon, Vitalik cautioned that rising institutional holdings could threaten decentralization and core developers, risking suboptimal technical choices, such as a 150 ms block time favoring high-frequency traders while burdening node operators.

He urges Ethereum to retain its global, permissionless, and censorship-resistant protocol, maintain a strong core community, and uphold the values that differentiate Ethereum from traditional finance.