In the world of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) remain the largest digital assets based on market capitalization and are known to dictate the trajectory of the entire market. However, the distribution of these cryptocurrencies is vastly different, with Ethereum having a significantly higher percentage of its supply held by whales compared to Bitcoin.

In particular, as of February 26, 2023, around 39% of the total supply of Ethereum is concentrated among large addresses, data by crypto market intelligence platform IntoTheBlock. This is in stark contrast to Bitcoin, where large addresses hold only 11% of the total supply.

Indeed, contraction by holders metric aggregates the share of circulating supply held by whale addresses, accounting for over 1% of the supply and investors or addresses holding between 0.1%-1%. The combination of the two metrics equates to the total concentration by large holders.

Ethereum’s large address concentration coincides with the network’s increased development activity. The staking feature remains the main highlight for the decentralized finance ecosystem following the historical Merge upgrade.

After months of testing, investors are set to start withdrawing their staked ETH in March after the Shanghai upgrade goes live. At the same time, it can be argued that Ethereum is relatively cheap compared to Bitcoin, making it affordable to amass in large amounts.