In brief
- Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, is a billionaire following ETH’s 20% weekly rise.
- Wallets connected to Buterin hold $1.045 billion worth of assets, mostly Ethereum.
- ETH’s recent surge has seen it pass several traditional companies in market capitalization, including defence contractor Palantir.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is an “on-chain billionaire” again, as ETH has surged almost 20% over the past week. In doing so, Ethereum has become the 27th largest asset in the world, flipping defense contractor Palantir in the process.
Buterin is believed to hold 240,042 ETH, which is currently worth approximately $1.03 billion, as well as a handful of other assets—including the Ethereum Moo Deng meme coin. In total, it brings his net worth to $1.045 billion, according to Arkham Intelligence. This excludes any assets he may be holding off-chain or in untracked wallets—meaning he could theoretically have a much higher net worth.
It comes as Ethereum has soared 19.8% over the past seven days, according to CoinGecko, as one of the best-performing top 15 cryptocurrencies. It now sits at a $513 billion market capitalization, and is down just 12.8% from its all-time high of $4,878 set in November 2021.
While it remains the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum has passed several traditional companies. The move saw ETH surpass retail giant Costco, defense contractor Palantir, as well as gas and oil company Exxon Mobil. It now sits less than a percentage behind streaming titan Netflix and payment processor Mastercard, according to Infinite Market Cap.
The move followed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission clarifying that liquid staking services do not constitute securities offerings. This clears the path for institutional yield-generating ETH products. Plus, President Trump signed an executive order to allow for cryptocurrencies to be held in 401(K) retirement plans, unlocking potentially $8.7 trillion in capital.
Still, Ethereum is a long way off from flipping Bitcoin, which remains the largest cryptocurrency by a large margin.
In fact, it accounts for 60.8% of the total crypto market cap—also referred to as Bitcoin dominance. That said, with the rise of ETH and other assets, like XRP, Bitcoin dominance has fallen 5.87% over the past month, according to TradingView.
Bitcoin has climbed 6% on the week to a $2.4 trillion market cap, per CoinGecko. The leading cryptocurrency surpassed e-commerce giant Amazon, making BTC the sixth-largest asset in the world. It needs just a 1.1% move to break past Alphabet, the parent company of Google.
That makes pseudonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto worth $132 billion, according to Arkham Intelligence. Their fortunes place the unknown founder as the 12th richest person in the world, per Forbes.
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