Estonian businessman Rein Roems, who participated in Ethereum’s 2014 initial coin offering (ICO), is the world’s largest individual holder with around 250,000 coins worth nearly $900 million, according to blockchain analysis platform Arcam Intelligence.
Mr. Romes, an entrepreneur and chairman of the supervisory board of LHV Capital, purchased approximately $75,000 worth of ETH during the project’s ICO more than a decade ago.
The investment he made before Ethereum’s official launch has since soared more than 11,000 times in value. But despite sitting in the largest personal seat; crypto assets Historically, Roams has lost the key to accessing the Aether in his possession.
Roams admits that 250,000 ETH coins are out of reach
In a radio interview with Estonia’s Vikerraadio in August, LHV Capital chairman admitted that he misplaced the private key controlling his Ethereum wallet several years ago.
Without these keys, his 250,000 ETH would be permanently locked on the blockchain and inaccessible to anyone. When Ethereum reached an all-time high of $4,953, the coin’s value soared to levels exceeding $1 billion.
“Complete decentralization also comes with other risks that you don’t usually think about,” Romes said in an interview. “But it’s common to lose passwords. Today I went to update the password on my ID card. If it were cryptocurrency, we would be in big trouble again. But fortunately, the police and border police are working.”
The Estonian entrepreneur claims he has not made any serious attempts to recover his wallet, but as a cryptopolitan, he is willing to share half the value of the lost coins with anyone who helps him regain access. reported In 2023.
The plight of Ethereum investors is similar to that of James Howells, a distraught investor whose ex-girlfriend accidentally threw away a hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoin in 2013. He is a British IT worker.
Mr Howells is at the center of a 12-year dispute with Newport City Council in Wales. So he repeatedly asked for permission to excavate the landfill where he believed the drive was buried, and even offered to buy the entire dump site.
According to Arkham Intelligence tracking, Newport locals Collection items It is worth $815,616,683 at the current BTC price of $102,200.
Who owns the most ETH today?
Roams is the largest individual holder of Ether, with about 0.03% of the total supply locked in inaccessible wallets, according to Arkham Intelligence rankings. Next on the list is Ethereum co-founder and Russian programmer Vitalik Buterin, who has about 241,000 ETH, worth about $868 million, in his personal wallet.
Arkham’s analysis lists ConsenSys founder Joseph Rubin as the third-largest individual holder with an estimated 243,300 ETH. Jeffrey Wilke, another early Ethereum developer, came in fourth place with about 116,000 ETH, followed by “crypto billionaire” James Fickell, who owns about 57,000 ETH.
Apart from individual owners, the majority of Ether resides in institutional and protocol-managed wallets like the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Deposit Agreement. Beacon Chain secures staked coins for network validation and holds 72.4 million ETH worth nearly $268 billion, or about 60% of the total supply.
In terms of institutional collections, Binance is the largest crypto exchange ETH holder with over 4 million coins, followed by BlackRock with 3.94 million, Coinbase with 3.5 million, and Bitmine with 3.1 million ETH.
Arkham has also identified several government-related Ethereum wallets, including one controlled by the U.S. government, containing approximately 64,700 ETH worth a total of $240 million.
Most of the seized ETH belonged to a former Oracle senior technical support engineer brian krewsonthat case contributed more than $140 million to the government’s accumulated crypto reserves.
Some of the largest on-chain Ethereum balances are under the control of hackers who have exploited vulnerabilities in exchanges and smart contracts over the past decade.
The Gatecoin hacker who committed the infamous hack in 2016 still holds 156,200 ETH, originally worth around $2 million at the time, but now worth $516 million.
