Vitalik Buterin and Ethereum co-founders asset analysis: How much wealth do they actually have?
Most of his wealth, exceeding $500 million (now $830 million due to price increases), comes from the Ethereum he holds.Author: ARKHAM Research Team
Compiled by: Block unicorn
Vitalik Buterin's net worth is estimated to be at least $830 million, with the following information sourced from ARKHAM data archives.
This article will explore the net worth of Vitalik Buterin (co-founder of Ethereum) and its fluctuations over time. We will examine the known cryptocurrency holdings of this Ethereum co-founder and compare them with other top ETH holders as well as other Ethereum co-founders. Additionally, we will look into possible other sources of wealth for Buterin and provide context for the scale of this wealth.
HOW DID VITALIK BUTERIN GET RICH?
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has accumulated most of his known wealth through his identity. In 2011, at the age of 17, Buterin entered the cryptocurrency space and co-founded Bitcoin Magazine with Mihai Alisie (who later became one of the co-founders of Ethereum). While founding Bitcoin Magazine, Buterin and Alisie were also developing Egora, a decentralized Bitcoin eBay. He was dissatisfied with Bitcoin's limitations (such as its limited scripting language), which restricted Bitcoin's ability to run more complex smart contracts and decentralized applications. Subsequently, Buterin published the Ethereum white paper in November 2013 (when he was only 19 years old), proposing Ethereum as a solution to upgrade Bitcoin.
In the months following the release of the white paper, Buterin met his co-founders. He initially collaborated with Anthony Di Iorio, Charles Hoskinson, Mihai Alisie, and Amir Chetrit. Later, Joseph Lubin, Gavin Wood, and Jeffrey Wilcke joined, and they collectively established the Ethereum Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development of the Ethereum network. In June 2014, Buterin received a $100,000 grant from the Thiel Foundation, allowing him to drop out of the University of Waterloo, where he was studying, to focus on the development of Ethereum.
In the summer of 2014, Ethereum conducted a presale, where participants purchased ETH with BTC. At that time, the initial supply of ETH exceeded 72 million, with 16.53% allocated to the founders, and the ETH allocated to the founders constituted a large portion of Buterin's net worth.
Ethereum officially launched on July 30, 2015. Buterin is the only founder still actively working on the network, while others have left to pursue other projects. He oversaw the development of the network, including the transition from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS) in 2022.
Most of Buterin's known cryptocurrency holdings come from the ETH allocation he received at the launch of Ethereum, and he briefly became a billionaire when the price of ETH surpassed $3,000 in 2021. Additionally, Buterin has invested in several crypto companies, such as StarkNet (STRK), which also contributed to his overall wealth.
Buterin was born on January 31, 1994, in Kolomna, Russia. His family moved to Canada when he was six, and he later graduated from the Abelard School in Toronto (a private high school). Buterin has been exceptionally gifted from a young age, with unverified and baseless rumors online claiming his IQ to be 257. While this is nearly impossible in any reasonable IQ test, there is no doubt that he is exceptionally talented and highly intelligent, which has helped him achieve extraordinary wealth.
How Wealthy is Vitalik Buterin? Net Worth Overview
Vitalik Buterin's known net worth is estimated to be around $552.86 million (now $830 million). His actual net worth could be higher, as it includes his known cryptocurrency holdings, any unknown cryptocurrency holdings, and his non-cryptocurrency holdings, such as equity in some investments.
In this section, we will explore his cryptocurrency holdings, including ETH and non-ETH holdings, as well as any non-cryptocurrency holdings he may have.
How Much Cryptocurrency Does Vitalik Buterin Own?
Currently, Vitalik Buterin's known cryptocurrency holdings amount to $552.86 million. Most of this comes from his ETH holdings, which are approximately 246,730 tokens. Buterin's cryptocurrency holdings can be estimated by looking at his known Ethereum wallet addresses. While this does not rule out the existence of any undisclosed wallets, given the scale of Buterin's holdings in known wallets, these holdings likely constitute a significant portion of his net worth.
We can see these holdings and their changes over time on Arkham's personal page for Buterin:
Vitalik Buterin's Ethereum Holdings
According to a tweet from 2018, Buterin claimed that he has never held more than approximately 0.9% of the total supply of ETH.
To verify Buterin's claim, we can check the proportion of ETH he holds relative to the total supply by looking at his known wallet holdings from 2015 to the present. We can view the amount of ETH he has held over the years in the portfolio section of Arkham's personal profile.
With this information, we can estimate the percentage of his holdings each year relative to the total ETH supply. The following table shows his holdings as of December 31 each year as a benchmark for the corresponding year's ETH holdings. His holdings as of December 8, 2023, are also included, representing his most recently known ETH holdings.
We can see that Buterin's claim appears to be correct. His known ETH holdings have never significantly exceeded 0.9%, with 2015 being the year he held the highest proportion of the total ETH supply at 0.91%. In fact, due to obvious token sales and the network's inflation design, the total supply of ETH increases each year, and his ETH holdings have been decreasing annually.
Buterin's ETH Holder Ranking
To assess the significance of Buterin's ETH holdings, we will compare them with those of other top ETH holders. The top holders of ETH tokens can be easily identified by looking at the top holders section in Ethereum's personal profile on Arkham.
Who are the Largest Holders of Ethereum?
The following table shows the top 20 ETH holders ranked by entity as of the time of writing:
The ETH 2 deposit smart contract ranks first with 34,259,215.29 tokens held, as validators must deposit their ETH tokens into the contract to participate in the validation process.
Coinbase and Binance rank second and third, respectively, with most entities ranked ahead of Buterin appearing to be exchanges like Kraken and Robinhood, as well as institutional managers like Grayscale, which hold large amounts of ETH for operational needs. Exchanges hold large amounts of ETH to facilitate user withdrawals and token swaps, while Grayscale's ETH holdings reflect its investments in ETH tokens.
Buterin appears to be the main individual ETH holder with access to his tokens. While Rain Lohmus holds about 250,000 ETH, which he paid $75,000 for in the ETH presale, these tokens are inaccessible due to his forgetting the private key.
Vitalik Buterin's Cryptocurrency Net Worth Over Time
By looking at Buterin's portfolio profile on Arkham, we can clearly see the fluctuations in his known cryptocurrency holdings over the years. The following table records his known cryptocurrency holdings as of December 31 each year as a benchmark for the corresponding year's holdings. This table also includes his estimated cryptocurrency net worth on November 18, 2021, when ETH briefly reached a peak price of $4,891—representing the peak of Buterin's known net worth.
From December 31, 2015, to now, Buterin's net worth has increased by over 900 times, from $596,760 to $55.12 billion. His highest annual percentage growth in net worth occurred from $4.23 million on December 31, 2016, to $27.837 billion on December 31, 2017, coinciding with the 2017 bull market.
Buterin's known cryptocurrency net worth is significantly influenced by the price fluctuations of ETH, as ETH constitutes over 99% of his portfolio. Therefore, whenever the price of ETH rises, Buterin's net worth also increases. Conversely, whenever the price of ETH falls, his net worth decreases from historical highs.
In 2021, when the price of ETH surpassed $3,000, Buterin became a billionaire at the age of 27, with his known cryptocurrency net worth exceeding $1 billion. At the peak of the bull market on November 18, 2021, Buterin's net worth briefly reached $2.09 billion as the price of ETH hit an all-time high of $4,891.
However, the cryptocurrency bear market returned, and the price of ETH fell. Before December 31, 2021, Buterin held $1.2 billion worth of ETH, but by December 31, 2022, his account was only worth $300.58 million. Since then, his known cryptocurrency net worth has rebounded, reaching $550 million at the time of writing, with the price of ETH at $2,234 (currently priced at $3,395, approximately totaling $8.375 billion).
Another factor affecting the changes in his known cryptocurrency net worth is that his known ETH holdings seem to be decreasing each year, as Buterin has been known to sell his ETH holdings multiple times. For example, in May 2023, Buterin sent 200 ETH to a cryptocurrency exchange, and then the Ethereum Foundation sold 15,000 ETH. Notably, Buterin claims that he has not sold ETH for personal gain since 2018. He further clarified that when he sends ETH to exchanges, those ETH are for donations rather than sales.
Non-ETH Cryptocurrency Holdings
According to data from Arkham's portfolio profile, we can see Buterin's non-ETH holdings. As of the time of writing, some of his major non-ETH token holdings include:
869,500 KNCL (the token of the decentralized liquidity protocol Kyber Network, where Buterin serves as an advisor), valued at approximately $609,780.
196.42 Wrapped Ether (WETH) tokens, valued at approximately $436,920.
101 million THE tokens, valued at approximately $127,950.
Although these are not Buterin's primary non-ETH holdings, the following tokens are also worth noting:
- TORN tokens from Tornado Cash, valued at $1,290. This is related to Vitalik's use of the notorious mixer. His Arkham profile shows multiple instances of fund transfers using Tornado Cash, which he claims include donations to Ukraine.
- 6.345 million Shiba Inu ($SHIB) tokens, valued at $606.5 million. In 2020, Vitalik received 50% of the token supply directly from its developers at the time of the token's launch, which briefly caused his known cryptocurrency net worth to spike to around $10 billion. This move aimed to create massive hype for the token by associating it with one of the most famous figures in the cryptocurrency space. Subsequently, Buterin burned 410 trillion $SHIB tokens, which accounted for over 90% of the tokens he received, valued at around $6 billion at that time. He then donated the remaining 506.9 trillion $SHIB tokens to CryptoRelief in India, valued at $1.56 billion at that time.
Non-Cryptocurrency Holdings
Buterin participated in the seed round financing of StarkWare, a zero-knowledge proof technology developer, which reached a valuation of $8 billion as of 2022.
Due to the lack of publicly available data regarding his non-cryptocurrency assets, it is challenging to estimate the value of his non-cryptocurrency holdings and their impact on his overall net worth—however, we can speculate that if he still holds his investment in StarkWare, the value of that investment would contribute to a portion of his net worth, along with any other undisclosed investments.
Other Ethereum Co-Founders
Like Buterin, other Ethereum co-founders have also gained significant financial benefits from their ETH holdings. In this section, we will compare Buterin's estimated net worth with that of other Ethereum co-founders. For this section, we will consider his known cryptocurrency holdings of $552.86 million (now valued at $800 million) as the entirety or majority of his net worth, as we cannot ascertain the specific scale of his non-cryptocurrency holdings.
The following is a table of publicly estimated net worths of other co-founders (note: due to the unavailability of certain co-founders' net worth estimates for 2023, some data comes from the last known available points, which may mark their net worth's peak or be significantly lower than the current situation):
Conclusion
In summary, we have estimated the composition of Vitalik Buterin's net worth and its fluctuations over time. Most of his wealth, exceeding $500 million (now $830 million due to price increases), comes from his holdings in Ethereum (ETH), which fluctuate with the price of Ethereum. Please stay tuned to his profile for the latest updates on Buterin's wealth.
