Vitalik Now Owns $1 Billion USD Worth of Ethereum

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), has recently become a crypto billionaire due to the latest ETH price surge – propelling the cryptocurrency to new all-time highs, as well as his main account.

The price of ETH at the time of writing is $3,366.89 USD, making the 27-year-old one of the richest men in the world.

In 2018 Vitalik disclosed his main address, to show transparency to the ETH community. Addresses like his are usually closely monitored by communities and investors alike to spot a possible sell-off.

Despite his staggering amount of ETH, Buterin’s disclosed wallet is only the 22nd most valuable on the network, according to data from Etherscan. He has also disclosed that he has several smaller wallets.

Ethereum Has Competition

According to DeFi Pulse, over $72 billion USD are now locked in DeFi protocols, many of which are built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum has experience major growth thanks not only to investors but also to what is happening on the blockchain itself.

One of Ethereum’s competitors is Binance Smart Chain (BSC), which is a blockchain developed by one of the world’s largest exchanges. BSC has also experienced massive growth and recently recorded around about 5 million transactions per day, compared to the 1.5 million done by Ethereum.

BSC also supports dApps and smart contracts, with an average of 105,000 daily active wallets. For reference, Ethereum had an average of 75,000 active wallets per day in early April 2021.

This competition could benefit the crypto ecosystem in general, supporting an increasing adoption of blockchain technologies.