Ethereum's staking contract has for the first time accumulated over half of the total supply of the asset, according to analysts at Santiment. 

🤑 BREAKING: Ethereum's proof-of-stake contract address now holds over half of Ethereum's supply for the first time in the coin's 11-year history.

🔐 There is often confusion about how this proof-of-stake address works. Think of it as a one-way vault that temporarily locks $ETH… pic.twitter.com/agj2YG37nu

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) February 17, 2026

The 50.18% share (80.95 million ETH) is calculated based on Ethereum's historical issuance before the introduction of the burning mechanism. Currently, there are about 120 million ETH in circulation. 

As of the time of writing, 36.9 million ETH is locked in the mainnet, accounting for 30.41% of the leading altcoin's supply. The number of active validators stands at 966,134. 

Source: Validator Queue. 

The Ethereum staking queue is near historical highs at 3.8 million ETH (with a waiting time of 67 days). A record of 4.1 million ETH was reached on February 12. 

Currently, 6,112 ETH are awaiting unlocking, with an estimated wait time of two minutes. 

Source: Validator Queue. 

A trend shift occurred on December 27, when the figures leveled off at around 460,000 coins. 

BitMine  

Earlier, Dylan Grabowski, host of the Smart Economy podcast, linked changes in the queues to aggressive coin purchases by large treasury companies followed by locking. A similar trend is observed now. 

On February 17, BitMine announced the purchase of 45,759 ETH, increasing the firm's reserves to 4.3 million ETH ($9.6 billion). Of these, 3 million tokens ($6.1 billion) are locked in staking. This could potentially yield a passive annual income of $176 million, based on current asset prices and a composite rate of 2.84%. 

After deploying the MAVAN validator network, the company expects profits to rise to $252 million. 

Earlier this month, analysts noted that the unrealized loss from the firm's crypto strategy approached $7 billion, as Ethereum's price plummeted by over 40% in the last month. 

However, the company's chairman, Tom Lee, stated that BitMine will continue to accumulate regardless of short-term price fluctuations.

BlackRock 

The world's largest asset manager, BlackRock, has taken its first step towards launching a profitable Ethereum fund in the U.S. According to an updated registration form S-1, an affiliated entity of the company acquired 4,000 seed shares at $25 each, providing initial capital of $100,000 for the trust.

The new exchange-traded structure, iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF (expected ticker ETHB), plans to stake between 70% and 95% of its assets depending on market conditions. 

According to BlackRock's calculations, the average annual return for this strategy is around 3% at the beginning of 2026. 

This product will fundamentally differ from BlackRock's existing spot Ethereum ETF (ETHA), which only tracks the price without providing additional income. ETHB will be the first instrument allowing institutional investors to earn staking income through a traditional exchange product.

The terms are as follows: 

  • management fee: 0.25% per annum (reduced to 0.12% on the first $2.5 billion in assets within 12 months of launch);
  • reward for the sponsor and execution agent (Coinbase Prime): 18% of gross staking income;
  • liquidity reserve: 5-30% of ETH will remain unstaked to cover operational needs, creation, and redemption of shares. 

Recall that in February, billionaire Peter Thiel and his associated entity, Founders Fund, completely sold their stakes in the treasury company ETHZilla.