Perspective: Institutions are challenging Vitalik's authority, and Ethereum may be transitioning to a more "Wall Street-like" model.

On November 20, according to Arkham data, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin's ETH holdings are currently about 244,000 (including AETHWETH), worth approximately $740 million, ranking second among individual ETH holdings, only behind Ethereum ICO investor Rain Lohmus, who holds as much as 250,000 ETH. However, his ranking faces dual challenges from the encryption treasury (DAT) companies and spot ETFs. Currently, the three largest Ethereum encryption treasury (DAT) companies have surpassed Vitalik, with Bitmine holding 3.56 million ETH, SharpLink holding 869,000 ETH, and The Ether Machine holding 496,000 ETH. In terms of spot ETFs, BlackRock holds approximately 3.94 million ETH, accounting for about 3.27% of the total supply, with Fidelity and Grayscale spot ETH also continuously climbing. The community has begun to worry that Vitalik's influence may be weakened due to the decline in his holdings, as the governance influence of the founder is crucial for Ethereum's future development. Recently, Vitalik also issued a warning at the Devconnect conference in Argentina, stating that if institutional Ethereum holdings continue to expand, Ethereum will face two major threats. The primary risk is that it may drive away those who truly care about decentralization, as well as core developers, leading to community attrition. The second risk is that it may lead to incorrect technical choices; institutional pressure may push inappropriate technical decisions, such as a 150-millisecond block time that benefits high-frequency trading but prevents ordinary users from running nodes, resulting in geographical centralization. Vitalik emphasized that Ethereum should focus on global, permissionless, censorship-resistant protocol characteristics, maintain a strong core community, and adhere to the values that distinguish Ethereum from traditional finance.