Ethereum is preparing for the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) transition. On the other hand, how the network’s tokens are distributed is again coming into focus. How much ETH does Joseph Lubin, founder of Ethereum incubator ConsenSys, hold? Nobody knows or says.
Why is PoS important to Ethereum?
Joseph Lubin was once known as the “Father Warbucks” of Ethereum. “No, I wouldn’t disclose that personally,” Consensus 2022 said on stage. Galaxy Digital researcher Christine Kim asked this question to Joe on stage in Austin, Texas.
Indeed, Ethereum is nearing the end of a multi-year development to overhaul its consensus algorithm. Lubin’s assets have never been more relevant. Proof-of-stake will get people to pledge. This will secure the largest smart contract Blockchain according to Ethereum. Christine Kim says:
Capital is what directly influences who can participate in the building blocks, predetermine transactions and create network consensus. In other words, at stake is the possibility of Lubin controlling the world’s most used Blockchain.
How much is Joseph Lubin’s Ethereum holding?
On stage, Lubin was ‘comfortable’ and said his shares ‘never even approached half a percent’. This differs from previous estimates, which at one point placed ownership of Lubin between 5% and 10% of the total circulating Ethereum supply. Forbes named him the second richest person in crypto in 2018.
Joseph Lubin previously founded some hedge funds. He also served as vice president of technology for Goldman Sachs (GS). However, it was with Ethereum from the beginning. He was likely one of the main buyers of ETH during the network’s $18 million initial coin offering (ICO). It is also likely that, as chief operating officer of Ethereum, he received a healthy cut from the estimated six million ETH the Ethereum Foundation distributed to ‘early project contributors’.
But Lubin’s last five years have funded hundreds of Ethereum startups, often out of pocket. In addition, open source protocols helped through the ConsenSys venture studio. Those are just a few complicating factors for him. Despite being a committed ecosystem leader, Lubin has probably liquidated ETH for fiat over the years.
Joseph Lubin, “I did nothing but scatter tokens. “I have not received any tokens since development,” he says. These claims are hard to prove unless Lubin discloses all the alphanumeric Blockchain addresses that look like someone sharing banking details.
“The data indicates that the supply of Ethereum is more distributed”
As you can follow from the news on Kriptokoin.com, Joseph Lubin is definitely influencing Ethereum. He is often thought of as a generous leader, philanthropist, and investor. On the other hand, his former employees sued him. He received criticism for approaching jpmorgan (JPM). It almost destroyed ConsenSys. But these are his vision and his capital is at the heart of Ethereum.
Joseph Lubin affectionately described ConsenSys as a “global organism,” which initially made no loans, did not invest, and nearly went bankrupt. But it’s an organism that burned $100 million a year in cash in its early days. A significant percentage of their for-profit operations failed. But it’s also responsible for core software like MetaMask, which is free to use.
New research by Christine Kim indicates that Ethereum’s supply is becoming more distributed. Also, the data shows that most of the accounts that received the most previously mined ETH send significant amounts of money to centralized exchanges.
Christine Kim writes, “Conversely, only 1.6 million ETH was held dormant.” Mining, the computational process that Ethereum abandoned, also reduced the initial user’s total supply. This is a process that will slow down significantly after Consolidation’s PoS transition.
“Directly affect Ethereum’s censorship resistance or trusted neutrality”
“As far as I know, I have no concerns that there is any concentration among the original holders,” says Joseph Lubin. A less even distribution of capital within Ethereum has long been a scourge of critics who see it as a measure of fairness. But once secured with PoS, these numbers will directly affect Ethereum’s censorship resistance or trusted neutrality.
PoS security in theory allows anyone to contribute to network authentication. It also allows him to get paid for it. But third parties have already appeared, in part because being a validator costs 32 ETH. In addition, he became active in staking. Kim wrote that crypto exchanges Coinbase (COIN), Kraken and Binance account for just over 20% of the total staked ETH.
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