😳 ETH Supply Is Getting Scary Scarce

Over 40% of all ETH is locked, staked, or stored — and institutions are still buying. The setup looks eerily like pre-rally conditions. Meanwhile, DOGE hits Nasdaq, Dubai greenlights its first tokenized fund, and silver just flipped beast mode.

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Cryptopolitan News
October 16, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

Ethereum is running out of supply, fast.

Over 40% of ETH is now off the market, which newly released on-chain data showing that it is shaping up to be the most severe liquidity crisis in Ethereum history.

Community researcher Taylor.eth broke down the numbers this week:

  • 3.4% of ETH is held in dormant addresses and DAO treasuries which are likely never to move.

  • 7.3 percent is parked in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and most of the time, 80% of that is left untouched.

  • A further 29.5% is staked in Ethereum proof-of-stake network, but with it locked for around 40 days due to limits on validator exits.

Add it all up, and 40% of Ethereum’s supply is frozen, a structural squeeze that can amplify the next leg of the bull run.

❝

When demand hits a dwindling supply like this, price doesn’t just go up — it goes nuclear,

said long-term investor Crypto Gucci.

🏛️ Institutions moving in

Institutional demand is keeping pace with the on-chain contracting. U.S.-based ETH ETFs already hold 6.84 million ETH (≈$28 billion), which is 5.6% of total supply, as per Ark Investments, and staking approval remains inactive.

Public companies’ share of Ethereum supply has reached 12%, with Tom Lee’s Bitmine holding $834 million more in ETH this week. The firm now holds $12.52 billion, half way to its 1% circulating supply target.

Crypto investor Ted Pillows thinks ETH is also criminally undervalued when compared to macro indices:

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Ethereum (ETH) fair value is $8,000–$10,000 by Q1 2026. Once staking approval comes through, it’s going to rally hard.

📉 Exchange reserves hit lows

It analyzed that the balance of Ethereum on major exchanges has fallen by close to 10% over four weeks, and it seems “likely” this is related to traders moving their funds into staking or otherwise storing the asset in a cold (offline) wallet as opposed to exchange wallets. In the past, such outflows preceded bull runs and inflows marked correction periods.

Technicians spot a bullish pattern as long as ETH remains above $3,990 support zone, but the real catalyst may be more fundamental than charts.

Ethereum is coming into this cycle with all time high institutional demand, all time high staking, and significant illiquidity. The float is smaller this time, the buyers bigger.

📊 Market Watch

🐶 House of Doge comes to Wall Street

The corporate arm of the Dogecoin Foundation has been listed on Nasdaq in a rare convergence of meme culture and mainstream finance after being combined with Brag House Holdings. DOGE gained 10% on the news, with whales transferring over $156 million on-chain as analysts looked toward brewing volatility.

💸 Dubai’s first tokenized fund approved

VARA Dubai has granted in-principle approval to Nomura’s Laser Digital to tokenize the latter's Laser Carry Fund on to the KAIO blockchain, which is the world first institutional-grade RWA product under VARA’s pilot ARVF (Asset-Reserve Framework).

🪙 Silver’s supercycle gains steam

Silver has crushed $50 an ounce for the first time since 2011 and is up 78% this year, outpacing gold’s rally of 50%. Traders are pointing to record industrial demand, a structural supply deficit and investors rotating out of gold into undervalued metals.

 👀 Are you watching this

For the first time ever, America’s biggest exchange is adding support for Binance’s native token, signaling a rare détente between two rivals. The move follows Coinbase’s launch of BNB perpetual futures earlier this year, now spot trading is next once liquidity and infra are ready.

 🐤 Top Tweets

Headline picks by our Office Cat

🎭 Culture Corner

Paxos accidentally minted $300 trillion worth of PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin on Ethereum, more than twice global GDP, in what the company called an “internal error.” The tokens were immediately burned, and Paxos stressed that no funds were at risk.

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