Ethereum

Ethereum L2 Taiko and DoraHacks Are Launching the Largest Anonymous Community Vote in Crypto History

[PRESS RELEASE – Singapore, Singapore, February 7th, 2025]

Taiko, an Ethereum Layer 2 network, and DoraHacks, the largest hacker movement in crypto, are spearheading the biggest anonymous community vote ever conducted in Web3. The initiative aims to advance decentralization in community governance through the Taiko Grant Factory Hackathon.

The Taiko Grant Factory Hackathon is designed to unleash developer creativity—driving innovation, interactive applications, and projects with real-world impact. After months of intense competition, the finalists are now heading into the voting phase—one of the biggest steps yet toward large-scale, community-driven decision-making.

At the core of this vote is Minimal Anti-Collusion Infrastructure (MACI), a game-changing privacy-preserving and collusion-resistant voting mechanism originally conceptualized by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Vitalik has long pointed out the fundamental flaws of traditional voting systems—fraud, collusion, privacy leaks—and MACI is Ethereum’s answer to fixing them. Dora Factory, the decentralized governance protocol, carried Vitalik’s mission and shipped the best MACI product the market has seen.

For the final round of Taiko’s Grant Factory Hackathon, voting will be executed entirely on-chain via MACI, ensuring encrypted ballots, zero-knowledge proof integrity, and protection against vote buying and collusion. Users will submit their votes through smart contracts, with timestamps recorded on-chain, making the process transparent yet private. At the end of the voting round, results will be revealed by the designated operator, ensuring both fairness and credibility. As an incentive, Taiko is distributing 50,000 Trailblazer points to participants, which will later translate into an airdrop.

“This is decentralization in action,” says Ben Wan, Taiko’s Community Director. “We’re thrilled to bring MACI to this scale and grateful to the community for participating in Taiko’s growth. The future of Ethereum is decentralized, and we’re here to make that happen—together.”

This vote isn’t just big—it’s historic. Over 920,000 participants are taking part, making it the largest whitelisted anonymous community vote in Ethereum’s history

The voting event has attracted significant participation, with more than 920,000 individuals expected to take part, making it one of the largest whitelisted anonymous community votes in Ethereum’s history.

Steve Ngok, Partner at DoraHacks, adds: “We’re incredibly excited to work with Taiko on launching the biggest MACI-powered vote in Ethereum history. DoraHacks and Dora Factory have committed resources to expanding Ethereum’s mission—advancing MACI for decentralized governance and privacy protection. We look forward to exploring MACI’s full potential alongside Taiko and its dynamic community.”

About DoraHacks

DoraHacks is the world’s largest hacker movement and a leading global platform for open-source funding, hackathons, and developer grants. Since its inception in 2014, DoraHacks has empowered 200,000 developers and funded 20,000 innovative startups in multiple frontier tech verticals in Web3, AI, Quantum, and more.

For more information on the Taiko Grants Program, users can visit https://taiko.xyz/grant-program.

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Ethereum

Ethereum Derivatives Traders Position for $4K Rebound, Data Shows

Ethereum ( ETH) derivatives traders are back in full swing, with open interest, volume, and options activity all flashing signs of renewed energy across futures and options markets. ETH Max Pain Sits Near $3,300 as Traders Eye Key Expiry Levels At 10 a.m. Eastern time on Nov…
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Ethereum

ETH2 Beacon Deposit Contract Now Controls 60% Of All Ethereum: Arkham

Rain Lohmus bought $75,000 worth of ETH in 2014, which is now worth $871 million. Yet, he cannot move even a single coin.

New on-chain research from Arkham Intelligence this week shows that the wallet address holding the most ETH today is not an individual, not an exchange, not an ETF issuer, but the staking contract that secures Ethereum.

According to Arkham, the ETH2 Beacon Deposit Contract currently holds more than 72.4 million ETH, worth around $252 billion at current market prices, and represents approximately 60% of the total supply.

Ethereum’s Power Center

In terms of individuals, the research firm confirmed that the largest known individual holder of ETH is still Rain Lohmus, the founder of Estonian bank LHV, who bought 250,000 ETH in the 2014 presale for around $75,000. Those coins would now be worth roughly $871 million, but Lohmus does not have access to them because he lost the private keys years ago.

The second largest identifiable individual holder is Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who currently holds around 240,000 ETH, worth around $840 million.

Beyond individual wallets, centralized exchanges and institutional entities collectively control some of the largest pools of Ether. Binance, for one, holds approximately 4.09 million ETH, while asset manager BlackRock holds around 3.94 million ETH, largely associated with its iShares Ethereum Trust ETF. Coinbase is the next largest institutional holder, with approximately 3.5 million ETH across multiple addresses, including cold wallets and staking reserves for its cbETH staking token.

Following suit are Upbit, Robinhood, Kraken, OKX, and Bitfinex, which appear among the top institutional holders.

Seized Funds, Stolen Funds, and Layer-2 Bridges

Arkham found that governments also appear on the leaderboard. For instance, the United States government controls around 60,000 ETH, which largely consists of seized criminal funds, including from the Potapenko/Turogin case and from seizures related to the Bitfinex hacker.

Ethereum

Ethereum Traders Just Flipped Bullish, But History Says This Is a Major Red Flag

Ethereum’s bounce toward $3,500 triggered instant FOMO, but Santiment says extreme optimism usually means price is about to disappoint.

Ethereum traders have swung sharply from extreme bearishness to extreme bullishness within just a few days, based on social media sentiment.

But fresh data suggest that when ETH nearly rebounded to $3,500 on Thursday, the crowd interpreted the move as a confirmation that the asset was “back in business.”

ETH Trader FOMO

Santiment warned that this sudden pivot is similar to the same pattern seen earlier in the week, when retail panic selling actually contributed to the rebound. Now, the rapid return of FOMO could similarly stall further upside.

According to the analytics platform, prices have shown a tendency to move in the opposite direction of the crowd, and that more neutral sentiment phases have proven to be stronger buy signal environments than euphoric ones.

Crypto trader Ted Pillows also noted that even though the altcoin is showing some rebound after this week’s sharp decline, the recovery lacks conviction. According to Pillows, the current move higher, though modest, is being driven largely by short positions being closed rather than new spot buyers stepping in. He added that Ethereum needs to reclaim the $3,600-$3,700 price range with meaningful inflows to establish strength and dismiss the risk of further downside. Without that confirmation, Pillows believes the odds still favor lower prices from here.

Despite the near-term uncertainty, some traders say the bigger picture is still pointing toward a substantial upside scenario. For instance, crypto trader “Trader Tradigrade” said that ETH’s monthly chart is currently developing what he describes as a massive Inverse Head and Shoulders pattern, with a potential price target of $14,000 once confirmed.

“Wet Blanket” Phase

As the crypto market remains sluggish, Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz believes that this could be due to long-term holders rebalancing their net worths and diversifying away from massive concentrated holdings after a very long bull market. Novogratz deems this to be a healthy sign in the medium and long term as these positions get distributed. In the short run, however, he said that “it’s a proverbial wet blanket” and has weighed on prices.

About the author

Chayanika has been working as a financial journalist for six years. A graduate in Political Science and Journalism, her interest lies in regulatory implications with a focus on technological evolution in the crypto realm.