Singapore’s largest bank, DBS, has been identified as an Ethereum whale by blockchain analytics platform Nansen. According to Nansen, DBS holds around 173,753 ETH, valued at $648 million, in a wallet address labeled “0x9e927c02c9eadae63f5efb0dd818943c7262fb8e.” The bank is said to have made over $200 million from its ETH holdings.
Edward Wilson, an analyst at Nansen, stated, “Nansen is 100% sure this belongs to DBS – DBS owns the private key of this wallet and these assets are most likely a part of their custody solution.”
Etherscan data confirms that DBS’s substantial ETH holdings would place the financial institution among the top 40 holders of the cryptocurrency. This positions DBS behind wallets belonging to centralized exchanges like Crypto.com and Bybit’s Hot Wallet 1. DBS is the only traditional financial institution on the list, which is otherwise dominated by major exchanges and crypto platforms.
DBS, which is the largest bank in Southeast Asia by assets, has assets totaling S$739 billion as of December 2023. The bank’s most significant shareholder is Singapore’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, Temasek.
Members of the crypto community see DBS’s ETH ownership as evidence of institutional investors’ growing interest in cryptocurrencies as a legitimate asset class. However, there is speculation that the ETH could belong to the bank’s customers. In 2020, DBS launched a crypto trading and digital asset custody platform for security token offerings. The platform offers trading services between fiat currencies and established cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP. DBS has noted increased interest in the crypto market from retail investors, large-volume traders, and hedge funds.
