With $21.5 billion, the Eth2 staking contract is the largest Ether hodler.

By Ether holdings, the Eth2 staking contract is now the single-largest address.

The Ethereum 2.0 blockchain's staking contract is currently the single-largest holder of Ether (ETH).

The Eth2 staking contract has eclipsed Wrapped Ethereum (wETH) to become the single largest holder of ETH, according to blockchain analytics firm Nansen.

Wrapped Ether, unlike Ether, adheres to the ERC-20 standard, making it the preferred representation of ETH in ERC-20 token-based decentralized finance protocols.

Alex Svanevik, CEO of blockchain analytics startup Nansen, shared the findings on Twitter on Tuesday.

According to the statistics, the Beacon Chain's deposit contract has 6.73 million ETH in it, which is worth around $21.5 billion at current pricing.

Nansen's analysis indicates that the Wrapped Ethereum contract contains 6.7 million ETH ($21.4 billion), with Binance holding 2.29 million ETH ($7.3 billion).

According to CoinMarketCap, the amount of Ether locked and staked on Eth2 presently accounts for 5.7 percent of Ethereum's circulating supply.

According to Beaconcha.in, the Eth2 network now has 210,000 validators.

Ether staked on Eth2 is currently locked and cannot be removed from the contract until Ethereum's next chain merge, which will bring the Ethereum and Eth2 networks together.

The chain merger is currently scheduled to occur in the first half of 2022.

Eth2 is the third-largest proof-of-stake network by staked capitalisation, behind Cardano ($49 billion) and Solana ($27.5 billion), according to Staking Rewards.

The announcement comes after Ethereum's Eth2 roadmap reached a critical milestone on Aug. 5, when the network successfully deployed its London enhancements.

The hard fork included the much-anticipated Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559, which added a base transaction fee to Ethereum's fee market that is burned from the supply.

In the dozen days after London went live, 54,916 ETH worth $175 million has been lost due to transaction fees, according to Ultrasound.Money.

If network activity stays consistent, more than 140,000 ETH might be burned each month at the present burn rate of 3.28 ETH.

ETH prices in the last 24 hours of $3,042 at the time of writing.