Singapore’s Largest Bank DBS Is an Ether Whale With Nearly $650M in ETH: Nansen

DBS, the largest bank in Singapore, is an ether (ETH) whale, according to on-chain analytics firm Nansen.

The blockchain address – 0x9e927c02c9eadae63f5efb0dd818943c7262fb8e – supposedly owned by DBS held 173,753 ETH, worth $647 million at press time. At the time of writing, Ether changed hands at $3,730.

Nansen said that the address has made over $200 million from its ether holdings.

“In relation to the post, DBS does not have this position on our books,” a spokesperson said.

Ether is the native token of Ethereum, the world’s leading distributed computing platform for creating smart contracts and decentralized applications. Over the years, Ethereum has become a go-to technology for investment banks to tokenize capital markets.

The bank is not new to crypto and offers a range of services, including digital asset custody, a trading exchange for security tokens, and a portfolio management app for both traditional and crypto assets.

A recent report by the bank highlighted the growing interest in the crypto market from retail investors, high-frequency traders, and hedge funds.

Nansen’s revelations of DBS’ ether holdings come as the crypto market patiently awaits the debut of spot ether exchange-traded funds in the U.S., which are expected to boost the cryptocurrency’s mainstream institutional adoption.

Since 2020, several listed firms have turned to crypto, mainly bitcoin, to diversify their reserves. Bitcoin ETFs began trading in the U.S. in January.

UPDATE (May 30, 12:15 UTC): Adds statement from DBS spokesperson.