Exploring Token Ownership: Understanding Inconsistencies in Total Token Supply

While browsing Etherscan or other explorers created by the Etherscan team, you may come across a token in which a single holder owns more than 100% of the token compared to the maximum total supply. Although rare, this inconsistency can occur when the contract does not follow the standard function of _totalSupply.

For example, the token might have a total supply of ~1 million tokens, yet the Bridge Address appears to hold a disproportionately large amount, something that doesn’t quite add up. In some cases, the totalSupply function for ERC-20 tokens may not follow the standard implementation, which can result in discrepancies between the displayed supply and the actual circulating amount.

Upon inspecting the contract, it becomes clear that the current totalSupply only reflects the total Cosmos asset supply on Ethereum at that point in time. To estimate the true circulating supply, we can sum the balances of all holders excluding the Bridge Address.

If you are interested in learning how to use our Check Previous Balance tool, visit this article!