Census · updated 2026-10-13
How the whole population actually looks.
Every single-address check is free and copyable. What is not copyable is the population: this is a live census of 578 EIP-1967 proxies across 1 chain, with every observation kept. 29 of them put upgrade authority on a single key — 9.35% of those exposing an admin at all.
Headline
Single-key admins, by chain
| Chain | Candidates | Proxies | EOA admin | Contract admin | EOA of known |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ethereum | 600 | 578 | 29 | 281 | 9.35% |
| Combined | 600 | 578 | 29 | 281 | 9.35% |
“EOA of known” is single-key admins as a share of proxies whose admin is discoverable at all — the only denominator that means anything. 9 candidates were not proxies; 13 could not be read.
Concentration
Where the single-key admins live
The rate is not a property of the ecosystem. It is a property of which contract pattern you look at.
| Contract name | Scanned | Proxies | EOA admin | Contract admin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TransparentUpgradeableProxy | 200 | 200 | 4 | 196 |
| ERC1967Proxy | 200 | 190 | 0 | 0 |
| AdminUpgradeabilityProxy | 200 | 188 | 25 | 85 |
Why this exists
The reading is free. The population isn't.
- Anyone can read one contract. The method is public and the free checker hands it to you. That is not the product.
- Nobody can read the population alone. “Is my surface normal?” needs everyone else measured. That aggregate is what we keep.
- It compounds. Today's state can be copied tomorrow; today's record cannot be reconstructed. Every run is appended, never overwritten.
- It is verifiable. The numbers here come from public data, and the scripts to re-derive them are MIT.
Limits
What this census is not
Not a random census. Candidates come from three exact contract names via the public Blockscout API. A random sample of all verified proxies could shift every figure.
Ordering and platform bias. The draw over-represents newer and Blockscout-indexed deployments. Base enumeration has historically been explorer-gated, which is a single point of failure for that chain.
“No admin slot” conflates safe and unknown. Renounced, UUPS-by-design, and a non-standard authority slot are not distinguished by this method. UUPS and renounced labels are clearly-marked heuristics.
Monitoring and analysis, not advice. Not an audit, not insurance, not legal, financial, or investment advice.