Over the weekend, Ethereum (ETH) was on overdrive as it soared past $2,000, a record-breaking milestone in its six years of journey. Nevertheless, a pullback was on the horizon as it has retracted to around $1,500 at the time of writing, according to CoinMarketCap.
New data by "Documenting Ethereum" shows that the second-largest cryptocurrency based on market capitalization has been transacting some enormous daily volumes. The crypto data provider noted:
“In one year, Ethereum has grown from settling ~$373m per day to over $9b per day.”
These statistics show that more participants are jumping on the Ethereum bandwagon, as evidenced by the fact that crypto wallets holding more than one ETH recently hit a monthly high of 1,175,408.
Furthermore, the remarkable bull run, which Ethereum enjoyed was partly triggered by the ballooning of the number of crypto whales holding at least $10,000 ETH to 1,287 on Valentine’s Day.
Ethereum’s non-zero addresses break the record
According to on-chain data provider Glassnode:
“The number of Ethereum non-zero addresses just reached an ATH of 54,759,720.”
This data shows that the Ethereum network is experiencing more users thanks to a booming decentralized finance (DeFi) sector and the launch of ETH 2.0 in December last year that seeks to transition from the current proof-of-work consensus mechanism to a proof-of-stake one, which is dubbed more environmentally friendly. DeFi’s total revenue recently reached $800 million this month.
Nevertheless, high gas fees are contributing to Ethereum’s current price plunge. ETH gas fees have hit an all-time high—with an average transaction fee of over $30, making DeFi almost entirely impractical to use for the majority of retail traders.
Without a doubt, the Ethereum network has grown over the years as evidenced by its record-breaking surge to $2,000, which saw the all-time high price of $1,400 set more than three years shattered last month. Time will tell whether the high gas fees will be a drawback to Ethereum’s journey to the moon.
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