According to a report from statistics collector Glassnode, the Ethereum network reached an All Time High (ATH) of non-zero addresses, wallets holding a positive amount of coins. The report shows that there are 70.8 million as of DEC.23.
ETH Addresses Grow in Number
Since 2017, the growth in non-zero Ethereum addresses has been almost constant, a fact that may be attributed to the increasing adoption of crypto into the mainstream by more traders. When ETH price peaked at $1,382 in 2018, there were approximately 8.8 million non-zero wallets on the Ethereum network. Since then, the number of wallet addresses holding non-zero balances have consistently reached all time highs, and today there are well over 70 million.
The London Hard Fork, rolled out in August 2021, introduced the “burn” where a portion of transaction fees are eliminated from circulation. The aim of this was to turn ETH into a deflationary coin similar to BTC, which is a solid hedge against inflation.
Ethereum saw its first deflationary week since the implementation of the burn from the London Upgrade in early November. This came as a surprise as ETH was not expected to reach deflationary status until December 2021 or even the first quarter of 2022. However, this was made possible by the steady increase in gas fees.
What is Driving this Increased Adoption of ETH?
Anthony Sassano, a reporter for the Daily Gwei, reported that the consistent increase in gas fees provided a significant boost to the burn rate, with over $55million (amounting to 13,000 ETH tokens) worth destroyed on a daily basis.
The announcement by Sotheby’s, the distinguished and prestigious 277-year-old auction house, of its decision to accept cryptocurrency bids in its upcoming live auctions represented a paradigm shift and caused excitement in the crypto world. The Ethereum network stands to benefit quite heavily from this development as it is the pre-eminent network for smart contract applications and NFTs.
Sotheby’s is conscious of Ethereum’s progress towards being a store of money just like Bitcoin, and acknowledged the important role it played for the digital art and NFT communities. The Ether network is currently the primary network where NFTs are minted and transactions are registered.
In addition to this, the Ethereum network has hit a number of milestones in recent times that have excited the crypto markets and made ETH attractive to investors boosting further adoption. For instance, in October 2021, Ethereum launched the Altair upgrade on the PoS Beacon Chain which brings us closer to the Eth2 migration.
Ethereum’s Layer-2 networks have also experienced massive adoption with the total value locked (TVL) surpassing the $6billion mark. This phenomenon is owing to the increased gas fees as a result of implementation of EIP 1559, which led to market participants fleeing and clutching onto layer-2 scaling solutions where the fees are much lower.
Sourced from crypto.news.
Written by Adam Robertson on 2021-12-23 21:00:17.
