Ethereum activity doubles with influx of new users: Glassnode

Ethereum network activity has shown a sharp increase in new users, with “activity retention” almost doubling over the past month, according to crypto on-chain analytics platform Glassnode.

Month-over-month “activity retention” shows a sharp spike in the new cohort, “indicating a surge in first-time interacting addresses over the past 30 days,” Glassnode reported on Thursday.

It added that this reflects a notable influx of new wallets engaging with the Ethereum network, “rather than activity being driven solely by existing participants.”

New activity retention, or new network addresses, has spiked from just over 4 million to around 8 million addresses this month. 

Activity retention measures how many users continue to be active over time, essentially showing whether users stick around and continue using the network, rather than showing up once and disappearing.

Ethereum activity retention spikes to all-time high. Source: Glassnode

Daily transactions on Ethereum hit highs

Over the last year, the number of active addresses on the Ethereum network has more than doubled from around 410,000 accounts recorded this time last year to over 1 million on Jan. 15, according to Etherscan. 

Meanwhile, the number of daily transactions on Ethereum spiked to an all-time high of 2.8 million on Thursday, marking an increase of 125% since the same time last year. 

Macroeconomics outlet Milk Road reported on Thursday that this was due to an explosion of stablecoin usage on Ethereum while fees are collapsing.

“That’s the result of Ethereum pushing execution to L2s while keeping settlement secure on L1. That’s what scalable financial infrastructure actually looks like,” it stated.

Stablecoin usage on Ethereum is at an all-time high amid record-low fees. Source: Token Terminal 

“A lot to be optimistic about” with Ethereum

Confidence and sentiment around Ethereum are improving. “There’s a lot to be optimistic about when looking at Ethereum,” Justin d'Anethan, head of research at Arctic Digital, told Cointelegraph. 

“Near term, indicators that have been pushed into oversold territory have turned up and seem to hint at much higher prices, fueled by renewed capital inflows into ETFs, stablecoins, and native crypto protocols,” he added. 

Ethereum’s network activity has surged as daily transactions climb past 2 million while staking has reached nearly 36 million ETH, observed Nick Ruck, director of LVRG Research.

“These strong on-chain fundamentals, combined with sustained ETF inflows and growing ecosystem optimism, position ETH for a potential breakout above current resistance levels in the near term as liquidity tightens amid heightened institutional participation with recent scaling upgrades boosting speed and lowering gas fees,” he added.

All of this heightened network activity and sentiment should be bullish for the blockchain’s token. “There’s a lot of compression taking place with ETH, and that’s likely to break out in the coming week,” said MN Fund founder Michaël van de Poppe on Thursday.

Ether prices tapped a two-month high of $3,400 on Wednesday, but had retreated slightly to trade around $3,300 during early trading on Friday morning.