The bull run that Ethereum entered, driven by Bitcoin, seems to be doing more than just increasing its price. There are now more people holding at least one ETH in their wallets, data from Glassnode reveals. The data on December 5 shows that there are currently 1,175,681 addresses having this number of ETH on the network.
The rise in this number could be an indication that more investors are developing interest in the second-largest cryptocurrency and could be accumulating more. It may be a move to benefit from Ethereum’s wild price gains that have been going on lately and which is likely to continue.
Ethereum price had not appreciated much in 2020 until when Bitcoin started a major rally which has been attributed to an influx of institutional investors. Although it had risen briefly from $245 in July to $470 in September, the price crossed the $500 level for the first time on the 20th of November. The upward move continued to over $600 before the short pullback which influenced the entire market.
Despite the pullback, Ethereum is still holding on with its price at $597 at press time. Interestingly, the number of addresses holding at least one ETH has been on a consistent increase since the year started even though it started slowly. As at June, there were only 1 million of such addresses which has almost doubled now.
The launch of Ethereum 2.0 could be part of the reason behind the development, but it could lead to even more addresses reaching this level. According to reports, there are at least 900,129 ETH staked on Ethereum 2.0 as of 2 December. As the system is designed to reward stakers who help to secure the network, this number may increase dramatically as time goes on.
Ethereum is also the network on which the entire DeFi market is built. This is a thriving ecosystem that has grown significantly in 2020 with more investors penetrating it. If the trend continues, Ethereum price may still be on the rise as it is still far from the 2017 bull run all-time high of $1,300 during which the number of wallets with one ETH or more increased by 1000%.
