Ethereum price has risen above the crucial $1400 mark, the highest in more than two months. This comes amidst an accumulation spree by sharks [holding 100 to 10k ETH] where roughly 3000 new addresses have been added in the last couple of weeks.
Data from Santiment further showed that as of Feb 2021, these cohorts of investors have reached 48,556 which is the highest level recorded to date.
Among the millions of crypto assets available worldwide, the market share of the world’s second-largest crypto coin has climbed by more than 3% since Dec. 31, 2022, and it was worth over $856 billion on Jan. 11, 2023.
Ethereum’s market domination in the cryptocurrency space increased from 18.4% to 19%, according to coinmarketcap.com, a leading website that aggregates coin market capitalization data.
The ETH network underwent a major transformation after the successful shift to a proof-of-stake network. Almost four months after the event, the second-biggest blockchain by market cap has passed another major milestone.
Data from Etherscan showed that more than 16 million ether have been deposited into Ethereum’s Beacon Chain staking contract.
The 16 million ETH figure accounts for over 13% of the total ether supply and represents nearly $22.38 billion at current prices. It occurs almost two years to the day after Ethereum’s staking contract went live in 2020, marking the debut of the network’s proof-of-stake Beacon Chain.
$22B Of Staked Ethereum Cannot Be Withdrawn Until March 2023
The Eth network’s “validators” “stake” ETH in exchange for the opportunity to add authenticated transactions to the blockchain’s ledger.
The staked funds are locked up in the network and earn interest, but until the network’s Shanghai upgrade, which is not anticipated until approximately March 2023, they cannot be withdrawn.
Although the increasing amount of ETH staked can be seen as a positive indication of Ethereum acceptance and security, it will undoubtedly put more pressure on the network’s core developers to complete work on withdrawal support as soon as possible.
On the other hand, L2 transactions have boosted Ethereum’s appeal when included in the mix.
As reported by TronWeekly, Eth layer-2 networks Arbitrum and Optimism have recently recorded a surge in transaction volume in the span of just three months, flipping even that of the mainnet Ethereum.
Data from Dune Analytics showed that Arbitrum and Optimism combined processed over 1.12 million transactions while Ethereum processed over 1.06 million transactions on Jan. 10.