Ether outpaced Bitcoin in the total number of transactions last week, for the first time. Ether saw more daily active addresses, which is the number of active participants in the transfer of a cryptocurrency token. This includes both the sender and the receiver. The growing number of active Ether addresses is a sign of how the token is growing in popularity, although Bitcoin addresses closed the gap soon enough.
Santiment, a crypto analytics company, tweeted that Ether (the official currency of the Ethereum network, and the second oldest major token that’s still around) created history, surpassing Bitcoin for the first time in daily active addresses:
???? On a day that saw history be made with #Ethereum surpassing #Bitcoin in daily active addresses for the first time, #altcoins came to play. $KSM, $COMP, and $ZIL were among many projects to make an imprint on the markets, while $BTC ranged around $34.5k. https://t.co/cwjGvrLLeX pic.twitter.com/3AFQ0MHbcT
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) June 29, 2021
The data on BitInfoCharts reveals more than what Santiment has put out. To understand the magnitude of the fall in the number of Bitcoin’s active addresses, let’s sample these numbers. On April 15, 2021, Bitcoin had a gargantuan 1.14 million active addresses. On June 27, it bottomed out at just over 462,800 addresses.
On those same dates, the price of Bitcoin in India went from Rs. 47.2 lakh per Bitcoin (quite close to its peak) to Rs. 23.9 lakh, as per historical data on Coinbase — or almost the lowest Bitcoin has been valued at in 2021. That is still higher than it was valued in the past, although the bull rush of the early part of the year seems to be behind us now.
Ether, on the other hand, had a little over 751,000 addresses on April 15. On June 28, its numbers had increased to over 926,900 addresses when Bitcoin was at just about 618,900 addresses. The dip in the number of Bitcoin’s active addresses could mean that people are selling off their digital assets at a record pace.
The Ether price in INR peaked in May, later than Bitcoin, reaching Rs. 3.2 lakh per token on May 12 as per Coinbase’s historical data. On April 15, Ether was trading at Rs. 1.82 lakh, and went to Rs. 1.47 lakh on June 28.
Now, the only question many had on their minds was if Ethereum would sustain the momentum. Well, the answer is no. On July 3, Bitcoin was once again at the top with roughly 823,287 active addresses to Ethereum’s approximate 683,608 users.
On July 5, the largest cryptocurrency was trading at Rs 25,59,872 following a 2.17% fall in its prices. Ethereum, on the other hand, traded at Rs 169,245 after taking a .21% hit in the last 24 hours. While Bitcoin’s current market cap is about $642.54 billion, nearly three times that of Ethereum’s $265.38 billion.