According to on-chain data, Ethereum has significantly outpaced Bitcoin in adoption over the past three months, which could be a positive sign for ETH.
The number of Ethereum holders has increased by 3.3% over the past three months.
According to data from on-chain analytics firm Santiment, Ethereum continues to outpace Bitcoin in terms of growth in total holders, a metric that tracks the total number of addresses with non-zero balances on a given network, as the name suggests.
When the value of this indicator goes up, it means that new addresses with balances are appearing on the blockchain. This trend can occur when new investors enter the market and existing investors who previously sold are reinvesting.
This indicator also registers an increase when existing investors split their holdings into multiple wallets, presumably for privacy reasons. Since all three of these generally work whenever the indicator is rising, we can assume that some net adoption is occurring, which could be bullish for the asset.
On the other hand, a decline in the indicator could mean that some holders have decided to empty their wallets, possibly to get out of crypto altogether, at least in the short term.
Now, here’s a chart showing the trend of total holders for the top three coins in this space over the past few years: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether (USDT).
Looks like the value of the metric has been on the way up for ETH | Source: Santiment on X
As you can see from the graph above, the total number of Ethereum holders has been trending upward over the past few years, and this trend has continued with 4 million new holders joining the network in the past three months.
In contrast to ETH’s growth, BTC’s total holders have been on a mostly sideways trajectory since 2021. Over the past three months, the leading cryptocurrency has actually seen a significant decline in its user base, emptying 50,000 addresses.
With recent increases, there are now about 127 million Ethereum holders, while Bitcoin holders are just 54 million. That means there are less than half as many Ethereum holders as Bitcoin holders.
The number one stablecoin, USDT, currently has 6 million addresses holding balances, up about 230,000 from three months ago.
While BTC’s total holder trend suggests that the coin has struggled to gain adoption, ETH continues to attract new users thanks to its rich ecosystem.
ETH Price
At the time of writing, Ethereum is trading around $2,400, down more than 4% over the last 24 hours.
The price of the coin appears to have seen a sharp drawdown | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView
Dall-E, Featured image from Santiment.net, Charts from TradingView.com