- In 2021, the Ethereum network gained 18.36 million addresses with positive balance
- Share of active addresses on the network has declined
- Polygon has more than twice the daily transaction volume of Ethereum
Since last year, Ethereum addresses have been on a strong, steady increase. However, the number of whales and daily transaction volumes are both declining.
In 2021, the Ethereum network gained 18.36 million addresses with a balance greater than zero, coming to 1.53 million new addresses per month. However, competition for market share is nothing short of cutthroat, CoinTelegraph wrote.
Growth rate and price increase don’t correlate
Last year, Ethereum’s native token hit two new all-time highs in price. However, there was no correlation between price increase and the growth rate of new addresses. Since October, the Ethereum Mainnet has gained about 10 million addresses.
According to data of on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, whale wallets have reached a low of 6,226 in four years. These are defined as wallets containing 1000 ether or more.
Decline in number of active addresses
The share of active addresses on the network has also declined. These comprised just over 1% of all addresses on January 1, 2021. They had risen to 1.66% at the end of April. On February 15, 2022, they had dropped to 0.86%.
Since the end of 2021, the average daily amount of transactions has levelled off at around 1.2 million. Factors for this tendency include high transaction and gas fees as well as alternatives in the form of faster and cheaper L2 solutions and sidechains.
Polygon as an alternative
QuickSwap creator Sameep Singhania talked to CoinTelegraph about his decision to build the DEX on Polygon. He has supported Polygon since becoming familiar with it when it launched in late 2019. He created QuickSwap, Polygon’s primary DEX and the heart of the network, in 2021.
Polygon is an L2 blockchain, which means it’s built on top of an existing chain – Ethereum in this case. Conversely, Bitcoin’s Lighting is an L2 built on Bitcoin. It is known that L2 solutions allow for cheaper and faster transactions than L1 solutions.
Polygon has double Ethereum’s daily volume
After a great surge in usage last May, Polygon has achieved more than twice the daily transaction volume of Ethereum. At the moment, it hosts about 3 million transactions per day.
Ethereum Mainnet still leads by TVL
In terms of total value locked (TVL) in the ecosystem, Ethereum still leads the pack. Data of Defi Llama show the Mainnet’s current TVL is $124.24 billion. Terra is second with just $15.04 billion.
