Number of Addresses Holding Ethereum Hits New All-Time High – Decrypt

The number of addresses now holding Ethereum today hit another all-time high. There are now 51,491,730 addresses holding the cryptocurrency, according to blockchain data site Glassnode. 

The number of Ethereum addresses holding some measure of ETH has grown steadily all year: at the start of January, there were 34.7 million addresses holding ETH. That figure is now up by 48%.  

The growth is down to two things—a healthy market spurred on by institutional investors and the formidable rise of decentralized finance (DeFi). 

ETH is the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, so it makes sense that more people would be holding even just a little bit of it during a bull run. 

The price of ETH is also up: it’s been steadily growing with Bitcoin, which isn’t slowing down in terms of hitting new all-time highs: today it hit $28,537. 

ETH’s price today stood at $734.25—a 20% increase in the past week, according to CoinMarketCap. 

You need ETH in order to use the majority of DeFi applications; as their popularity blew up this year, so did the number of addresses holding the asset. 

DeFi refers to all the applications that want to revamp—and decentralize—borrowing, lending and whatever else custodial financial institutions do. 

The number of non-zero ETH addresses has been growing since 2017. This is different to non-zero Bitcoin addresses, which hit the roof during 2018, then dropped, and are now climbing again. 

There are now little over 33 million non-zero Bitcoin addresses—an increase of 4.8 million from the start of the year.