18.36 million Ethereum addresses have joined the n

Even though Ethereum (ETH) hit two new all-time highs in price in 2021, the pace of new address growth has not been particularly correlated with price spikes. Since October, the network has gained about 10 million addresses.

While the overall numbers are rising, the proportion of active addresses on the network is declining. Overall, active addresses accounted for 1.05% of all addresses as of January 1, 2021, peaking at 1.66% on April 25, but have since dropped to 0.86% as of February 15.

The number of whales holding more than 1,000 ETH has also been declining since early 2021. Analyst firm Glassnode reported on Feb. 13 that whale wallets hit a 4-year low of 6,226.

According to statistics aggregator Ethereum Ycharts, since mid-December, the average daily transaction volume has stabilized at 1.2 million. Factors can be high gas fees and alternatives in the form of cheaper and often faster sidechains and layer 2 solutions on Ethereum. This was noted by Samep Singhania as he decided to build Quickswap on Polygon.

After a huge spike in usage last May, the Polygon (MATIC) sidechain has averaged more than double the daily volume of Ethereum transactions. Polygon currently handles about 3 million transactions per day.