Market Optimism Surrounds Ethereum as Metrics Indicate Growth

Throughout 2024, the number of long-term Ethereum holders increased, while the metric for Bitcoin steadily declined, as noted by IntoTheBlock.

This chart shows the percentage of long-term Bitcoin and Ether holders over the past year.

While the share of long-term Bitcoin decreased, the percentage of long-term ETH holders climbed, surpassing that of Bitcoin early in the year. pic.twitter.com/F7ghaSq66T

— IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) December 29, 2024

The proportion of those holding Ether for over a year rose from 59% in January to 75% in December. In digital gold, this figure decreased from approximately 70% to 62%.

Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin’s price has increased by over 122%, with the asset’s price twice reaching new all-time highs. Ethereum’s price grew by 48.2% over the same period, according to CoinGecko.

Experts at Kaiko attributed the difference in dynamics to the flow of funds into Solana due to high fees on the blockchain of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and the meme coin frenzy in the fourth quarter.

Additional pressure came from the lack of staking in the launched ETH-ETFs and the “sluggish” start of these products compared to Bitcoin funds.

According to analyst and MN Trading founder Michaël van de Poppe, Ethereum’s strengthening relative to the market leader as early as January would not be surprising. A breakthrough of the 0.4 level in the ETH/BTC pair could trigger an altcoin rally within the Ethereum ecosystem, the expert suggested.

Earlier, CryptoQuant highlighted bullish signals in Ethereum.