Along with bitcoin, ether (ETH) also suffered heavy losses in the middle of this week. The largest altcoin fell to $ 1,529 the day before, after which it was able to rebound above $ 1,600.
On the night of Friday, March 26, the ETH rate rose to $ 1612. Cryptocurrency capitalization is just over $ 185.466 billion.
The drop in ether did not weaken the transactional activity of network users in any way. The average daily number of transactions on the blockchain is at its highest since the beginning of March (1.35 million).
The number of active addresses exceeds 386,600. The increased load on the network has led to another jump in Ethereum fees. The average commission increased to $ 18.
The $ 1600 mark is an important support zone for ether, analysts say.
Trending: Salvadorans are against buying bitcoins at the expense of the budget
According to the Santiment team, the whales will try to keep ETH above $ 1600.
The pressure should ease soon as Ether and Bitcoin options expire today. Usually, market volatility escalates just before the expiration date of contracts, as we have seen this week.
In 2021, the cost of Ether has grown by 74%.
The accumulation of altcoin continues, as evidenced by the data of the same Santiment team.
Trending: CoinShares: Bitcoin funds raised $8.8 million in a week
Its report says that the stocks of the top 100 OTC Ethereum wallets have surged to their highest since July 2016. In contrast, the reserves of exchange-traded ETH addresses have declined to their lowest level since November 2018.
Note that in DeFi projects and the ETH 2.0 deposit contract, up to 11% of the total supply of ether is currently blocked.