- The Ethereum platform has seen a 68 percent drop in the active accounts
- The platform has, however, surpassed 50 million unique accounts
Despite the current decline in the value of various cryptocurrencies, one has seen a reason to celebrate.
On Saturday, the 15th of December 2018, the Ethereum platform reached a major milestone as it surpassed 50 million unique addresses.
It had also seen its highest single-day gains of unique addresses this year as on the 4th of January 2018, 352,888 unique addresses were added.
Interestingly enough, while the Ethereum platform is seeing its highest number of unique addresses, it is also seeing a decline in active addresses.
An active address is defined as “the number of unique sending and receiving addresses participating in transactions on the given day.” By Coinmetrics.
The number of active addresses on the platform reached a peak this year as well as on the 16th of January 2018, 719,093 addresses were active.
That figure has seen a 68% slump to 232,085 active addresses on the 15th of December 2018. 0.46% of Ethereum addresses are now classified as ‘active’.
On top of this, the total number of daily transactions has also taken a hit, falling from its peak of over 1.3 million a day in early January to about 551,916 a day on the 16th of December 2018.
What’s the reason?
There are a number of possible factors for the decline in active addresses. The Ethereum platform has maintained a steady 70,000 plus accounts added each day.
However, the number of accounts actually being used seems to have slumped.
One theory is that the decline in cryptocurrency value has led to people using the platform less.
It could also be a decline in the popularity of dApps.
There’s also the possibility of there being an industry-wide trend. The peak of single-day account creation, active accounts, and daily transactions all occurred at the beginning of 2018, a month after Bitcoin has its massive price surge.
Bitcoin, along with many other currencies, is now experiencing a decline and this could have spilled over to the Ethereum platform as well.
What now?
The decline in activity on the Ethereum platform might be a side-effect of the crypto-decline, a decline that many in the industry see as temporary.
As with the crypto-decline, only time will tell how long the decline in active accounts will last and what the long-term effects will be.
