Key Points
- Ethereum’s new demand has reached a year-to-date high with daily new addresses peaking at 116,000.
- Despite this demand, the DeFi and NFT sectors on Ethereum have experienced declines in the past week.
Ethereum’s demand has hit a new high for the year.
Data from The Block indicates that the daily count of new addresses on Ethereum, based on a seven-day moving average, peaked at 116,000 on March 14.
This represents a 35% increase from the 86,000 unique addresses first seen in a transaction involving the native coin on the network on January 1.
On-Chain Volume Surge
The surge in new demand for Ethereum coincided with an increase in its on-chain volume.
The transaction volume on the network, also based on a seven-day moving average, reached a year-to-date high of $7 billion on March 11.
As the transaction volume increased, the average fee paid per transaction on the network also rose, reaching a year-to-date high of $25 on March 11.
Despite the increased demand for the Ethereum network, its decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token ecosystems have seen declines.
For instance, the total value of assets locked (TVL) across the DeFi protocols within the chain fell by 5% over the last week.
According to DefiLlama, Ethereum’s TVL was $53.4 billion.
DeFi and NFT Sector Declines
Out of the top 10 DeFi protocols on Ethereum, only one (ether.Fi) saw a TVL increase over the past seven days.
The rest experienced a decline.
The network’s NFT sector also saw a 21% decrease in sales volume over the last seven days.
Despite a 90% increase in the number of traders trading NFTs on the network during that period, the transaction count fell by 2%.
Over the past week, 166,000 NFT transactions worth $130 million were completed on the Ethereum network.
The network’s native coin, ETH, was trading at $3,721 at the time of writing.
According to CoinMarketCap, its value dropped by 6% over the last week following a sharp fall in Bitcoin‘s value on March 14.
The performance of ETH on a daily chart reveals that its Awesome Oscillator (AO) indicator has been showing red upward-facing histogram bars since March 11.
The AO measures market trends and changes in momentum.
When it displays red upward-facing bars, it indicates increasing negative momentum in the market, often interpreted by traders as a signal to consider selling or entering short positions.
