Ether price has been steadily rising today after a weekend-long period of trading in the range of $2,980 and $3,020.The cryptocurrency raced past $3,100 earlier and is now closing in on $3,200 on the back of a convincing uptrend.Elsewhere, latest market data shows ETH whale investors are gobbling up USDC.Outside the market, it appears Ethereum has decided to work on the short-term remedy of the high gas fees issue.
Here is a recap of these and a detailed look at ETH price movement:
Ethereum could provide a temporary relief to the high gas fees and network congestion
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed the introduction of “blob-carrying transactions” in a near-future hard fork update.Referencing a tweet by fellow Ethereum developer Tim Beiko, Buterin said the changes would reduce network congestion and cut transaction costs on zk rollups, even pre-sharding.
The proposal by Ethereum developers would come in the Shanghai hard fork.If implemented, they would provide layer two solutions scaled on Ethereum with a stop-gap remedy for said on-chain troubles.
The new Ethereum transaction model would employ a format similar to sharding’s but would not really shard the transactions.
The developers intend to cut gas fees on layer-2 chains such as Optimism and Arbitrum by at least 5x.
The proposed changes come not long after recent criticism of Ethereum by investment bank JPMorgan.
The American multinational bank warned clients last month that Ethereum is showing a receding NFT market share as a result of the sky-high gas fees and network congestion.
Within the space of a year, Ethereum’s NFT market share has fallen from 95% to 80%.Users are migrating to blockchain ecosystems that offer much friendlier environments, such as Solana, Wax and Tezos hence the shrinking market share.The bank cautioned that the recession could turn problematic should this trend become sustained in 2022.
As Ethereum is yet to implement the Consensus Layer fully, JPMorgan has insisted that, just like in DeFi , the congestion and high gas fees will continually incentivize NFT creators to use other blockchain networks.
Fat-cat Ethereum investors are accumulating USDC
As per data provided by market tracker WhaleStats, the top 1000 Ethereum hodlers have invested in more of Circle’s USDC than any other token in the last 24 hours.
The whales have been acquiring USDC beyond the last 24 hours, given that the token also ranks top over the previous week.At the time of writing, Ethereum hodlers have raked up 43,067 USDC at an average price of $43,050.In the last seven days, they have bought up 776,989 tokens at an average cost of $776,862 and spent $4,260,076 on 4,262,790 coins within the last 30 days.
Bar Ethereum, USDC has remained the most bought crypto token by this profile of Ethereum investors.
The Ethereum whales have also added much of Tether’s USDT stablecoin into their portfolio.
USDT sits second on the list after 35,977 tokens were purchased within that period.
Ethereum (ETH) Price Action
ETH/USD has posted a strong comeback over the last three days.The pair is swinging around $3,130 after efforts to rise above $3,200 earlier on hit a snag.
Overall, Ether is trading 16.15% up in the past seven days.Trading volume has also seen a spike of over 58%in the last 24 hours.
At the start of the week, analytics platform Santiment tied the recent price rally to the upsurge of address activity across the network.The -chain & social metrics provider noted that the number of daily active Ethereum addresses had recently notched a two-month high.
Market analysts believe Ether bulls will make another go at the ‘coveted’ price level as the bullish sentiments become stronger.Based on recent activity, the confidence is growing among bulls which could imply that $3,200 is a price target within reach and only a matter of ‘when.’
To learn more about this token visit our Investing in Ethereum guide..
