Ethereum Whales Drop As Retail Holders Push the Coin to a New ATH

Ethereum (ETH), the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has attained a new All-Time High (ATH) of $2,199.72 today according to CoinMarketCap, soaring against all negative tides as the broader market continues on a more pervasive bull run. At the time of writing, however, the coin is exchanging hands at $2,163.14, up 0.93% in the past 24 hours.

While Ethereum may not exert as much influence as Bitcoin (BTC), the cryptocurrency industry’s flagship digital currency, it is gradually increasing its dominance of the overall cryptocurrency market cap and now contributes as much as 11.9%.

The strides being recorded by the coin may take its backing from its role in powering the numerous decentralized finance (DeFi) smart contracts that run on it as well as the embrace of the blockchain by payment services giant Visa Inc.

In all, Ethereum bulls are shunning the negativities surrounding the network’s skyrocketing gas fees by accumulating more on their holdings, some of which are being staked into the highly anticipated blockchain network’s Ethereum 2.0, its Proof-of-Stake (PoS) model. 

Retail Investors Overshadowing the Market

The growth of Ethereum is arguably being powered by its retail investors as on-chain data from Glassnode suggests. Per the latest data, the number of Ethereum wallet addresses holding at least 32 Coins just reached a 13-month low of 111,487 while the total addresses holding at least 0.01 coins just attained an ATH of 13,924,645.

It is easy to make sense of this trend as investors are taking measures to get a piece of the digital asset before its valuation run-up just the way Bitcoin did when it shut up from less than $10,000 to over $60,000 in a year.

The presence of the market retail holders is helping to sustain the market above the $2,100 psychological level with many anticipations that a break above the $2,200 either in the short or long term could lead to a whole new undiscovered price level.