Ethereum, the world’s second-largest digital currency, is now up by more than 400% since the start of 2021. One of the main reasons behind the latest surge in ETH price is the growing popularity of DeFi products.
According to the latest data published by Glassnode, a leading on-chain market analysis firm, smart contracts now hold 22.8% of the total Ethereum supply. The percentage of ETH supply held by smart contracts jumped from 16% to 22.8% within the first four months of 2021.
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On the other hand, Ethereum’s supply at leading cryptocurrency exchanges has reached its lowest level in years. Digital exchanges now hold nearly 12% of the total ETH supply, compared to 17% in September 2020.
“This week a relatively large volume of Ethereum was removed from known exchange wallets, spiking to over 200k ETH in a single day. Not only are ETH coins being withdrawn from centralized exchanges, but they are also undoubtedly finding their way into smart contracts and DeFi applications,” Glassnode mentioned in its latest report.
As of writing, Ethereum is trading near $3,400 with a market cap of over $390 billion. The world’s second-most valuable digital currency crossed the market cap of the US-based financial services giant Mastercard earlier this week.
Ethereum’s Institutional Inflows and Network Activity
Ethereum-related investment products attracted massive institutional inflows this year. According to the latest report published by CoinShares, ETH attracted $30 million worth of institutional inflows last week as the total Ethereum investment products under management reached a record high of $13.9 billion. Grayscale, the world’s largest digital asset manager, recently published the total value of its cryptocurrency assets under management. The company now holds more than 3.1 million ETH with a total value of over $11 billion.
The deposit contract of Ethereum 2.0, the network upgrade of ETH, crossed 4.3 million staked ETH today as its value touched nearly $15 billion. Despite the latest jump in the transaction fees of Ethereum, its overall network activity has increased substantially during the last few months.
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