Large cryptocurrency holders on the Ethereum ($ETH) network have bought over $400 million worth of the second-largest digital asset by market capitalization over just 24 hours as their accumulation of ETH is seemingly picking up steam.
According to data from Santiment shared by popular cryptocurrency analyst Ali Martinez, Ethereum whales purchased around 260,000 ETH tokens, worth nearly 425 million, within just 24 hours.
The accumulation comes at a time in which the cryptocurrency lost around 4.7% of its value over the course of 7 days amid a wider cryptocurrency market correction that has seen the space’s market capitalization drop to near the $1 trillion mark.
Ethereum has lost around 1.7% of its value over the past 30 days, but is down just 1.7% so far this year after starting it out at around $1,560 and moving up to a high above the $2,000 mark that it failed to remain above.
The cryptocurrency has been seeing rivals like Soalan ($SOL) and Cardano ($ADA) grow in terms of total value locked in their decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, with Solana recently seeing payments giant Visa recently expanding its settlement capabilities to the network.
Ethereum’s development to become a world computer has nevertheless been ongoing, with developers focusing on improving scalability and the high transaction fees seen on the network with the use of optimistic rollups, which involve bundling multiple transactions together and processing them off-chain before submitting them to the Ethereum Mainnet.
Ethereum is also working on smart contract wallets. Currently users have to set up their own wallets and self-custody their funds, exposing them to potential security breaches. A smart contract wallet would be one controlled by a smart contract, instead of the private keys a user controls.
Moreover, the network is looking to increase user privacy through proposed stealth addresses, or one-time addresses that hide the recipient’s identity on the Ethereum blockchain to boost user privacy.
Featured image via Unsplash.
