Fundamentally Ethereum is going from strength to strength. Network activity is up, development is on track, an upgrade is imminent, and DeFi is hitting record figures. Yet ETH prices have fallen again so what is going on?

Ethereum Network Strengthens

Despite a flurry of FUD from Bitcoin maximalists and rival network supporters, Ethereum is still the second largest crypto asset for good reason. There are several methods to measure network health, hash rate is one and activity is another.

According to blockchain analytics research in just the past 24 hours over 70,000 new addresses were created on the Ethereum network. Additionally there were almost 245,000 active addresses which prove that things are still ticking along nicely.

A good measure of the healthiness of a crypto-asset is the network activity In #Ethereum during the last 24hours:

▪️ 70.71k New Addresses were created

▪️ 23.94k Addresses left the network

▪️ There were 244.7k active addresses The network keeps growing#eth #crypto #blockchain pic.twitter.com/zmL5VIYeqI — intotheblock (@intotheblock) December 2, 2019

A roundup of last month’s activity on Ethereum also shows things strengthening for overall network health. Positive metrics include over 9 million blocks mined on Ethereum, 15.6 million addresses with a greater than zero account balance, and solid growth in dApp usage including a record number of ERC-721 transactions on Gods Unchained, a popular digital trading card game.

One of the biggest events in November was the MakerDAO protocol upgrade creating a Mulit Collateral DAI which now accepts both Ether and Basic Attention Token (BAT) as collateral for Dai generation.

2 weeks after @MakerDAO's upgrade to "Much Cooler" Dai, around one third of the supply has been converted.

source: https://t.co/SWJPT9dCc3 pic.twitter.com/cTOMXfw0Y0 — DeFi Pulse ? (@defipulse) December 2, 2019

DeFi Breaking Records

Despite the 50% slump in total crypto market capitalization over the past six months, Ethereum based decentralized finance continues to grow.

The total amount of ETH locked in DeFi protocols has reached another all-time high at 2.7 million, slightly higher than last week’s record. This equates to almost 2.5% of the entire supply. In USD terms it is just over $670 million.

Honey badger don't care

2.7 MILLION ETH Locked in #DeFi pic.twitter.com/GmHxD1BFlg — DeFi Pulse ? (@defipulse) December 2, 2019

Why is ETH Dumping?

The only thing not so positive about Ethereum at the moment is its price. According to Tradingview.com Ethereum has fallen below $150 again. A few hours ago ETH dumped to $147 before a slight pullback as it struggles to hold on to support.

Over the past month ETH has dumped almost 20% as it blindly follows its big brother back into the digital doldrums. On a brighter note the asset is still trading 37% higher than it was this time last year. During those long cold crypto winter months ETH dumped to a bottom of around $85.

Istanbul is due in less than five days according to the countdown and it will introduce 6 EIP’s that deal with network security and gas cost reductions. The important thing however is the upgrade is a precursor to a major shift to ETH 2.0 as the first phases of Serenity can then start getting rolled out.

There may have been delays to the Ethereum roadmap, but development is still pressing ahead and the network is still strengthening so current token price is no way indicative of the bigger picture.

Image from Shutterstock