Coinbase Premium and Ethereum Active Addresses Surge, Ether Price Breaks $4,000
The price of Ether (ETH) broke the $4,000 mark on Friday, marking the first time since March. The second largest cryptocurrency rose 2.4% in the past 24 hours and 8.4% over the past 7 days, outperforming Bitcoin (BTC) in both time frames. This move comes as spot Ether exchange-traded funds saw record inflows on Thursday. At the time of writing, Ether is trading at $4,033, just 2% away from setting a new high for 2024. It is also only 20% away from its all-time high of $4,868. The ETH/BTC ratio, which has been battered since September 2022, has again reached 0.04—a level that marked a brief peak for Ether relative to Bitcoin on November 10. The premium on Ether on Coinbase continues to widen, indicating that Ether is trading at a higher price on that exchange compared to Binance, the most liquid cryptocurrency exchange. The Coinbase premium is often seen as a sign of demand from institutional investors and retail participants in the U.S. Data shows that the price of Ether on Coinbase has risen slightly relative to Binance, suggesting that the market is being driven by U.S. activity, which aligns with the timing of the U.S. market opening an hour ago. That’s not all. According to Glassnode, the number of active addresses on Ethereum surged from 368,000 to 523,000 based on a 7-day moving average from September 24 to December 5, indicating a broadening of on-chain activity, which in turn has limited the supply of Ether through the 'burn' mechanism, benefiting Ether. Meanwhile, the CoinDesk 20 (an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap, excluding memecoins, stablecoins, and exchange tokens) fell 1.4%, with the worst performers being Stellar (XLM) and Litecoin (LTC), which dropped 3.1% and 5% respectively in the past 24 hours.
The strong performance of Ethereum and the increase in on-chain activity are driving market sentiment, suggesting an uptick in the short term
