For the past three months, Ethereum has been enjoying an uptrend. Since falling to $100 in March, the second-largest cryptocurrency has been rising up, currently trading at $241.15.

In comparison to Bitcoin’s about 32% YTD gains, Ether recorded more than double the greens at 85%.

Besides the gains, the total number of addresses holding ETH at 39.96 million now surpasses those holding bitcoin at 30.1 million, as per IntoTheBlock.

This growth is seen as Ethereum makes strides towards launching Ethereum 2.0 which is evident from the number of wallets holding more than 32 ETH, the threshold to stake, which has been increasing over the last year.

The number of unique Ethereum addresses, the cumulative addresses has now jumped past 100 million, as per Etherscan.

Since late February, about 100k new addresses have been recorded on Ethereum Network. But on June 5th, 2020 251,713 new addresses were created, still lower than the highest ever recorded on January 4, 2018, at 355,726 new addresses.

While the unique addresses indicate the number of existing crypto wallets, the number of active addresses represents the unique sending and receiving addresses that carry out transactions on a certain day.

As per Bitinfocharts, Ethereum active addresses that have been on a decline since June 2019, started trending up in late January 2020 and are now reaching above 500k.

Moreover, the number of long-term Ethereum holders has increased to their highest level ever. As of June 3rd, 22.39 million addresses have been holding 61.22 million ETH for over a year now. This is an increase of 76% since last year.

Another Ethereum network fundamental on the rise is its hash rate which has increased by 26.8% since the beginning of the year and is currently at its highest level in over seven months.

In part, this growth is the result of USDT, which is transferring more value on the Ethereum network than Ether (ETH) itself.

But the most explosive growth is seen in the price of ETHE, the Ethereum Trust of Grayscale Investments. ETHE is currently trading at a premium of over 750% to Ether price.

“ETHE isn't even funny anymore,” said analyst Ceteris Paribus. “I just feel bad for all the people that have no idea how rekt they're going to get.”

$ETHE premium going to infinity soon pic.twitter.com/NbT7bw8rZ8

— Josh Olszewicz (@CarpeNoctom) June 4, 2020

“Makes you think that the SEC should approve Bitcoin and digital assets ETFs to allow daily creations/redemptions at NAV thereby protecting investors and market integrity. Looks like they don’t care about their tax-money-funded core mission and market integrity at all,” said Gabor Gurbacs of digital asset strategist/ at VanEck about this crazy premium the retailers are paying.