New Study Shows Ethereum Block Transactions Have Fallen by a Whopping 94% in the Last Year

As many of our readers are probably well aware of, since the start of 2018, the cryptocurrency market has been faced with brutal economic conditions that have left the industry in shambles.

However, over the past fortnight or so, there has been a marginal bullish trend that seems to have helped premier tokens such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin gain back some of their former value.

To be a bit more specific, Bitcoin and Litecoin have been able to garner monetary support recently due to the ongoing integration of Lightning Network into their respective ecosystems. Not only that, but many premier alt assets have also been on the receiving end of support from some big name crypto-personalities — which has helped spur their adoption to some extent.

Ethereum’s Condition Continues To Deteriorate

Ether, the world’s second largest crypto asset by total market capitalization, has recently been struggling in terms of widespread market adoption.

To further elaborate on the matter, data acquired from Etherscan.io clearly shows that the number of transactions per block associated with the ETH blockchain has been decreasing since the start of 2018.

Block Tx Data Associated With the Ethereum Ecosystem (Source: Etherscan.io)

For example, the total number of Tx’s registered on the native ETH blockchain on the 4th of January, 2018 were found to be 1349890 units— with the average difficulty ranging around 1,895.45 TH. However, since then, this number has declined sharply, with the total number of transactions now pegged to the 468599 mark— thus showcasing an increased average difficulty of 2,758.

Upon mathematical extrapolation, we can see that the above stated figures showcase a 94% drop in the block transaction rate of the ETH ecosystem.

More On The Matter

When compared with figures from last year, we can see that the total trade volume on the ETH blockchain (during March 2018) was found to be much larger “than the trade volume of various established exchanges”.

What this means is that over the past few years, ETH activity has not been solely limited to the buying/selling of Ether tokens — rather, it has also encompassed things like decentralized games and ICOs.

However, as the number of DApps and ICO projects have continued to decrease, the total volume of transactions on the Ether blockchain have also been on the decline.

Final Take

In closing out this piece, it is worth mentioning that a few months back (on the 30th of November 2018), a sudden surge in ETH trading volume was witnessed by the global Ethereum dev community. However, it was found that this spike was an anomaly and not caused by the emergence of any particular DApp or ICO.

Last but not least, it is now quite obvious that the ETH bear market is here to stay. For example, at press time, the daily Ether tx volume has now reached a new low of USD $157 million— which showcases a drop of more than 95% when compared to figures from last year.