More than half of Ethereum coins issued to date have not moved in more than twelve months, according to data from research firm Glassnode.
According to an instrument provided by Glassnode called "HODL waves", only 39.6% of ETH changed location in blockchain in the last year, and another 28% - in a period of 12 to 24 months. According to the co-founder of ETH Hub Anthony Sassano, the observed dynamics indicate that some of these coins were at the disposal of large cryptocurrency holders awaiting the launch of Ethereum 2.0 in order to take part in staking.
“It is especially interesting if coins from the 5+ years category will be moved,” he writes. According to Glassnode, there are 3.78% of such coins. Since Ethereum was launched after cryptocurrencies acquired financial value, analysts are less inclined to write off out-of-circulation coins as forgetfulness of users than in the case of bitcoin.
This week saw the successful launch of the Zinken testnet, which was a prerequisite for the transition to phase zero for Ethereum 2.0 on the mainnet. ConsenSys researcher Ben Edgington predicts its release can take place within six weeks. At the same time, the number of short-term movements increased. In January and February, ETH holders, on average, used less than 0.5% of their available coins for day-to-day transactions, but by the beginning of September the figure exceeded 1%. The weekly indicator over the same period increased from 1.5% to 5%, and the monthly and quarterly experienced a similar increase.
A different situation is observed in the bitcoin blockchain. There, short-term movements have narrowed significantly since the market crash in March and the activity associated with halving in May. Since February, the share of coins moved within one week has decreased from 6% to 3.5-4%.