Ethereum [ETH] experiences major drop of 94% in block transactions since last year

The cryptocurrency market has been facing a brutal bearish trend since the turn of the year, with a marginal bullish pump last week on 8 February. Most of the top ten virtual assets have been experiencing major market turmoil but, currencies like Bitcoin and Litecoin have been able to encourage users with the integration of Lightning Network and the support of a string of high-profile personalities, keeping the virtual currencies relevant in course of worldwide adoption.

Ethereum [ETH], which is currently the second-largest cryptocurrency according to Coinmarketcap, with a market capitalization of $12.8 billion dollars, has not been on the right side of this optimism however.

According to data charts on Etherscan.io, it can be clearly observed that the transaction per block has significantly decreased since the start of the year. The number of transactions recorded on 4 January, 2018 was the highest this year with a total of 1349890 units, with the average difficulty ranging around 1,895.45 TH.

It went through a sharp decline on the chart however as, the transaction on 15 February, 2019, was recorded at 468599 units, with an increased average difficulty of 2,758.

According to reports, the ETH blockchain has actually dropped a significant 94% in block transaction since last year. To get a clearer picture, the blockchain volume has been compared to the exchange data volume.

The chart below compares the volume of transactions on the Ethereum chain to Ether’s exchange volume over the past year.

We found that before March 2018, trade volume on the ETH blockchain was much larger than the trade volume on exchanges. This indicates that ETH activity was not limited to the act of buying and selling ETH, but also included games and ICOs. Later, as DApp and ICO projects continued to shrink, the volume of transactions on the ETH chain gradually declined.

However on 30 November 2018, a sudden spike in the blockchain trading volume was witnessed, but the spike was not related to DApps or ICOs.

It is evident that the ETH bear market is continuing as the ETH blockchain volume hit a new low point with an average of about $157 million USD per day, which marks a drop of about 96% compared to last year [Feb 15 to Feb 21] when the average daily blockchain volume reached around $4.3 billion.