Ethereum lost ground above $3,200 in the first week of April, going on to record further declines throughout the month. In the 30-day period between the first and last day of the month, Ether lost over 18% of its value. Here is a closer look at the performance of the network and its native token in April:
Market Metrics
Market capital
The largest smart contract platform saw its market capital decline by in excess of $50 billion across April, from $396.14 billion at the start of the month. The figure touched the monthly peak of $428.33 billion on April 4 – the highest figure since early January – then plummeted towards the end of the month.
The lowest market capital on Ethereum was recorded on April 29 with the figure sinking as low as $335 billion. Extended losses in May have seen Ethereum’s market capital fall to $283.17 billion at the time of writing – approximately 38% off this year’s peak reached on January 3 – $456.85 million.
Supply growth
The supply of Ethereum’s native token Ether (ETH) expectedly continued the path of growth it sustained through Q1. On April 1, the total supply of ETH on the network was 118,662,567.6 tokens. The number grew steadily as the month progressed, and by April 30, the token supply had risen to 118,963,566.8 ETH.
Across the month, the token supply increased by 300,998 tokens, which is roughly about the same growth seen in March. Up until March, the consecutive monthly additional token supply had been rising – January had an increase of 56,511 ETH and 204,505 ETH in February.
Blockchain and Network Metrics
Daily transactions
The total daily transactions on the Ethereum blockchain hovered below 1.2 million for most of the month, only ever rising above that mark on three dates – 19th, 20th and 30th. Otherwise, the numbers remained consistent over the course of the month, EtherScan data shows.
On April 1, there were 1,159,493 transactions on Ethereum, and by April 17, the count fell to the monthly low of 1,043,251 transactions. The monthly apex was reached on April 20, with the network recording 1,241,534 transactions.
Unique addresses
The number of total distinct addresses on the Ethereum network grew from 192,287,213 unique addresses on the first day of the month to 194,858,512 on April 30. This change represented a 1.33% growth in the number of total token addresses. Notably, January remained the month with the highest addition of unique addresses of any month this year – 3,254,408 new addresses.
The first day of the month saw the single largest increase in addresses of any day in April – 99,527 additional addresses. On April 17, 78,423 new addresses were created on the Ethereum network, the lowest daily increase that month.
Daily active addresses
The number of total daily active addresses is an indicator of the weight of activity taking place on a network. This count dwelled primarily below 500,000 addresses for most days of April, a level above which the number of active addresses remained for nearly the whole of March.
The most activity was observed on April 20, with the Ethereum network recording as many as 597,610 addresses. That said, March retained the peak amount count this year, the 639,040 active addresses seen on March 18.
Average transaction fee (USD)
April plotted a falling pattern in the daily average transaction fees on the network, but in a much irregular pattern. On April 5, the average transaction fee stood at $9.89, the highest fee recorded of any day on the network since February 6.
This figure was at least two times as much as any other fee charged on any other day on the network last month. Thereafter, the day-by-day changes showed a progressive reduction with falling peaks and deepening troughs. The lowest average transaction fee on Ethereum – $1.30 was reached on April 23.
Average network hash rate
Historically climbing and mounting new highs each day, the average network hash rate on Ethereum increased over the course of April. The two all-time high average network hash rate figures were observed on April 18 (1,063,522.30 GH/s) and April 30 (1.064,295 GH/s). The chain’s average computational power hit its lowest on April 4 – 1,013,221.29 GH/s.
DeFi Performance
Total Value Locked (TVL)
The TVL on Ethereum’s decentralized finance scene fell by 7.4% from $120.94 billion at the start of the month to $111.97 billion on the last day of the month. Evident of the continuous decline since April 1, the peak TVL of 125.98 billion was recorded on April 5 and the minimum on April 30 as per DeFi Llama.
DeFi Market share
The dominance of the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem remained consistent throughout the month and not characteristic of the declines recorded in the first quarter.
Some of the sharpest declines in market share the network has ever witnessed happened this year. Notable among them, the one-week meltdown during which Ethereum’s market share reduced from 59.56% to 54.6% between February 22 and March 2. All this has resulted from competing ecosystems gaining power by offering better transaction conditions than the largest smart contract platform.
In April, the market share of Ethereum changed positively up until mid-month, saw a bit of a downturn, and then recovered towards the end of the month. On April 1, the network had a 54.13% in market share, which peaked at 55.81% two weeks later on April 16. Though it briefly fell to the 54% region in the latter days, the figure managed to reclaim 55% for the rest of the month.
To learn more about Ethereum visit our Investing in Ethereum guide.
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