Ethereum long term holders show conviction with a continued increase in collective balance

IntoTheBlock’s data revealed that long-term holders currently held 110M Ethereum as they continued to increase their collective balances. Santiment’s data, on the other hand, showed that 104 whale wallets with >100K ETH jointly held over 57% of the total supply worth $333.1B.

ETH holders exhibited increased faith in the altcoin this year as the group’s overall balances grew steadily despite market volatility. IntoTheBlock’s ETH data summary revealed that 74% of the holders had held the token for more than 1 year, while large holders accounted for 53%. The number of transactions with a value of $100K or greater had a total volume of $65.4B in the last seven days as exchanges recorded a netflow of -$912.97M. The data suggested that most of the ETH supply was aggressively being moved into whale wallets. 

Long-term ETH holders continue to strengthen their holdings

Long-term ETH holders showed conviction this year, with a continued increase in their collective balance.

Roughly 110 million $ETH is now held by long-term holders. pic.twitter.com/smh7DZL1of

— IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) December 18, 2024

According to Santiment’s latest data, 104 whale wallets currently hold nearly 58% of all existing ETH tokens. These holdings reached an all-time high, suggesting a positive shift in long-term holder sentiment. These 104 whales reflected increasing confidence among ETH’s largest stakeholders as they continued accumulating despite the token’s ability to hold above $4K. 

Conversely, mid-level ETH holders (100-100K) dropped to their all-time low supply ratio, accounting for ~33% of the total supply. The broader Ethereum ecosystem generally included a rising number of staking wallets, signalling a bullish long-term outlook. Such sustained accumulation by key stakeholders suggested increased conviction and reduced selling pressure, which aligned with positive market sentiment over time. 

Crypto analyst Ali Martinez pointed out that ETH’s price movement historically correlated with shifts in long-term holder sentiments. Long-term holders could, therefore, enter the ‘greed phase’ as the current bull cycle suggested a parabolic price surge. These holders were now in the early stages of the ‘belief’ stage, indicating they felt optimistic about ETH’s future price potential. If history repeated itself, this indicated that Ethereum’s major upward movement could still be on the horizon as long-term investor sentiment strengthened. 

Bitwise predicts ETH’s value will rise significantly in 2025

Juan Leon, senior investment strategist at Bitwise, said that Ethereum stood to benefit from several big trends in 2025. Leon claimed that ETH had positioned itself as the most ‘battle-tested’ smart contract platform, with an 81% share of the tokenization market. He argued that ETH would be the driving force behind the tripling of tokenized funds in 2025. Leon called ETH ‘the comeback kid of 2025’, saying it would likely lead in the $100 trillion tokenized real-world asset market next year. Ethereum was overshadowed by Bitcoin and Solana in 2024.

The Bitwise investment strategist noted that Ethereum ETFs had attracted over $2 billion in net inflows over the past 10 days. Farside’s data confirmed a new daily record of $428.5 million in ETH ETF inflows on December 5th. According to the data, Ethereum ETFs saw less than three-digit daily inflows in only three of the 10 trading days Leon considered. 

Leon estimated that fees generated from RWA-linked activity on ETH could surpass its $2.4 billion YTD fees by more than 40 times in 2025. He attributed Ethereum’s next year’s dominance to its status as the most secure and reliable decentralized smart contract platform. Ethereum’s growth could also be accelerated by regulatory tailwinds and its widely distributed validator network.

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