More than half of Ethereum’s circulating supply has not moved in more than a year, with only 39.6% of Ether (ETH) changing hands over the past 12 months.
According to Glassnode’s “hodlwaves” chart, which offers a chronological breakdown of the velocity of on-chain transactions, roughly 28% of Ether last moved between the past 12 and 24 months — comprising the largest segment of on-chain activity.
The data suggests that many whales spent 2019 accumulating Ether in advance of the project’s ETH 2.0 overhaul — for which phase 0 is expected to commence in the coming months, allowing users to stake their Ether for the first time.
Around 20% of tokens have not moved since before October 2017, with analysts watching to see if a percentage of these coins are moved into staking with the roll-out of phase 0.
Phase 0’s coming launch appears to have sparked a recent increase in the short-term velocity of on-chain transfers, with the share of Ether moved in the past 24 hours increasing from less than 0.5% during January and February to average more than 1% in early September.
Weekly velocity also increased from 1.5% at the start of the year to tag 5% in both July and September, while monthly and quarterly transfers similarly increased steadily since June.
By contrast, Bitcoin’s (BTC) short-term on-chain velocity has largely declined since the pre-halving hype and Black Thursday crash of March 2020, with weekly transfers sliding from nearly 6% of supply in February to between 3.5% and 4% in September.