On March 11, Ethereum surged to $4,000, marking its first ascent to this level since 2021. However, its momentum waned, reaching $4,094 just before the Dencun upgrade, resulting in ETH lagging behind Bitcoin (BTC) and the wider crypto market throughout the last month. Ethereum saw a dip to $3,367 on March 20, hitting its lowest point for the month, and concluded March at $3,636.
The potential approval of a spot Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) remains a pivotal factor for Ethereum’s ascent beyond the $4,000 threshold. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is presently reviewing the proposal, with a final decision slated for May 23.
Moreover, recent enhancements to the Ethereum protocol shouldn’t be overlooked. The Dencun hard fork, implemented on March 13, aimed at enhancing network scalability and refining Layer 2 (L2) data processing capabilities, garnering notable interest from rollup solutions. Consequently, transaction fees for various applications on Ethereum L2s such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Starknet, and Zora Network have seen significant reductions.
Fee reductions were also evident on Ethereum. Total fees on the Ethereum network declined from $38.7 million on March 5 to $9.4 million by March 31.
Following the implementation of EIP-4844, total revenues on Ethereum experienced a 48% decrease over the subsequent 10 days. This proposal introduces a new transaction type capable of accepting data blobs.
With a total value locked (TVL) ranging between $47.2 billion and $57.9 billion (reaching its peak on March 13), Ethereum maintained the largest market share among all blockchains last month.
However, Ethereum network activity displayed some volatility over the past month. The number of daily active addresses across the Ethereum ecosystem rose from 413k on March 1 to 534k on March 20, before declining to 467k by March 31.
Furthermore, Ethereum’s daily transaction volume fluctuated throughout the month, increasing from 1.2 million on March 1 to 1.4 million on March 19, and then returning to 1.2 million by month’s end.
