CRYPTO MOVERS AND PRICES
Results in the Top 10 were mixed this morning. Solana (SOL) was outperforming and was up 18%, while BTC spot volumes exceeded their 30-day average.
Crypto Story of the Day
The BTC hash rate has shown signs of sustained recovery following China’s crackdown while SegWit usage is at an all-time high. Today, we review select BTC blockchain metrics.
Number of daily active addresses
BTC saw an all-time high of 1.36 million in the number of daily active addresses on the network on April 15. In the 30 days prior to this record, the metric saw an average of 1.15 million. By comparison, over the past 31 days, the same metric has averaged 851,000.
Addresses appearing in a BTC transaction for the first time daily
The number of new addresses appearing daily for the first time in a transaction on the network saw an all-time high of about 682,000 in January. On September 2, this metric stood at roughly 454,000. Over the month of January, new addresses on the network totaled 17 million while in August this figure stood at 11 million.
BTC daily transactions
The number of daily BTC transactions has seen similar behavior compared to the 2 aforementioned metrics. In the period from December 15 to January 15, the metric saw an average of about 320,000 while from August 1 to September 1 this figure stood at roughly 241,000. The number of daily BTC transactions saw an all-time high of approximately 490,000 in December 2017.
This said, transaction batching, a practice of sending BTC to several recipients via one transaction, has had the effect of reducing daily transactions in the network over time.
Low BTC transaction fees and record usage of SegWit
The lower demand for transacting on the BTC blockchain has resulted in notably lower transaction fees. For example, January and February saw a monthly total of transaction fees denominated in USD of 114 million and 184 million, respectively. In August, transaction fees totaled 18 million.
This drop in BTC transaction fees is also likely associated with all-time high usage of SegWit transactions. SegWit usage has seen gradual uptake by large transaction processors on the BTC network. For example, despite going live in 2017, wallet provider Blockchain.com only began using SegWit in April of this year.
BTC hash rate is recovering
The BTC hash rate, which saw a significant decrease following a crackdown on mining China in April and May, has seen sustained recovery. The metric, which achieved an all-time high on April 15, saw an estimated decline by as much as 50% by the end of June. Crypto media and commentators have attributed BTC’s recovering hash rate to miner’s redeploying formerly Chinese mining equipment.