Ethereum has suffered heavily since its all-time high back in December 2017, sliding to lows of $80 in December 2018. Now, Ethereum has recovered well and is trading around the $300 mark. This recent price hike and bullish market have seen Ethereum transactions hit a brand new 13-month high. While it’s still not clear what caused the recent spike in Ethereum transactions, it’s great to see transactions on the rise after a torrid few months for the network.
Possible Airdrop Causing the Spike
As total transactions crossed the 1 million mark late last week, the price of Ethereum slid slightly. There isn’t enough data available to give a definitive reason as to why we saw transactions pass the 1 million mark, but the most plausible reason is that there was an airdrop. Numerous altcoin tokens are still running on the Ethereum network and are running airdrops to give out tokens to their investors. Each of these airdrops has to be processed by the Ethereum network, meaning daily transactions are higher on the days with airdrops from altcoin projects.
Smaller Than the DAO Hack
If we cast our minds back just over 3 years, we can remember the DAO hack where $150 million in ETH was stolen. The network had 27 days to come up with a solution to fix the hack before the money would be gone forever. Eventually, the network decided to hard fork, sending transactions through the roof. This caused the highest volume of transactions ever recorded on the Ethereum network had ever seen as investors into the DAO fund had their ETH returned to them. When you compare transactions to the number of unique addressed on the network, the DAO hack saw the most transactions ever seen on the network.
Companies Flocking to Ethereum
As Ethereum transactions reach fresh highs, more and more companies are opting to build on the Ethereum network. Last week, MetLife announced that it’s planning to build a smart contract system on the Ethereum blockchain in a bid to streamline the life insurance industry. If it manages to build a successful smart contract system, we could see Ethereum transactions climb even higher as MetLife disrupts a $2.7 billion industry.
Transactions are starting to settle back down, but another airdrop or rogue dApp could send transaction volume through the roof. This is bad news for people looking to process transactions as it takes longer for each and every transaction to go through. Fortunately, gas fees appear to be remaining low for the time being.
