Ether (ETH) rallied to a new year-to-date high of $3,822 on March 5 after rallying 8% over the last 24 hours. The second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is up 15% over the last seven days and 132% over the last 6 months.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView show Ether’s price was hovering around $3,796, about 28% shy of its all-time high of $4,891 set on Nov. 26, 2021.
ETH/USD daily chart. Source: TradingView
Accompanying ETH’s rally is a 68% leap in daily trading volume, currently at $33.29 billion. With a market capitalization of $453 billion, Ether cements its position as the second most valuable cryptocurrency, according to CoinMarketCap.
Apart from the uptrend in the wider crypto market fueled by increased inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs and the upcoming Bitcoin supply halving, other fundamental factors and on-chain metrics back Ethereum’s uptrend.
Reducing supply on exchanges
One factor supporting Ether’s upside is reducing supply on exchanges. Data from on-chain market intelligence firm Glassnode shows ETH balance on exchanges reached a 20-month low of 13.14 million ETH, after dropping 7.7% over the last 90 days.
ETH supply on exchanges. Source: Glassnode
The total balance between inflows and outflows in and out of all known exchange wallets shows a steep decline since October 2023, when withdrawals from the trading platforms began to surge. This drop accompanies a 130% rise in Ether’s price over the same time period.
Decreasing ETH balances on exchanges simply means investors could be withdrawing their tokens into self-custody wallets, indicating a lack of intention to sell in anticipation of a price increase in the future.
This is explained by a spike in accumulation by large holders over the last few weeks. More data from Glassnode shows that wallets holding $100,000 or more worth of ETH have been on the rise since the start of February.
Number of ETH wallets with balances more than $100K. Source: Glassnode
The chart above shows that wallets holding $100,000 or more have increased from 94,620 on Jan. 1 to 141, 406 on March 4 This means that whales have not sold on the…
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