Ethereum: Reasons why ETH is highest gainer among top ten coins

The Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates by another 75 basis points. The rate hike comes after the Consumer Price Index revealed that inflation had hit a fresh 40-year high of 9.1% in June.

Now, the crypto market reacted in a positive manner with Ethereum [ETH] leading the charge. However, as per a famed news agency, Wu Blockchain, the Ethereum Merge concept still remains a topic of speculation.

I got your back

Irrespective of FUDs, and speculations, ETH holders have supported the token. The number of non-zero addresses has reached an all-time high of 84,576,089. 

Source: Glassnode

Well, this might just have triggered what’s about to come as highlighted by Santiment. ETH witnessed a massive uptick in daily active addresses (DAA) as it hit an all-time high (ATH). 

? #Ethereum shattered records Tuesday after an incredible surge in address activity broke its #AllTimeHigh by a wide margin. 1.06M $ETH addresses made transactions, & the team is still investigating the cause of the +48% increase over the previous record. https://t.co/fRLNXkx0PR pic.twitter.com/oXhGvCTJef

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) July 27, 2022

Herein, around 1.06 million addresses made an ETH transaction, thereby, recording a 48% increase as compared to the previous record. Overall, this unprecedented surge made a total of 1.64 million transactions as per IntotheBlock’s insight. 

What led to this?

The anticipation of the Ethereum Merge due in September has benefited the price action of the king altcoin. 

Ethereum’s tenth shadow fork went live in the early hours of 27 July, a full 26 hours ahead of schedule. Tim Beiko, the chief developer, shared this development in a tweet on 28 July. 

??? Goerli/Prater Merge Announcement ? ??

Prater will run through the Bellatrix upgrade on August 4th, and merge with Goerli between August 6-12th: if you run a node or validator, this is your last chance to go through the process before mainnet ?https://t.co/JAz5AJe12B

— Tim Beiko | timbeiko.eth ? (@TimBeiko) July 27, 2022

For the last testnet PoS transition, Goerli would merge with Prater. The combined Goerli/Prater network retained the Goerli name post-merge.

The shadow fork brought the project one step closer to Ethereum’s mainnet upgrade in September. The third and final testnet merge, Goerli, is expected to happen on 10 August.

Did it excite ETH enthusiasts? Definitely as seen in the aforementioned uptick in addresses. Not just this, but even the price reacted in a positive manner. ETH, at press time, surged by more than 13% as it traded around the $1,641 mark.