Ethereum’s network is at its most active ever. The important thing is that daily transactions have more than doubled, and whales are still majorly accumulating ETH. With 1,750,000 daily transactions, the Ethereum network has set the third-highest all-time quantity of recorded transactions. This boom is largely thanks to a boom in decentralized finance, or DeFi, and Layer 2 infrastructure.

Ethereum whales aren’t just having a whale of a time, they’re getting ETH by the gulps One notable transaction was for SharpLink Gaming, which recently acquired 1,989 ETH via OTC transacton for $4.82 million. This means that SharpLink Gaming recently purchased 188,478 ETH for $473.6 million, indicating an average purchase price of $2,513. This purchase comes on the back of their previous investment in Ethereum.

SharpLink Gaming clearly did a big due diligence and spent big bucks. At the same time, whale 0x1fc7 is making waves, purchasing another 1,888 ETH ($4.56 million). Onchain effects A week earlier, this same whale had bought and staked 3,201 ETH—that’s a cool $8.1 million.

Looking at on-chain data, whale addresses have been sending large quantities of ETH onto centralised exchanges. In a mere three days, over 177,000 ETH was funneled into Binance. Crypto analyst Amr Taha reported that the rates of funds deposited on Binance have gone positive. This new development points towards a build-up in leveraged long positions, painting a short squeeze potential scenario for Ethereum.

Funding rates are positive and trending upwards! This would mean that Ethereum has entered a short-squeeze phase, where traders who had previously shorted (bet against) the asset are now closing their positions, creating a short-lived surge in price. Meanwhile, Layer 2 networks such as Arbitrum and Optimism are abuzz with heightened activity. That spike in transactions, combined with increasing DeFi adoption and new arbitrage chances, has driven a massive increase in transaction volume on the Ethereum blockchain.

Ethereum prices are still trading above $2,400 today despite the recent wild swings in the overall cryptocurrency market. We’re seeing more network activity and whale accumulation than ever before. When combined with positive funding rates, these three factors all point to a potentially bullish outlook for Ethereum in the short term.