ETH’s Soul Screams: Network Soars, Price Slumbers-Why?

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Ah, the tormented dance of Ethereum! While its price languishes in the shadows of a bearish abyss, its network pulses with a life so vibrant, so defiant, that one cannot help but marvel at the absurdity of it all. The market, that fickle mistress, has cast her cold gaze upon ETH, yet the beast refuses to lie down. On-chain data, those silent witnesses to the drama, reveal a network performing with a fervor akin to a man possessed, even as its price staggers like a drunkard in the night.

The Network’s Triumph, the Price’s Agony

In this theater of the absurd, Ethereum’s price has plummeted, retesting the $2,100 threshold-a number last seen in the mists of mid-2025. Yet, the network, oh the network, thrives! It is as if the soul of Ethereum has divorced its body, soaring to heights unseen while its mortal coil remains shackled to the earth. Leon Waidmann, that sage of the On-chain Foundation, proclaims with a wink and a smirk that ETH is the most undervalued it has been since 2019. The price, a mere shadow of its former self, has halved from its all-time high, yet the network usage has exploded by over 300%. Is this not the very definition of existential irony?

Waidmann, ever the provocateur, notes that this divergence between price and fundamentals is a tale as old as time itself. In 2019, when the crypto world declared Ethereum dead, over 1.2 million wallet addresses were quietly building the future of Decentralized Finance (DeFi). And what followed? A resurrection, a phoenix rising from the ashes, as ETH’s price soared from $1,200 to $4,800-a 3,300% increase that left the naysayers clutching their pearls. Today, the setup is identical, but the numbers are three times larger. Oh, the sweet, sweet potential for chaos!

In January 2026, as ETH’s price chopped in half from $6,400 to $3,300, the market once again pronounced the altcoin dead. Yet, behold! Over 3.4 million active addresses with contracts now populate the network-a threefold growth compared to the 2021 peak. “In 2019, everyone ignored it,” Waidmann quips. “Then, ETH ripped faces off for 2 years straight. The setup today is identical-just the numbers are 3X bigger.” When the repricing comes, he predicts, it will be violent, glorious, and utterly Dostoevskian.

A Record High In Transactions Processed

And let us not forget the latest triumph of the Ethereum network: a historic milestone in transactions processed. In January 2026 alone, the network handled 70 million transactions-the highest monthly activity in its entire existence. Everstake, those chroniclers of the blockchain, note that this feat is all the more remarkable given the unfavorable market climate. Should this growth persist when sentiment flips positive, the price of ETH may yet rise again, like a protagonist in a Russian novel finding redemption after a lifetime of suffering.

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2026-02-06 02:31