--- Data Observation ---
Over the past two weeks, ETH rose from $1,876 on 8/10 to $2,507 on 8/26, an increase of over 30%. Logically, many people's first reaction would be: the on-chain activity should also be hot, right?
But the data shows that's not necessarily the case.
According to Glassnode's statistics, during the same period, ETH's active address count dropped from 499,000 on 8/20 to 414,000 on 8/26; moreover, from 8/22–8/23 it once fell into the 350,000–370,000 range. In other words: prices are rising, but on-chain usage (at least in terms of active addresses) is declining, and the two lines are moving in opposite directions.
If we pull the timeline back a bit further, the situation is even more interesting. At the beginning of August, it was the opposite: ETH's active addresses once surged to a near six-month high (approaching one million per day), but the price was mostly stuck around $1,870, even dipping slightly.
Looking at these two periods together, it's like a relay race: first on-chain activity heats up, but prices don't follow; then it's prices' turn to catch up, but on-chain activity cools down instead.
This actually reminds us of one thing: "active addresses" and "price" are not necessarily two indicators that move in sync.
- Active addresses are more like looking at "how many people are using this chain"—influenced by factors such as L2 expansion, airdrops, DeFi activities, bot interactions, etc.
- Price, on the other hand, reflects "how much capital the market is willing to pay for this asset"—more easily driven by factors like ETF fund flows, overall risk sentiment, leverage positions, etc.
Because the driving forces are different, short-term divergences are actually quite common.
For those just starting to look at on-chain data, a better approach is to view "usage-type indicators" and "capital/price-type indicators" separately; only when both sides consistently show signals in the same direction is it more suitable to use them as references for trend judgment. Conversely, if a single indicator is at odds with the price, it's most likely not a data contradiction, but a reminder that we need to look from more angles together.