Ethereum, which is the second largest cryptocurrency in terms of the market cap now has more unique and active addresses than industry leader Bitcoin.

Ethereum has successfully doubled its number of unique and active addresses since December last year, taking the total number to 35 million unique addresses and 100,000 new registrations every day. Bitcoin meanwhile has 24 million unique addresses according to data last checked March 2018, as its blockchain explorer no longer provides this data.

Despite this development, the growth has actually slowed down for Ethereum which previously welcome more than 300,000 new addresses on several days back in January. The bear market which has been in play since the start of the year is seen as the major reason for the reduction in the number of new addresses. Despite that, the overall growth trend hasn’t declined.

Does a number of unique address tell the whole story?

Even though this latest development is a blow to Bitcoin, it is worthy to know that the figures only represent the on-chain transactions. Users of exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, and the others, for example, do avoid making use of addresses, thus; they aren’t represented in this data.

In addition to that, the 35 million unique addresses don’t mean Ethereum has 35 million active users as users of the network can create and use multiple addresses for transactions and executing smart contracts.

The unique addresses and transactions per day, however, paints a more accurate picture of the total number of users on the blockchain as it represents the number of wallets that are actually sending or receiving the coin every day.

If the unique addresses are to be used, then Ethereum still takes the lead with 513,000 addresses to Bitcoin’s 443,000 actively in use, and Ethereum having 832,000 transactions to Bitcoin’s 209,000

The Flippening may be at work

These figures might be the handwork of proponents of ‘the Flippening’, those who believe that Ethereum should be the leading cryptocurrency by market cap and not Bitcoin. This dogma is propagated by the staunch supporters of the Ethereum network. The Flippening is gaining more tract as more analysts and industry experts like Bitcoin.com founder Roger Ver, of the view that such a scenario may be on the horizon.

Earlier this month, Ver told The Independent that;

Ethereum could overtake Bitcoin by the end of the year and Bitcoin Cash could do the same before 2020.

Even though the speculations might not be that meaningful to others, numbers speak volume. Even though Ethereum’s total market cap is still less than 50% of Bitcoin, signs indicate that the Ethereum network is outpacing Bitcoin’s blockchain in technological ambition.