Amount of ETH held by miners reaches highest level since 2016

The amount of Ether (ETH) that is being held by miners has reached record levels in terms of United States dollars, as they remain reluctant to sell.

The balance held by Ether miners is the largest it has been since shortly after the network was launched five years ago. When converted into USD, it is at a historic peak of $1.85 billion, according to data provided by analytics platform Santiment.

The firm stated that the 532,750 ETH is the largest balance held by miners since July 13, 2016. The amount equates to around 0.45% of the total circulating supply of Ethereum, which is currently 117.8 million ETH.

Ethereum miner balances and price. Source: Santiment

Miners usually sell the asset regularly to cover expenses, which include electricity and hardware costs. A reluctance to sell suggests that miners could be holding out for further price increases.

The Ethereum hash rate, which is often viewed as a reflection of network health and security, slumped during the miner exodus from China along with Bitcoin‘s. Ethereum’s hash rate fell to 477 terahashes per second (TH/s) in late June but has fully recovered over the past three months and surged to new peaks. It is currently up 150% since the beginning of the year.

Thats despite China-based Ethereum mining pools dropping out of the race, with SparkPool and BeePool suspending operations in recent weeks. Curiously, there has been no noticeable drop in the hash rate which hit an all-time high of 745 TH/s on Tuesday, according to BitInfoCharts.

Cointelegraph reported in September that Ether miners had started hoarding the asset following the London hard fork in early August. Research from the Kraken crypto exchange suggested that miners were expecting further price increases from potential deflationary properties following the launch of Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559, which burns some of the transaction fees.

Since the upgrade went live on Aug. 5, 473,120 ETH worth around $1.7 billion has already been burned, according to Ultrasound.money.

Further adding to the supply squeeze, a large percentage has also been staked on the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain contract. Around 6.7% or 7.9 million ETH has been locked for staking according to the Eth2 explorer. At current prices of around $3,577, this equates to roughly $28 billion worth.