Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) — the cryptocurrency that spawned the Web 3.0 industry — is seeing less activity and trading interest, but big holders apparently still believe in the protocol's future.

What Happened: Open interest in Ethereum futures open interest has taken a sharp hit at the beginning of the month when it dropped from October's average of about $7 billion down to a low of $4 billion in mid-November before more recently settling at just under $4.5 billion, according to data gathered from Glassnode's crypto analytics tool suite.

Concurrently, the seven-day average of the number of transactions processed by Ethereum's blockchain reached a four-month low of 39,580 earlier Thursday, according to another Glassnode chart.

See Also: IS ETHEREUM A GOOD INVESTMENT?

Despite those rather bearish signs, the biggest of Ethereum holders continue accumulating and growing their ranks. Glassnode data revealsthe number of Ethereum addresses holding at least 10,000 ETH — worth nearly $1.2 million as of press time — is at its one-month high of 1,193.