Ethereum is celebrating its ninth anniversary today.
The network, launched on July 30, 2015, was co-founded by several prominent crypto stakeholders, including Vitalik Buterin, Polkadot’s founder Gavin Wood, Consensys CEO Joseph Lubin, and Cardano’s founder Charles Hoskinson.
Since then, it has become the second-largest blockchain with a huge ecosystem that has birthed many copy-cats. According to Etherscan, the network has processed 2.45 billion transactions in 20.4 million blocks during its nine-year history.
Dune Analytics data reveals a more comprehensive picture, showing that it had over 7 million active users and over 1 million validators in the past month. Additionally, DeFillama data showed there are over 1,000 projects on the blockchain with around $71 billion in assets locked on the network.
Further, its market capitalization now exceeds $400 billion, placing it among the top 25 global assets. The price of ETH has also risen to over $3,000, making it one of the most expensive digital assets in the crypto market.
Ethereum has also cemented itself as a prominent player in the crypto industry by introducing several innovations and upgrades, including the successful implementation of the Merge and Dencun hard forks. These upgrades transitioned the network from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and drastically reduced its transaction fees to record lows.
Moreover, the recent launch of spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) products in the United States makes it the only digital asset, alongside Bitcoin, to be approved for trading by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on American exchanges.
Crypto exchange Coinbase underlined the network’s importance for the broader crypto industry, pointing out that Ethereum is the anchor of an entire onchain ecosystem that has helped pave the way for decentralized finance.
Despite these achievements, Buterin remains focused on the future, expressing his anticipation for the next decade’s developments. He wrote:
“Looking forward to seeing what the next decade brings.”
