Given the impact Ethereum has had on blockchain development since its founding in 2015, it’s hard to imagine what blockchain and cryptocurrency would be like today without it.
“Ethereum” Has Appeared in 110 Million Google Searches
ConsenSys, a blockchain venture production studio building decentralized applications on Ethereum, offered a census of the cryptocurrency’s contributions to blockchain in a recent blog. Here’s a brief rundown.
The word “Ethereum” has been referenced in more than 110 million Google searches in the last two years, the blog noted. On average, #ethereum gets tweeted 20,000 times daily.
The ETH network has processed about 240 million transactions. On Jan. 4, it set a record of 1.3 million transactions in a 24-hour period.
Nearly 17,000 nodes operating the Ethereum blockchain on six continents make it the most decentralized blockchain platform, one sign of this being 35 million unique addresses. The number of active addresses on Jan. 4 for the first time exceeded 1 million and created a record of more than 350,000 new addresses in 24 hours.
It is also the platform most involved with smart contracts, which are arguably one of the most dynamic tools in technology today. Ninety-four percent of the top 100 tokens based on market cap are built on Ethereum, as are 87% of the top 800 tokens. The tokens built on ETH are largely responsible for the $5.5 billion raised in 2017 token sales and $6.5 billion raised in the present year’s first quarter.
The Largest Blockchain Developer Community
Ethereum’s estimated 250,000 developers also represent the largest blockchain developer community. Truffle, an ETH development framework, exceeded 200,000 downloads in October of 2017. Github cites 220,000 Ethereum commits and 14,000 repositories.
The MetaMask browser extension that permits users to operate Ethereum DApps without operating a full Ethereum node has exceeded 1 million users.
Foundations, organizations, businesses and startups have joined alliances to benefit from the Ethereum ecosystem, the most visible being The Ethereum Enterprise Alliance has expanded to more than 500 members in one year.
Governments worldwide looking to utilize blockchain technology have largely used Ethereum. Brazil this year decided to place petitions on the coin’s network. Canada is testing Ethereum to enable citizens to have access to information about the use of government grants to address concerns about corruption. Zug, Switzerland has offered digital IDs registered on Ethereum, and Chile tracks energy grid data using it. Dubai is working to become a fully blockchain powered city by 2020, while Estonia became a “digital republic” using Ethereum.
1,552 dApps To Date
DApps are the blockchain’s main selling point, allowing developers to create smart contracts. A total of 1,552 dApps have been created with more in development.
Numerous scalability projects, meanwhile, are looking to provide layer 2 solutions, also known as “inter-blockchain protocols.”
A permissionless network for developers called Cosmos enables interoperability and scaling of the blockchain. Loom Network has launched a layer 2 platform on Ethereum that allows social and gaming dApps to scale. CryptoZombies is an app allowing anyone to be able to code smart contracts. OmiseGO enables the sending of fast transactions across borders with plasma.
So what does this data mean for the future of cryptocurrency and decentralized networks in general? According to ConsenSys, it means that Ethereum will play an important role in the development of the next stage of the internet — Web 3.0.
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