By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 26th, 2024
Ethereum has achieved a significant feat of $400 billion in secured value, generating annualized profits of $3.6 billion and a total of 17.8 million blocks of digital assets.
In the fast-paced world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, few projects have made a lasting impact, like Ethereum. On July 30, 2023, the crypto community celebrated the eighth anniversary of Ethereum, marking eight years of continuous innovation, technological advancements, and a market capitalization of around $227 billion.
Ethereum’s journey began in November 2013, when Vitalik Buterin published the Ethereum whitepaper, introducing the concept of a decentralized platform capable of executing smart contracts. In January 2014, the blockchain project was formally announced at The North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami, marking the start of a new era.
Ethereum Generates Annual Profit of $3.6 Billion
The protocol created its genesis block on July 30, 2015. The news was shared in a blog post by Stephan Tual, the then CCO of the Ethereum Foundation, the nonprofit organization responsible for overseeing the network.
Eight years after the genesis block, the protocol, along with its native crypto Ether (ETH), has become the second largest network in the world, after Bitcoin (BTC).
According to Bankless co-host Ryan Sean Adams, Ethereum has achieved a significant feat of $400 billion in secured value, generating annualized profits of $3.6 billion and a total of 17.8 million blocks of digital assets.
Happy birthday Ethereum! 🎂
$400 billion in secured value, $3.6 billion in annualized profits, and a total of 17.8 million blocks of uncensorable digital property.
Not bad for an 8 year old.
— RYAN SΞAN ADAMS – rsa.eth (@RyanSAdams) July 30, 2023
Empowering Developers and Fostering Innovation
As a decentralized network with smart contract capabilities, the launch of Ethereum brought many opportunities for developers and entrepreneurs. The protocol paved the way for the explosive growth of the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, allowing developers to build and deploy applications on top of its chain.
Some of the projects built on Ethereum enabled lending, borrowing, and yield farming, revolutionizing traditional finance and creating new opportunities for users around the world.
Projects within the ConsenSys ecosystem, like MetaMask and Infura, provided crucial tools to bootstrap the network and make it accessible to the masses.
MetaMask revolutionized how users interacted with the Ethereum network. The non-custodial wallet also serves as a browser extension, simplifying the process of sending ether and interacting with other decentralized applications (dApps).
Infura, launched in November 2016, played a vital role in driving adoption by providing a reliable and scalable Ethereum API. Developers could focus on building innovative applications without the complexities of managing their own infrastructure.
Ethereum Migration to a PoS Chain
When non-fungible tokens (NFTs) emerged as another sector in the crypto ecosystem, Ethereum allowed artists and creators to tokenize their digital assets, opening up new avenues for ownership, provenance, and monetization in the digital art and collectibles space.
The protocol is the home to the largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, launched in 2017 by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah.
As Ethereum continued to flourish, it also faced challenges related to scalability and environmental impact. In response, Ethereum embarked on a journey towards Ethereum 2.0, a major upgrade that transitions the network from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS).
Last year, the protocol successfully migrated to the PoS chain through a process known as the Merge in September. This transition has made the protocol more scalable, energy-efficient, and poised to support even greater adoption.
Ethereum’s native currency is also widely accepted by different companies across various industries as a payment option. Some of these brands include Gucci, Balenciaga, Chipotle, and Newegg.