In brief:
- The initial release of Ethereum was 5 years ago on July 30th.
- To date, Ethereum is the most popular smart contract platform.
- DeFi and ETH2.0 occupy center stage on Ethereum’s fifth anniversary.
The popular smart contract platform of Ethereum (ETH) turns five years old today. It has been exactly five years since the initial release of the Ethereum network on July 30th, 2015. A lot has happened since then and the Ethereum blockchain continues to be the choice smart contract platform for Dapp developers eclipsing other networks such as Tron (TRX), Zilliqa (ZIL), EOS, just to name a few.
DeFi is Fueling a New Interest in Ethereum (ETH)
To demonstrate the latter fact, July 25th saw Ethereum smart contract calls hit a new all-time high of 3.11 million. This feat was highlighted by the team at Coinmetrics via the following tweet.
On July 25th, Ethereum contract calls hit a new all-time high of 3.11M. Ethereum contract usage is surging as decentralized finance (DeFi) apps continue their hot streak.
Read more in this week’s State of the Network:https://t.co/0pjGAliqDR pic.twitter.com/mpz0mst8UE
— CoinMetrics.io (@coinmetrics) July 28, 2020
The increased usage of Ethereum smart contracts is a result of the DeFi boom that has taken the crypto-verse by storm. At the time of writing this, a total of $3.81 Billion is locked in Decentralized Finance applications.
Of this amount, 4.2 Million in Ethereum is locked in DeFi projects such as Compound Finance (COMP) and Maker (MKR)(MKR). This amount of Ethereum translates to $1.344 Billion using an exchange rate of $320 per ETH.
Launch of ETH2.0 Still Expected in 2020
As Ethereum turns five today, ETH2.0 still remains the biggest event on the Ethereum ecosystem since the initial launch of the platform back in 2015. Migrating Ethereum to ETH2.0 was estimated to begin by the end of July this year but the upgrade has once again been pushed forward.
Ethereum Foundation researcher, Justin Drake, had earlier this month given a new launch date of January 3rd, 2021. However, Ethereum Co-Founder, Vitalik Buterin, believes that ETH2.0 can still be launched in 2020 with some estimates putting the launch at around November 3rd this year as seen in the following Tweet by Evan Van Ness. Mr. Ness is the Editor of ‘Week in Ethereum News’ and ConsenSys member.
“The Ethereum 2.0 beacon chain will launch in November unless we find severe bugs in clients or protocol”
– @q9fmz
— Evan Van Ness (@evan_van_ness) July 20, 2020
Conclusion
Summing it up, today marks the five year anniversary of the initial launch of Ethereum (ETH). A lot has happened since July 30th, 2015, with DeFi and the launch of ETH2.0 taking center stage as Ethereum turns 5.
Furthermore, the DeFi boom and anticipation for ETH2.0 has fueled a resurgence of Ethereum in the crypto markets. From around the 21st of July, Ethereum has bulldozed past the two resistance levels of $250 and $290. At the time of writing this, ETH is trading at $317 and slightly below the $320 resistance zone. With DeFi and ETH2.0 painting a bright future for Ethereum, ETH still has more room to grow in the crypto markets.