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The State of the Ethereum Network

Traders Magazine Online News, July 5, 2018

ConsenSys

Blockchain technology?—?and Ethereum in particular?—?has gained international attention and traction since its release in 2015. In particular, late 2017 and early 2018 saw a massive increase in popular attention due to rapid price increases across the entire crypto-asset ecosystem. In two years, the word “Ethereum” has been included in over 110 million Google searches. The hashtag #ethereum is tweeted, on average, 20,000 times a day.

But what has this gradual and acute increase in attention meant for the Ethereum network as a whole? If we pull back the curtain of the much-discussed price of ether, what is happening on the Ethereum network? Let’s take a look.

Looking at the Figures: Blockchain Activity

Since its inception, the network has processed nearly 240 million transactions. At its height on January 4, the network processed 1.3 million transactions in 24 hours.

The network is huge and distributed. To date, 35 million unique addresses exist on the Ethereum blockchain. On January 4, 2018, the number of active (i.e. transacting) addresses on Ethereum surpassed 1 million for the first time. On January 4, 2018 over 350,000 new addresses were created?—?the most addresses generated within a 24 hour period to date. Ethernodes reports just under 17,000 nodes running the Ethereum blockchain across six continents, making it the most decentralized blockchain platform in existence.

The Ethereum blockchain is, without a doubt, the most active smart contract platform in existence. Of the top 100 tokens by market cap, 94% are built on top of Ethereum. Of the top 800 tokens, 87% are built on Ethereum. Most of these tokens are “ERC-20 tokens,” which made possible the majority of the $5.5 billion raised through token sales in 2017 and the $6.5 billion raised in just the first quarter of this year.

Behind the Blockchain: The Ethereum Community

The Ethereum developer community is estimated to be the largest in the world, at 250,000. In October 2017, Truffle?—?a development framework for Ethereum?—?surpassed 200,000 downloads. In less than a year, downloads are now at nearly 550,000. Github, which draws open-source developers from around the world, lists 14,000 repositories and 220,000 commits concerning Ethereum. MetaMask?—?a browser extension allowing users to to run dApps without running an entire Ethereum node?—?has reached over 1 million users.

Beyond the decentralized network of Ethereum developers, organized consortiums have arisen to support and expand the Ethereum community. The Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) formed in March 2017 with 30 founding members committed to the integration of blockchain technology with enterprise establishments. Now, just over one year later, the EEA has grown to over 500 members. Startups, corporations, foundations, and organizations have all come together to contribute and benefit from the continued development of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Welcoming Ethereum: Government Adoption

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