Author: Blockchain Knight

In July 2015, Vitalik Buterin and his team of co-founders launched the Ethereum blockchain. With its native currency ETH and smart contract capabilities, Ethereum aims to be a decentralized "world computer" that can execute peer-to-peer protocols and applications.

In the past eight years, Ethereum has become a leading smart contract platform, giving birth to a wave of decentralized applications covering finance, games, collectibles and more. Therefore, ETH has become the currency second only to BTC in the Crypto field, and its market value and importance cannot be underestimated.

To celebrate the eighth anniversary of the birth of Ethereum, let us revisit some of the major milestones along the way for this "King of Public Chains".

The origin of Ethereum

Ethereum was first proposed by programmer Vitalik Buterin in late 2013 when he was only 19 years old. Buterin envisions it as a blockchain-based computing platform that can execute decentralized applications and smart contracts.

In 2014, Buterin started developing Ethereum along with other co-founders including Gavin Wood, Jeffrey Wilcke, Charles Hoskinson and Anthony Di Iorio.

The non-profit Ethereum Foundation was established in Switzerland to oversee open-source development. The Genesis block was launched and launched on July 30, 2015. At launch, there will be an initial ETH supply of 72 million tokens and an initial price of approximately $0.311 per token.

The ICO craze in 2017

In 2017, Ethereum became the platform of choice for initial coin offerings (ICOs), a new way for crypto startups to crowdfund by selling tokens.

That year, more than $6 billion was raised through ICOs, and investors rushed to invest in fledgling blockchain projects.

However, due to the lack of supervision of ICOs, many false issuances were caused, which eventually caused a partial collapse of the ICO market. Nonetheless, Ethereum provided the infrastructure that made the ICO mania possible** and funded many legitimate projects in the space.

The Rise of Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

Beginning in 2018, Ethereum became the basis for the emerging DeFi, a financial system built on blockchain technology and a decentralized network.

DeFi protocols like MakerDAO, Aave, Compound, and Uniswap leverage Ethereum’s smart contracts to recreate traditional financial instruments like loans, savings accounts, and exchanges in a transparent, global, and permissionless manner.

The development speed of DeFi is astonishing, and more than 20 billion US dollars worth of assets have been locked in the Ethereum DeFi protocol. DeFi expands the utility of Ethereum and demonstrates the potential of decentralized applications.

The Rise of #NFTs

In 2017, the ERC-721 standard was proposed as a way to create unique, blockchain-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum.

But NFTs won't really break through the mainstream until 2021, with Ethereum NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea, Rarible, and SuperRare hosting multimillion-dollar digital art and collectible sales.

Through scarcity and proof of ownership on the blockchain, NFT provides a new application for Ethereum to help digital creators monetize their works.

While NFTs have also received some criticism, it is undeniable that they have broadened Crypto's appeal to new demographics such as art, gaming, and pop culture.

Consolidation: Transition to Proof of Stake

In September 2022, Ethereum completed the long-awaited merger upgrade, shifting from the energy-intensive Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism to the more environmentally friendly and scalable Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism.

This major technological shift is expected to make Ethereum more sustainable and ready for further upgrades such as sharding.

Looking ahead: more use cases are coming

Ethereum has come a long way from its beginnings as a “world computer” for decentralized applications. Even in the face of stiff competition from chains like Solana, Ethereum still has huge potential to expand its capabilities.

Here are some emerging use cases that are likely to drive adoption in the coming years:

• Decentralized identity and reputation system that can replace online accounts, credentials and reduce spam.
• Decentralized data storage networks, such as Filecoin and Arweave, for hosting internet content in a permissionless manner.
• Decentralized cloud computing resources, comparable to centralized cloud service providers.
• IoT integration, leveraging oracles for automation and machine-to-machine transactions.
• Fully decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) with transparent governance and operations.
• Asset tokenization, such as stocks, bonds, real estate and other contracts.

After eight years of development, Ethereum is no longer an experimental project, but a battle-tested smart contract platform with an active ecosystem.

As Ethereum continues to mature, its decentralized vision will have a profound impact on finance, technology and other fields in the next decade.