In six years, Ethereum network has processed $3.6 trillion in transactions

On 30 July 2015, the alpha release of the Ethereum blockchain named Frontier took place. According to Glassnode, over six years the total value transferred through the network reached $3.6 trillion.

Over the last 12 months the value has grown more than 3.5x. In 2020 the metric reached $986 billion. At that time the price of ETH did not exceed $400, according to CoinGecko.

In May 2021 the price of Ethereum hit a new all-time high at $4,350. At the time of writing the asset was trading at about $2,388.

The circulating supply of the second-largest cryptocurrency surpassed 116 million ETH. More than 25% of this amount is locked in its smart contracts.

In the last 12 months one of the main drivers of network growth has been the DeFi sector. In May 2021 the volume of locked funds (TVL) in Ethereum applications reached an all-time high, surpassing $82 billion.

As of writing the TVL in DeFi applications on the second cryptocurrency stands at $66.43 billion.

The popularity of Ethereum-based applications has affected transaction fees. In April 2021 the average exceeded $20, and in May reached $70.

During this period the network processed on average 1.37 million transactions per day (more than 1.6 million at peak). In April the blockchain recorded more than 40 million operations, in May — over 43 million. In June activity in Ethereum declined to levels comparable with February.

Against the backdrop of rising activity, Ethereum miners’ revenues in May reached a record $2.39 billion. Then 56.5% of this came from block rewards, 43.5% from fees.

High transaction costs have been a major issue for Ethereum along with low throughput. The London hard fork is expected to fix this; activation is scheduled for August.

The network’s hash rate in May also hit a record high at 610 TH/s. Amid China’s crackdown the metric significantly declined, but in July began showing signs of recovery. At the time of writing the rate stood at 531 TH/s.

In December 2020 the launch of the zero phase of Ethereum 2.0 took place . The second version of the protocol is intended to increase the network’s scalability, security and energy efficiency by moving to the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm Proof-of-Stake.

In April the value of assets locked in the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract exceeded $10 billion (3.99 million ETH). At the time of writing the figure had reached $15 billion (~6.44 million ETH).

According to Vitalik Buterin, the merge of the mainnet with the second version of the protocol is expected to occur in about six months.

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