The 30-day moving average of on-chain value transferred in the Ethereum network reached $7 billion, compared with less than $3 billion in the Bitcoin blockchain. If the trend continues, the metric is expected to surpass $1 trillion by year-end, according to Messari analysts.
Ethereum’s progress has been so incredible that it will likely becomes the first public blockchain ever to settle $1 trillion in a year. pic.twitter.com/2TsU8GbPJk
— Ryan Watkins (@RyanWatkins_) October 21, 2020
From January through September inclusive, the metric reached $989 billion, while in the Bitcoin network it stood at $774 billion. The all-time yearly high for Ethereum ($504 billion) was set in 2018. Since Ethereum—the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization—was created, it has not managed to surpass Bitcoin in this respect.
According to Ryan Watkins, the turning point occurred in the third quarter of this year. Fueled by the DeFi boom and the rising popularity of stablecoins, transaction volume on the Ethereum network has doubled that of the Bitcoin network.
The surge in Ethereum’s on-chain activity is largely explained by the rising role of stablecoins. Most of the sector’s leading transactions—Tether (USDT)—occur on Ethereum. In terms of value transferred, it has surpassed Bitcoin.
Much of this activity is attributable to Etherum’s stablecoin volumes.
Tether alone now transacts more daily than Bitcoin.
Most of this volume is ERC-20 Tether. pic.twitter.com/CH3uQCIIw6
— Ryan Watkins (@RyanWatkins_) October 21, 2020
The rise in stablecoins supply in the third quarter was $8.2 billion. The prior quarterly record, in Q2, was half as much — $3.8 billion.
Growth in the market supply of stablecoins. Source: Messari.
In absolute terms, the leader was Tether with a figure of $5.5 billion. In relative terms, the fastest-growing stablecoin, up 618.1%, was DAI. One of the main reasons is the hype around yield farming.
Growth dynamics of stablecoins supply. Source: Messari.
From the total market capitalization of stablecoins at $20 billion, three-quarters are Ethereum-based assets. A third of this amount is deployed on decentralized exchanges (DEXs).
Value of stablecoins on centralized exchanges and DEXs. Source: Messari.
According to Watkins, DEXs now account for 13.6% of total crypto-asset trading volume, and this figure continues to grow rapidly. The expert notes that in September Uniswap and Curve processed $20 billion in transactions.
The second leading reason for this is Ethereum’s boom in on-chain liquidity.
Uniswap and Curve did more than $20 billion in combined volume for September.
DEXs now comprise 13.6% of total volumes from all exchanges both centralized and decentralized. pic.twitter.com/03KKSv9qNK
— Ryan Watkins (@RyanWatkins_) October 21, 2020
In Messari, the next year could define the platform wars. This will be driven by concerns over Ethereum’s dominance and gas costs, the return of public token sales, and the emergence of parallel DeFi ecosystems on other blockchains.
«The next twelve months could come to define the platform wars.»
+ Ethereum’s dominance/gas woes
+ the return of public token sales
+ the rise of parallel DeFi ecosystems
Full report: https://t.co/HxUeSXGQNv pic.twitter.com/vLTnhziwxm
— Messari (@MessariCrypto) October 23, 2020
Earlier, the Bloomberg predicted that the Polkadot network would interrupt Ethereum’s dominance in decentralized applications.
In October, the Solana project unveiled a cross-chain bridge with the Ethereum blockchain. With it, DeFi platforms will be able to use this network to conduct transactions, enabling settlements in another base chain.
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