Ten Years, Ten Charts: Ethereum's Road to Mainstreaming

Author: Jack Inabinet, Source: Bankless, Compiled by: Shaw Golden Finance

Ethereum is now 10 years old, and after a full decade of mainnet block production, data shows that it will continue to experience explosive growth in 2025!

Other blockchains and Ethereum's own Layer 2 have undoubtedly absorbed some user activity, but Ethereum remains the core of the cryptoeconomy, leading in developer momentum, censorship resistance, and many key on-chain metrics.

So, after a decade of development, what does the original smart contract platform look like today? Here are 10 key indicators that demonstrate Ethereum's enduring dominance. 1. Stablecoin Supply In 2015, Tether partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex to launch a pioneering stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. Since the token's initial launch on the Ethereum network in 2017, stablecoin supply has grown at an astonishing rate. With the exception of a brief dip during the worst of the last cryptocurrency bear market, the on-chain stablecoin supply on Ethereum has trended upward almost continuously throughout history, surpassing the $100 billion mark in late 2024 and showing no signs of slowing in recent months. There are now dozens of issuers of dollar-pegged tokens, including traditional financial players such as PayPal and JPMorgan Chase. Meanwhile, the recent introduction of the GENIUS Act in the United States has paved the way for institutional adoption of such tokens, and the sector is gradually gaining recognition among mainstream observers as an alternative medium of exchange for everyday payments. 2. Total Value Locked Ethereum is the original smart contract platform. Although multiple L1 challengers and their integrated L2 networks have drained some of the locked value from Ethereum itself, the chain still ranks first in terms of total value locked (TVL). The total value locked (TVL) stored in on-chain smart contracts and their associated applications is the lifeblood of every crypto network: it represents the total value users have entrusted to the on-chain financial system. While Ethereum’s TVL took a beating during the last bear market as cryptocurrency prices plummeted and users fled applications or switched to competing chains, it has been surging since April, reaching a new cycle high of over $88 billion and approaching a new all-time record. 3. Active Users Even the migration of casual user activity in the Ethereum ecosystem to L2 has failed to slow the growth of Ethereum’s daily active users, which recently hit a new all-time high of 580,000 unique addresses. The number of daily active addresses remained stable during past bear markets and continued to climb in 2025 as more users turned to Ethereum L1 to take advantage of the unique properties offered by the world’s leading on-chain financial ecosystem. If active addresses on Ethereum's various L2 networks are included, the growth is even more dramatic; Coinbase's Base network alone sees 1.3 million active addresses per day. Meanwhile, networks like Arbitrum, Celo, Ink, and World Chain added 1.2 million new addresses. 4. Daily Transactions As the number of active users on Ethereum's L1 increases, the number of transactions also rises. Since October 2023, daily transaction volume has continued to rise steadily, averaging over 1.7 million transactions per day as of this writing. While this metric tends to spike during periods of intense speculation, Ethereum's daily transaction volume has generally trended upward historically, reaching a cumulative 2.9 billion transactions since the network's inception. This statistic looks increasingly favorable when taking into account Ethereum's numerous L2 networks. Including the leading L2 networks, the Ethereum ecosystem now handles well over 500 million transactions per day. 5. Institutional Adoption Ethereum has long been a trusted blockchain for on-chain enthusiasts. In 2025, the network broke out of its niche market and became a well-known smart contract platform for institutional participants. Tencent Capital embraced this trend early on, choosing the Ethereum network as the foundation for its "World Liberty Financial" project in 2024. In June, banking giant JPMorgan Chase deployed a deposit token on Base, and Ethereum L1 has become the dominant backing for real-world assets (RWAs), controlling nearly $7 billion in value and holding a 54% market share in the sector. In recent months, Ethereum Treasury Reserve companies—including those led by Consensys' Joe Lubin and Wall Street's Tom Lee—have stolen the limelight from their Bitcoin competitors with their exceptional price performance. Similarly, inflows into Ethereum ETFs have surged in the past few weeks, with hundreds of millions of dollars pouring in daily, fueling a surge in Ethereum enthusiasm among the general public. 6. Censorship Resistance Ethereum L1 prides itself on its censorship resistance, which safeguards an open financial system by allowing anyone to broadcast transactions without worrying about their ability to transact being compromised by a single actor or nation-state. While other cryptocurrency networks often roll back their blockchains to prevent funds from falling into the wrong hands, Ethereum’s culture is unique in its reliance on code that ensures all transactions are irreversible, regardless of the consequences.

These values extend to the block building space, where most builders have chosen to process all transactions, regardless of whether the associated address or smart contract has been labeled malicious by a nation-state actor.

Since President Trump’s inauguration, compliance with the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list has declined significantly throughout 2025, and major block builders have pledged to process all transactions regardless of their origin.

Furthermore, Ethereum’s lead developers remain committed to adopting an “inclusion list,” which would force all validators and block builders to include transactions based solely on transaction fees. 7. Active Developers The Ethereum core developer community remains strong. The number of unique GitHub users who have committed at least one code commit to its public repository in the past 30 days has remained stable. While the number of active developers is currently lower than the peak of the previous bull market cycle, at just 186 unique contributors, Ethereum core still has more active developers than any other existing crypto project.

Ethereum's EVM has become the default standard for blockchain development, and its applications are widely compatible on many popular chains.

8. Economic Security

Since the "Beacon Chain" staking function was first enabled in November 2020, the amount of staked Ethereum has been steadily increasing, with only very brief interruptions (the longest of which was from November 2024 to February 2025). The rapid rise in ETH prices, coupled with the continued increase in staked ETH, has pushed Ethereum's "economic security" (the value of ETH staked by validators to secure the network) to a new high of $140 billion. As Ethereum's economic security increases, users of all kinds will feel more confident when transacting, knowing that their assets are increasingly protected from malicious actors who might manipulate the blockchain ledger. 9. Contract Deployment Blockchains exist to facilitate user transactions, and the number of deployed contracts provides insight into the evolving scope of on-chain activity. These contracts range from simple token deployments to complex applications, but each new contract represents a potential new user behavior or use case. In this way, contract deployments serve as a growing signal of on-chain innovation and utility. While Ethereum contract deployment activity slowed in late 2024 and early 2025, recent months have seen a frenzy of development, with new contract deployments exceeding 200,000 per day multiple times this year. While developers have shifted to Layer 2 networks, the Ethereum mainnet remains a vibrant hub of activity. 10. ETH Price Performance For any cryptocurrency project, the price of its native token is perhaps the most well-known measure of success. Despite years of competing with other altcoins, Ethereum has staged a strong recovery since May 2025, gaining 75% against BTC. Ethereum has been one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies in recent months, nearly doubling its industry dominance as crypto natives and institutional investors show growing enthusiasm for ETH. While Ethereum is still 10% away from reaching a new all-time high, this target could be achieved within days given its recent price performance. Looking at the logarithmic chart below, a break above this level puts $10,000 just one step away…