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Author: Jack Inabinet, Source: Bankless, Compiled by: Shaw Bitchain Vision
Ethereum has been born for 10 years, and after a full decade of mainnet block production, data shows that it will continue to see explosive growth in 2025!
Other blockchains and Ethereum’s own Layer2 undoubtedly absorb some user activity, but Ethereum is still the core of the crypto economy, leading the way in developer momentum, censorship resistance, and many key chain indicators.
So, after ten years of development, what does the original smart contract platform look like now?Here are 10 key metrics that demonstrate Ethereum’s lasting dominance.
1. Stablecoin supply
In 2015, Tether partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex to launch a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar.Since the 2017 2017 tokens were first launched on the Ethereum network, the supply of stablecoin has been growing at an astonishing rate.
In addition to a brief decline in the worst period of the last crypto bear market, the on-chain stablecoin supply on the Ethereum network has been on an upward trend throughout history, breaking the $100 billion mark at the end of 2024 and showing no signs of slowing in recent months.
There are now dozens of token issuers pegged to the US dollar, including traditional financial players such as PayPal and JP Morgan.Meanwhile, the recent GENIUS Act in the United States has paved the way for institutions to adopt such tokens, and the field is gradually gaining recognition from mainstream observers and is regarded as an alternative medium of exchange for daily payments.
2. Total locked value
Ethereum is the original smart contract platform, and although multiple L1 challengers and its integrated L2 network have pulled some locked value from Ethereum itself, the chain still ranks ahead by total locked value (TVL).
The total lock value (TVL) stored in on-chain smart contracts and their related applications is the lifeblood of each encrypted network: it represents the total value entrusted by the user to the on-chain financial system.
Although Ethereum’s total lock-up value (TVL) has been hit hard during the last bear market as cryptocurrency prices plummeted and users pulled out of applications or switched to competitive chains, the figure has been soaring since April, setting a new cycle high of more than $88 billion and approaching a new historical record.
3. Active users
Even migrating temporary user activity from the Ethereum ecosystem to L2 failed to slow the growth of Ethereum’s daily active users, which recently hit a record high of 580,000 independent addresses.
The number of daily active addresses has remained stable during the past bear markets, and this figure continued to climb in 2025 as more users turn to Ethereum L1 to take advantage of the unique attributes offered by the world’s leading on-chain financial ecosystem.
If active addresses in each L2 of Ethereum are also included, the growth rate will be even more amazing; Coinbase alone has 1.3 million active addresses per day.Meanwhile, 1.2 million new addresses have been added to networks such as Arbitrum, Celo, Ink and World World Chain.
4. Daily trading
With the increase in active users on Ethereum L1, the number of transactions has also increased.Daily trading volume has continued to grow steadily since October 2023, with the average daily trading volume remaining above 1.7 million as of this writing.
Although this indicator tends to soar sharply during periods of extremely active speculation, Ethereum’s daily trading volume has been on the rise overall in history, with a total of 2.9 billion transactions since the birth of the Internet.
If Ethereum’s numerous L2 networks are included, this statistics will also look increasingly favorable.The daily transaction volume of the Ethereum ecosystem has far exceeded 500 million transactions, including the leading L2 network.
5. Organization adoption
Ethereum has long been a blockchain trusted by on-chain enthusiasts, and in 2025, the network broke through its niche and became a well-known smart contract platform for institutional participants.
It adapted to this trend very early and chose Ethereum Network as its “World Liberty Financial” project in 2024.In June this year, banking giant JPMorgan deployed a deposit token on Base, and Ethereum L1 has become the main support for real-world assets (RWA), controlling nearly $7 billion in value and occupying 54% of the market share in the field.
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 extraordinary price performance.Similarly, inflows of Ethereum ETFs have also increased significantly over the past few weeks, with hundreds of millions of dollars pouring in every day, and the Ethereum boom has continued to heat up among the general public.
6. Resistance to review
Ethereum L1 prides itself on its censorship resistance, which provides guarantees for an open financial system by allowing anyone to broadcast transactions without worrying that their trading capabilities will be compromised by a single actor or country.
While other cryptocurrency networks often roll back blockchains to prevent funds from falling into the hands of criminals, Ethereum’s culture is unique because of its dependence on code that ensures that all transactions are irreversible, regardless of the consequences.
These values extend to the realm of block building, where most builders choose to process all transactions, regardless of whether the relevant address or smart contract has been marked as malicious by a certain national actor.
Compliance with the Office of Overseas Asset Control (OFAC) sanctions list for the full year of 2025 has dropped significantly since President Trump’s inauguration, with major block builders committed to processing all transactions regardless of their source.
Additionally, Ethereum’s leading developers are still committed to adopting “include lists”, which will force all validators and block builders to include transactions based on transaction fees only.
7. Active developers
The core Ethereum developer community remains strong.The number of different GitHub users who have submitted code at least once in their public code base in the past 30 days remains stable.
Although the number of active developers is currently less than the peak of the previous bull cycle with only 186 independent contributors, Ethereum’s core active developers still exceeds any other crypto projects that exist.
Ethereum’s EVM has become the default standard for blockchain-based development, and its applications are widely compatible on many popular chains.
8. Economic security
Since the “Beacon Chain” staking feature was first launched in November 2020, the number of pledged Ethereum has grown steadily, with only a very short interruption during this period (the longest lasting time was from November 2024 to February 2025).
The rapid rise in ETH prices, coupled with the continued rise in pledged ETH, has brought Ethereum’s “economic security” (i.e. the value of ETH staking by validators to ensure network security) to a new high of US$140 billion.
As Ethereum’s economy becomes more secure, users of all kinds will feel more at ease when making transactions, knowing that their assets will be increasingly protected from malicious actors who may manipulate blockchain ledgers.
9. Contract deployment
Blockchain exists to serve user transactions, and the number of contracts deployed can provide us with an in-depth understanding of the ever-changing scope of on-chain activities.
These contracts cover a wide range of things, ranging from simple token deployments to complex applications, but each new contract represents a potential new behavior or use case for the user.In this way, contract deployment becomes a growth signal of on-chain innovation and practicality.
Although Ethereum contract deployment activity slowed down in late 2024 and early 2025, there has been a fevered development boom in recent months, with new contract deployments exceeding 200,000 times a day this year.Although developers have turned to the L2 network, the Ethereum mainnet is still a dynamic center of activities.
10. ETH price performance
For any cryptocurrency project, the price of its native token is perhaps the most famous measure of success.Although Ethereum has been competing with other altcoins for years, Ethereum has recovered strongly since May 2025, up 75% from BTC.
Ethereum has become one of the best performing cryptocurrencies in recent months, and its industry dominance has nearly doubled as cryptocurrency native users and institutional investors grow in enthusiasm for ETH.
While Ethereum is still 10% away from hitting an all-time high, this goal may be achieved in a few days given its recent price performance.Judging from the logarithmic chart below, after breaking through this level, it is only one step away from $10,000…
