10 Years, 10 Charts: Ethereum's Decade of Dominance

Ethereum is now 10 years old, and after a full decade of mainnet block production, the data shows it continues to explode with activity in 2025!

Alternative blockchains and Ethereum’s own Layer 2s have no doubt absorbed a portion of user activity, but Ethereum remains the beating heart of our crypto economy, leading the charge in developer momentum, censorship resistance, and numerous key onchain metrics.

So what does the OG smart contract platform look like after 10 years of development? Here are 10 key metrics that showcase Ethereum’s enduring dominance. 👇

1️⃣ Stablecoin Supply

Tether pioneered the dollar-pegged stablecoin with crypto exchange Bitfinex in 2015, and since the tokens first began migrating onchain in 2017, stablecoin supply has expanded at a relentless pace on the Ethereum network.

Sparing a brief decline during the worst periods of the previous crypto bear market, onchain stablecoin supply on the Ethereum network has been virtually up-only throughout history, exploding past the $100B threshold in late 2024 and showing no signs of slowing during recent months.

Dollar-pegged token issuers now number in the dozens and count traditional financial players – including PayPal and JP Morgan – in their ranks. Recent GENIUS Act legislation in America is clearing the way for increased institutional adoption, meanwhile, the sector is gaining traction among mainstream observers as an alternative medium of exchange for everyday payments.

2️⃣ Total Value Locked

Ethereum is the original smart contract platform, and while multiple L1 challengers and its network of integrated L2s have drained a portion of the locked value on Ethereum itself, the chain continues to rank as the leading blockchain by total value locked (TVL).

Stored within onchain smart contracts and their associated applications, TVL is the lifeblood of every crypto network: it represents the amount of value users entrust to the onchain financial system.

Although Ethereum’s TVL suffered greatly in the wake of the previous bear market as crypto prices plunged and users withdrew from applications or migrated to competitive chains, this statistic has been exploding since April, setting new cycle highs above $88B and in hot pursuit of a new all-time record.

3️⃣ Active Users

Not even the migration of casual Ethereum ecosystem user activity to L2s has managed to slow the growth of daily active Ethereum users, which recently established new all-time highs of 580k unique addresses.

Daily active addresses held steady throughout the past bear market, and this statistic has continued climbing upwards throughout 2025 as an increasing number of users turn to the Ethereum L1 for access to the unique properties provided by the world’s leading onchain financial ecosystem.

When including active addresses across Ethereum’s L2s, the growth is magnitudes more impressive; Coinbase’s Base L2 alone sees 1.3M daily active addresses. Meanwhile, leading L2s such as Arbitrum, Celo, Ink, and World Chain add 1.2M addresses to the tally.

4️⃣ Daily Transactions

As active users on the Ethereum L1 have increased, so too have the number of transactions. The daily transaction count has continued to steadily increase since October 2023, and the floor holding above 1.7M at the time of writing.

Although this metric tends to aggressively spike during periods of intense speculative activity, daily transactions on Ethereum have largely been up-only throughout history, posting a cumulative 2.9B transactions since network genesis.

This statistic too looks increasingly favorable when counting Ethereum’s litany of L2s. Inclusive of leading L2s, Ethereum ecosystem daily activity is well above 500M transactions. 

5️⃣ Institutional Adoption

Ethereum had long been a reputable blockchain for onchain hobbyists, and in 2025, the crypto network broke out of its niche to become the name brand smart contract platform for institutional players.

President Donald Trump was early to the trend, selecting the Ethereum network as home for his World Liberty Financial project in 2024. Banking giant JP Morgan deployed a deposit token to Base this June, and the Ethereum L1 has established itself as the dominant home for RWAs, controlling nearly $7B in value and representing a 54% market share in the sector.

In recent months, Ethereum treasury companies – including those led by Consensys’s Joe Lubin and Wall Street’s Tom Lee – have stolen the spotlight from their BTC competitors with immense price outperformance. Similarly, ETH ETF inflows have ballooned in past weeks, pulling in hundreds of millions every day as ETH mania swells on Main Street.

6️⃣ Censorship Resistance

Ethereum L1 prides itself on censorship resistance capabilities that provide for an open financial system by allowing anyone to broadcast transactions without fear that their ability to do so could be compromised by a single actor or nation-state.

Whereas alternative crypto networks have frequently rolled back the chain to prevent funds from falling into the hands of bad actors, Ethereum’s culture is unique for its blind reliance on code that ensures all transactions are final, no matter the ramifications.

These values extend to block-building, where a majority percentage of builders opt to process all transactions, regardless of whether the address or smart contract has been flagged as malicious by a nation state actor.

Compliance with the United States Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctions list has fallen significantly throughout 2025 since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, and major block builders have committed to processing all transactions, regardless of their origin.

Further, leading Ethereum developers remain committed to adopting “inclusion lists,” which will force all validators and block builders to include transactions solely based on their fees.

7️⃣ Active Developers

The state of Ethereum’s core developer community, the number of distinct GitHub users who have made at least one commit to its public repository in the past 30 days, remains strong!

Although there are fewer active developers now than at the peak of the previous bull market cycle, with 186 unique contributors, the number of active Ethereum core developers is greater than any other crypto project in existence.

Ethereum’s EVM has established itself as the default standard for blockchain-based development, and its applications enjoy widespread compatibility across popular chains.

8️⃣ Economic Security

Barring extremely brief interruptions (the most prolonged of which lasted from November 2024 to February 2025), the amount of ETH staked has steadily increased since “Beacon Chain” staking was first enabled in November 2020.

Combined with the explosive price action of ETH, the continual uptrend in ETH staked has resulted in newfound all-time highs of $140B for Ethereum’s “economic security,” or the value of ETH staked by validators to secure the network.

As Ethereum’s economic security grows, users of all types can take greater comfort in the security of their transactions, knowing that their assets become increasingly protected from malicious actors who might move to manipulate the blockchain’s ledger.

9️⃣ Contract Deployments

Blockchains exist to service user transactions, and the volume of contracts deployed offers insight into the evolving scope of onchain activity.

These contracts can range from simple token deployments to complex applications, but each new contract represents a potential new behavior or use case for users. In this way, contract deployment serves as a signal for innovation and growing utility onchain.

While Ethereum contract deployments lulled during the tail end of 2024 and the start of 2025, a ferocious spree of development has occurred during recent months, with new contract deployments spiking above 200k per day multiple times this year. Although developers have shifted towards L2s, the Ethereum L1 remains a vibrant hub of activity.

🔟 ETH Price

Arguably the most celebrated metric of success for any crypto project is the price of its native token, and although Ether had struggled for years against alternative cryptocurrencies, the token has roared to life since May 2025, appreciating 75% against BTC.

Ethereum has transformed into one of the best performing crypto plays of recent months, seeing industry dominance nearly double as ETH enthusiasm grows among crypto natives and institutional investors alike.

Although Ethereum is 10% shy of establishing new all-time highs, such a move could be accomplished within days in light of recent price performance. When viewed on a logarithmic chart as seen below, a break of this level could place it within a “god” candle’s length of $10k…