The State of the Ethereum Network LINK: https://ethstepium.stepium.com/

1. The State of the
Ethereum Network
After months of intense attention on blockchain technology and
the Ethereum blockchain, we pull together statistics from
across the network to provide a snapshot of Ethereum today,
its past, and its roadmap ahead.
Blockchain technology — and Ethereum in particular — has
gained international attention and traction since its release in
2015. In particular, late 2017 and early 2018 saw a massive
increase in popular attention due to rapid price increases across
the entire crypto-asset ecosystem. In two years, the word
“Ethereum” has been included in over 110 million Google
searches. The hashtag #ethereum is tweeted, on average,
20,000 times a day.
But what has this gradual and acute increase in attention meant
for the Ethereum network as a whole? If we pull back the
curtain of the much-discussed price of ether, what is happening
on the Ethereum network? Let’s take a look.
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2. Looking at the Figures: Blockchain
Activity
Since its inception, the network has processed nearly 240
million transactions. At its height on January 4, the network
processed 1.3 million transactions in 24 hours.
The network is huge and distributed. To date, 35 million unique
addresses exist on the Ethereum blockchain. On January 4,
2018, the number of active (i.e. transacting) addresses on
Ethereum surpassed 1 million for the first time. On January 4,
2018 over 350,000 new addresses were created — the most
addresses generated within a 24 hour period to
date. Ethernodes reports just under 17,000 nodes running the
Ethereum blockchain across six continents, making it the most
decentralized blockchain platform in existence.
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3. Source: ethernodes.org
The Ethereum blockchain is, without a doubt, the most active
smart contract platform in existence. Of the top 100 tokens by
market cap, 94% are built on top of Ethereum. Of the top 800
tokens, 87% are built on Ethereum. Most of these tokens are
“ERC-20 tokens,” which made possible the majority of the $5.5
billion raised through token sales in 2017 and the $6.5 billion
raised in just the first quarter of this year.
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4. Behind the Blockchain: The
Ethereum Community
The Ethereum developer community is estimated to be the
largest in the world, at 250,000. In October 2017, Truffle — a
development framework for Ethereum — surpassed 200,000
downloads. In less than a year, downloads are now at nearly
550,000. Github, which draws open-source developers from
around the world, lists 14,000 repositories and 220,000
commits concerning Ethereum. MetaMask — a browser
extension allowing users to to run dApps without running an
entire Ethereum node — has reached over 1 million users.
Beyond the decentralized network of Ethereum developers,
organized consortiums have arisen to support and expand the
Ethereum community. The Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA)
formed in March 2017 with 30 founding members committed to
the integration of blockchain technology with enterprise
establishments. Now, just over one year later, the EEA has
grown to over 500 members. Startups, corporations,
foundations, and organizations have all come together to
contribute and benefit from the continued development of the
Ethereum ecosystem.
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Welcoming Ethereum: Government
Adoption
Though a long-discussed application of blockchain technology is
the restructuring and even dissolving of traditional government,
countries around the world have found ways to implement
blockchain technology — specifically, Ethereum — to benefit their
citizens. In the beginning of this year, the government

5. of Brazil announced its intention to move petitions and popular
voting onto Ethereum. Canada is testing out using Ethereum to
provide transparency to the use of government grants to ease
citizens’ concerns of misappropriation and corruption. The city
of Zug, Switzerland — a long-time crypto bastion — began
offering digital IDs registered on Ethereum in 2017. Chile uses
Ethereum to track the data and finances from the energy grid,
hoping to combat corruption and exploitation through
transparent, immutable data available for every citizen to
see. Dubai is on the move to become an entirely integrated,
blockchain-powered city by 2020. Estoniabecame the poster
child of the distributed ecosystem and matured into a “digital
republic” by moving many of its national systems onto the
Ethereum blockchain.
Though blockchain technology has been cited as an opportunity
to re-define the current global political structure with digital
borders and citizenships, current systems are not wary of using
its immutable, secure ledger to augment their services. We will
continue to see government adoption of the Ethereum
blockchain as its utility is proven in current examples.
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Building on Ethereum: Decentralized
Applications
Decentralized Applications (dApps) are the primary selling
point of the Ethereum blockchain. As an open-source, turing-
complete, world computer, Ethereum can be leveraged by any
developer to build her own series of smart contracts (i.e. a
decentralized application). A site that tracks dApp development
lists 1,552 launched dApps, though more are currently in
development. DApps consist of everything ranging from

6. prediction markets to gaming, and will continue to grow
stronger as the network is improved upon.
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The Elephant in the Room: Scaling
Solutions
Scaling solutions for the Ethereum network are numerous, and
are being worked on by multiple participants in the network.
2018 will be an exciting time for Ethereum, particularly with the
projected testing of Proof of Stake through the rollout of the
Casper protocol. Many active projects aim to provide layer 2
solutions, or “inter-blockchain protocols.” These initiatives
tackle the “trilemma” of achieving scalability, security, and
decentralization on a blockchain. Cosmos is a permissionless
network built for developers that allows blockchain
interoperability and scaling. Loom Network has developed and
launched a layer 2 platform on top of Ethereum, allowing
gaming and social dApps to scale while still relying on
Ethereum’s core security and decentralization. The team has
launched CryptoZombies, a live app enabling anyone to learn to
code smart contracts on Ethereum (with over 200,000
students). OmiseGo allows users to send high-speed payment
transactions between entities and across borders using plasma.
Layer 2 scaling solutions, according to Vitalik Buterin, “can be
built in such a way that they depend on the second level for
performance, but not safety… They can then have the incentive
of reputation and expected future revenue to drive them to
perform well in the present, and the negative costs of any failure
are mitigated.”
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7. Looking Down the Road
What does this data mean? The Ethereum blockchain ecosystem
is diverse, it is decentralized, it is strong, and it is flooded with
innovation and activity. Since its launch in 2015, this rapidly-
adopted and appreciated technology promises to solve issues
plaguing almost every incumbent industry on earth. Across the
world, developers, thinkers, innovators, leaders, and creatives
are coming together to build a new way of communicating,
transacting, and organizing. We’re here for Web 3.0. We’re here
for a decentralized future. We’re here for Ethereum.
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