Ethereum 8th Anniversary: ​​Looking Back at the Eight-Year Evolution of Ethereum and Consensys

A look at the history, the growth achieved over the past eight years, and the path forward.

An idea born in an instant has the potential to change the course of history. That's what Ethereum means to us. Ethereum is more than just a blockchain or a technological innovation, it represents an evolution of our existing political, economic, and social systems. Today, Ethereum celebrates its eighth anniversary. As we celebrate with the rest of the ecosystem, we also want to reflect on our shared history, the growth we've achieved over the past eight years, and the path forward as we continue our mission to advance the Ethereum protocol for builders around the world.

How it all started: Ethereum Genesis Block

It started with an idea. Vitalik presented his vision for executable smart contracts at the 2014 Miami Bitcoin Conference. Consensys founder Joseph Lubin flew to Miami to start preparing for the launch on Ethereum, the largest smart contract blockchain.

Even before the first block was confirmed, Joseph Lubin was contributing to what would become the Ethereum protocol, along with different development teams around the world. This era in Ethereum’s history is defined by four major moments that occurred between 2013 and 2015:

* November 2013, Block 0: Vitalik Buterin released the Ethereum white paper, attracting the attention of technical experts around the world such as Joseph Lubin.

* January 2014, Block 0: Vitalik Buterin officially announces Ethereum at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami.

* November 2014, Block 0: Consensys was founded by Joseph Lubin, co-founder of the Ethereum project.

* July 2015, Block 1: Frontier, the first live version of Ethereum, generates and loads the Ethereum genesis block.

Release: Tools for developers to launch networks emerge

The genesis block gave birth to the network, which meant that the future of Ethereum was in the hands of programmers, entrepreneurs, and ultimately dreamers. Between 2016 and 2019, the first batch of Consensys projects came to market.

Metamask became one of the first wallets that could interact with the Ethereum network, whether it was sending ETH and other tokens to friends or connecting your wallet to a dapp. Infura created the first Ethereum API so that other web3 developers could launch applications without having to take on the complexity of running their own node infrastructure.

This era of the Ethereum-Consensys story is defined by six key milestones driven by product innovation and developer adoption that unfold over the next three years:

* July 2016, Block: 1802780: Kumavis and Dan Finlay launch MetaMask as a browser extension.

* November 2016, Block: 2544905: Infura launched, enabling developers to launch their web3 applications without running their own infrastructure.

* February 2017, Block: 3101407: The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) was established, with founding board members including Consensys, JPMorgan Chase, BNY Mellon, Microsoft, Intel, CME, etc.

* June 2017, Block: 3801682: Consensys Diligence is launched with a mission to improve blockchain security and best practices in the Ethereum ecosystem.

* June 2019: Truffle was downloaded 103,483 times per month by Ethereum-based developers.

* August 2019: Ethereum Java client PegaSys Pantheon was renamed Hyperledger Besu and became the first public blockchain in the Linux Foundation's Hyperledger project.

Integrated Software Companies: The Beginning of Mainstream Adoption

By 2020, Consensys reorganized into a comprehensive software company with a mission to support developers building dapps on Ethereum and support the end users who interact with them.

By supporting protocol development on Ethereum and other Ethereum-compatible blockchains, Consensys played a key role in facilitating the first major wave of adoption of decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) on Ethereum.

This period in history catalyzed the beginning of global mainstream adoption and Ethereum’s entry into popular culture and news media, unprecedented in previous eras.

MetaMask is available for download in the Apple and Android app stores, NFT sales hit $25 billion in 2021, and the Ethereum merger was perfectly executed — showing the world that decentralized coordination is possible.

* September 2020, Block: 10773004: MetaMask mobile version launched on iOS and Android.

* June 2021: There are 2.91 million unique addresses on Ethereum using at least one DeFi protocol.

* February 2021: The USD stablecoin market grows to over $25 billion.

* August 2021: NFT popularity increases 10x, with NFT sales reaching a record $3.25 billion.

* February 2022: Consensys acquires MyCrypto to strengthen MetaMask for Ethereum applications and end users.

* March 2022: Consensys receives $450 million in Series D funding to continue moving the Ethereum protocol forward.

* September 2022: Ethereum successfully completes its Proof-of-Stake merger, eliminating 99.99% of its carbon footprint overnight, making the network the greenest blockchain in the world in 2023 according to ERC Ranking data.

* December 2022: MetaMask’s global user base exceeds 100 million in 2022.

Steady growth: Ethereum’s future path

On July 30, 2023, eight years after the start of Ethereum’s journey, we can look back on our shared history with nothing less than the drive to continue driving innovations that will enable the next generation of builders and accelerate mainstream adoption.

This means opening up MetaMask’s backend to external developers via Snap to help drive adoption and empower the community to extend MetaMask functionality. This includes improving the user experience for end users through account abstraction and steadily growing monthly active users, which has grown to 100 million in 2022 since MetaMask was founded in 2016.

We will continue to support the 400,000+ developers using Infura to connect to Ethereum and other EVM-compatible chains, while working with other RPC providers to build new decentralized infrastructure networks and enter web3.

Our R&D team will lead work on core protocol development and EIPs alongside the Ethereum Foundation and teams around the world.

Our latest innovation, Linea, is a zk-EVM L2 network whose mainnet launched on July 11th, processed nearly 1 million transactions, and has a TVL of over $47 million, and it will scale Ethereum with low-cost transactions and fast finality.

Finally, we will continue to demystify Ethereum and web3 through public education, commissioning and publishing data insights, such as from the Global Cryptocurrency Perception Survey released last month.

There are still many steps to go according to the Ethereum roadmap. We will be here to witness everyone's growth and build with all of you, now and forever. Happy Anniversary, Ethereum!