As Ethereum turns 8, here’s a look at its spectacular journey

• Ethereum Foundation celebrated the anniversary of the rollout of the network.
• Popular figures chimed in to share the network’s top moments.

Ethereum[ETH] has been one of the most prominent networks in the crypto market and has established itself as blue-chip cryptocurrency over the last 8 years. Despite various ups and downs and differences amongst the Ethereum community, the network has made steady improvements and has continued to show growth.

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8 trips around the sun

Former Ethereum Foundation CCO Stephan Tual announced the official network rollout in a blog post on July 30, 2015. Since then, Ethereum and its native currency ETH have become the second-largest crypto asset globally, with a market capitalization of $225 billion.

In the past 8 years, the price of ETH has experienced a remarkable journey, soaring from less than $1 to its current trading value of $1,865.82 at the time of writing.

During its initial phase, Ethereum had around 10,000 holders, but as time progressed, the number of holders surged significantly to reach an impressive 103.96 million. This tremendous growth in both its price and holder base underscores the widespread adoption and success of the Ethereum network over the years.

Source: Santiment

Crypto celebrities chime in with wishes

Many prominent figures in the crypto space shared their thoughts on Ethereum’s 8th birthday. Sandeep Nailwal, the founder of Polygon, shared photos of him and Vitalik Buterin in India, celebrating Ethereum’s milestone.

Celebrating Ethereum’s eighth birthday with @VitalikButerin with Indian “Ghever” as cake 🤗 in Bengaluru

Happy Birthday Ethereum!

Also getting Vitalik do a bit of Bharat Darshanam 🛺 pic.twitter.com/CEBtoSzQZB

— Sandeep Nailwal | sandeep. polygon 💜 (@sandeepnailwal) July 30, 2023

Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, also penned a note for Ethereum. In his tweet, CZ shared a photo from 2015 that was taken during Vitalik Buterin’s stay in Tokyo. He revealed that Vitalik was already fully immersed in working on and discussing ETH at that time.

Interestingly, CZ also expressed regret for not purchasing Ethereum during that period.

On this 8th birthday of #Ethereum, a little throw back to May 2, 2015, in Tokyo🇯🇵, just before #ETH was officially born. @VitalikButerin stayed in my apartment in Tokyo during this trip. He was already working on and talking about ETH non-stop. And I still missed (didn’t buy)… pic.twitter.com/84B6KN73Qf

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) July 30, 2023

Moreover, he contemplated the possibility that had he invested in Ethereum early on, he might not have been motivated or felt the need to establish Binance, given the potential gains from investing in the cryptocurrency.

Founders of Avalanche and Solana, also joined in and wished the cryptocurrency network a happy birthday on Twitter.

Stake instead of Cake

In the past year, the Ethereum network underwent two significant updates. Among these updates, the implementation of the Merge on September 15, 2022, stands out as one of the most pivotal moments.

With the successful execution of the Merge upgrade, the network made a crucial transition from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. This transition resulted in a reduction in energy consumption, addressing concerns about environmental impact, and also introduced staking incentives for validators and investors.

The other update was the Shapella upgrade which occurred on 12 April, 2023. This allowed users to unlock their staked ETH from the beacon chain. Following this upgrade, the interest in staking skyrocketed. Even though the interest in staking slowly faded after the fact, an old Ethereum holder’s behavior could soon re-ignite the staking flame.

During Ethereum’s 8th Birthday celebration, an individual who participated in the Ethereum ICO reappeared after 8 years of inactivity. Astonishingly, the participant transferred 641 ETH from his dormant account and promptly engaged in staking.

How much are 1,10,100 ETHs worth today?

At the time of the Ethereum Genesis, this participant had obtained 2,000 ETH, which now amounts to $3.7 million. It was noteworthy that the initial price of ETH during the ICO was just around $0.31.

An Ethereum ICO participant woke up after 8 years of dormancy, transferred 641 $ETH out, and started staking.

He received 2K $ETH($3.7M currently) at Ethereum Genesis, the ETH ICO price is ~$0.31.https://t.co/hGoCb22LVr pic.twitter.com/ZO09r9uFMd

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) July 31, 2023

This optimism was also showcased by Ethereum validators. According to staking rewards’ data, the number of validators on the network grew by 8.96% over the last month. At press time, the total number of validators on the Ethereum network was 698,924.