Since its birth, Ethereum has served as a leading smart contract and decentralized application (Dapp) network. An analysis based on the price of Ether (ETH) and its market cap shows indisputable evidence that blockchain is gaining market share over time.
As shown above, Ether’s dominance in market capitalization has grown over the past few years, increasing from an average of 18% in July 2021 to 20% today. Excluding Bitcoin (BTC) from the analysis, Ether currently has a market share of 40.6%, while its next competitor, BNB, holds his 7.2% share.
This shows the disparity between the major Dapp-focused networks and the incumbent networks, which is evident when analyzing each network’s smart contract total locked value (TVL). Ethereum is the absolute leader with his $24.6 billion on his TVL, followed by Tron with his $5.4 billion and BNB chain with his $3.3 billion.
The chart above shows that the Ethereum network’s TVL market share has fallen from 70.5% in June 2021 to 49.5% in May 2022. The move comes while Terra and Avalanche have a combined 20% market share in smart contract deposits. However, after the Terra-Luna ecosystem collapsed in May 2022, culminating in the developer halting network activity, Ethereum quickly regained his 58% market share.
Despite the emergence of Dapps on the BNB and Tron blockchains, Ethereum’s leadership has been unquestioned over the past 12 months. This data shows that the total number of unique active wallets interacting with per-chain smart contracts (UAW) is irrelevant.
for example, according to According to DappRadar, WAX has 363,600 active users, followed by BNB Chain’s 30-day UAW with 517,300. While these numbers are much higher than the Ethereum network’s 66,300 unique active addresses, they reflect much lower transaction fees, which leaves room for manipulation.
Decentralization is key and Ethereum stands out among its competitors
Ethereum is the ecosystem with the highest number of active developers, with over 1,870. This is more than his next three competitors Polkadot (752), Cosmos (511) and Solana (383) combined.
There are currently over 700,000 validators on the Ethereum network, with 99% of balances locked in staking participating in the process. This number is definitely inflated as there is a threshold limit of 32 ETH per validator, but Lido, the largest known staking pool, Control With 32% of the stake, Coinbase came in second with 9.6%.
It is therefore fair to say that Ethereum is much less centralized in terms of development and verification compared to Tron, BNB Chain and Solana.
Other reasons for Ether’s growing dominance despite Bitcoin reaching 50% market share on June 19 include: Ethereum’s dominance in derivatives activity and the NFT market.
The derivatives market is essential for institutional investors
Ether futures contracts are integral to institutional trading practices such as hedging and leveraged trading. Ether cash-settled futures will be added to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in February 2021. Until now, apart from Bitcoin, no cryptocurrency has entered the world’s largest derivatives exchange.
The futures market always balances longs and shorts, but the large number of active contracts (open interest) allows participation by institutional investors who require minimal market size. The total open interest in Ether futures is $5.4 billion, compared to competitors BNB with $380 million and Solana with just $178 million.
Ethereum is still the leader in the NFT market
Nonfungible Tokens (NFTs) are a great example of how cheaper and faster transactions don’t necessarily lead to increased adoption. Whether it’s a new list or an existing collection, nothing prevents NFT projects from migrating between blockchains. In fact, y00ts and DeGods moved to Polygon early in his 2023.
Despite facing gas prices that often exceed $10, Ethereum remains the absolute leader in terms of number of buyers and total sales. According to leading network CryptoSlam! reached Over the past 30 days, sales have reached $380 million, with Solana, Polygon and BNB Chain totaling $93 million.
Ultimately, data favors Ethereum over competing smart contract-centric blockchains. The positive trend of Ether’s dominance may fade over time if the promised upgrade to allow parallel processing (sharding) does not materialize, but for now Ether’s market cap share is 20. % remains unchanged.
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