Second-largest cryptocurrency in 2019

Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization after Bitcoin. Ethereum had a solid year, despite the problems connected with its price. However, there is a chance that Ethereum’s price will increase in 2020.

It is worth mentioning that Ethereum’s ecosystem continued to expand in 2019. Last year, 4 million new active addresses and over 20 million total accounts were created. Also, there are more than 8,500 live Ethereum nodes and over 4.7 million Ethereum’s were issued as block rewards.

Another good news is that the number of decentralized applications in 2019 increased by more than 520. There are more than 2,700 in total.

Gods Unchained was the most popular dApps on Ethereum, as it created over 6.7 million items.

In 2019, the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) continued to grow as the number of ENS rose by more than 167,000. eth.  It is similar to a regular domain, as a.eth name is replacing the need to use long, convoluted wallet addresses. The price starts at $5.

The developer base also increased last year, as the smart contract tool suite, Truffle recorded a 25,000-download increase per month.

Decentralized finance and Ethereum

Moreover, in 2019 the total amount of ETH locked in Decentralized Finance (Defi) reached 2.7 million. Ether became the standard capital for the decentralized finance ecosystem.

Last year, three upgrades took place. In 2020, one of the most relevant updates will be the long-awaited shift to proof of stake consensus.

Last but not least is Ethereum’s price in 2020. There is a chance that Ethereum’s price will increase this year. It is likely that major exchanges will offer custodial Ethereum staking services for those that do not have the 32 required for a full node.