ETH Annual Report: 345 million settlements on the chain surpassed Bitcoin, and transaction fees doubled by 41 times

In less than a month since the beginning of 2021, ETH has become the focus of market attention with a record high of $1,467.78. Behind this revision of the value of Ethereum is actually the market's reflection on the breakthrough development of the Ethereum application layer in 2020.

In the past year, Ethereum has not only ushered in the large-scale "migration" of USDT, and the continuous "printing" of various stablecoins has paved the way for ecological development; it has also ushered in the explosion of DeFi, "Yield Farming and "DeFi The two new ways of playing "Lego" have promoted the rapid growth of the amount of DeFi locked positions and the scale of active users; coupled with the smooth progress of 2.0, the beacon chain has been launched smoothly as expected at the earliest time, and the Layer2 solution is also being developed simultaneously.

Data review:

Data review:

• In 2020, ETH rose from $130.8 at the beginning of the year to $737.8 at the end of the year, an increase of 464.07%, surpassing Bitcoin.

• Under the unilateral upward trend, in 2020, the average annual rate of return of ETH holding currency for 30 days is about 17.4%, reaching a maximum of 85.9%.

• The annual average daily active address of Ethereum is about 438,100, an increase of 23.38% compared with 2018 during the last round of bull market. But at the same time, ETH did not hit a record high in 2020, which means that in the past year, the market consensus on the value of ETH has lagged behind the improvement of the fundamentals of the Ethereum network, which provides the basis and space for future ETH value corrections.

• The cumulative number of on-chain settlements in Ethereum for the whole year is about 345 million, which is about three times that of Bitcoin. Compared with 2019, it has increased by nearly 102 million times, an increase of about 41.98%.

• The total on-chain settlement of Ethereum for the whole year is about 1.141 billion ETH, which is equivalent to 402.2 billion US dollars. Under the US dollar standard, this is equivalent to 1/16 of Bitcoin.

• The average handling fee per transaction of Ethereum rose from $0.12 to $5 throughout the year, an overall increase of about 4066.67% throughout the year, which is equivalent to a 41-fold increase.

• As of December 31, the total supply of ETH was about 114 million, an increase of about 4.96 million compared to the beginning of the year.

• The annual transaction fee of Ethereum is about 631 million US dollars, the annual block reward is about 2.059 billion US dollars, and the annual total mining output is about 2.69 billion US dollars.

• secondary title

ETH rose 464%, the rate of return turned from negative to positive

According to the statistics of CoinMarketCap, in 2020, ETH rose from about US$130.8 at the beginning of the year to US$737.8 at the end of the year. The annual average price of ETH has reached the $300 mark, which is about $307.5. The highest price of the year was $751.6 on December 30, and the lowest was $110.6 on March 16.

From the trend point of view, the rising path of ETH includes three rapid rising periods, and the range of each period increases by about 100%. The first stage is from the beginning of the year to the beginning of March, with an increase of about 123.08% in the first year. The second stage is from late July to early September. Mainly affected by the profound impact of DeFi liquidity mining, ETH began to accelerate upward, with an increase of about 101.99% during this period. The third stage is from the beginning of November to the end of the year, which is in sync with the prosperity of the entire digital currency market, with an increase of about 92.54%.

Similar to the trend of BTC in 2020, the continuous rise of ETH currency price is also accompanied by low volatility, and the unilateral upward trend is more obvious. According to statistics, in 2020, the average annual daily volatility of ETH is about 6.09%, slightly higher than BTC's 4.32%. Among them, also affected by the "black swan" event, ETH fluctuated greatly in March, with an average monthly volatility of 11.54%, while the currency price was the most stable in June and July, with average monthly volatility of only 3.75% and 4.00% respectively.

Under this unilateral upward trend, the 30-day rate of return of ETH in 2020 also changed from negative to positive, rising from -12.8% at the beginning of the year to 25.6% at the end of the year, an increase of 38 percentage points throughout the year. In the past year, there were 46 days when ETH’s 30-day rate of return exceeded 50%, and 96 days when it was less than 0%. On average, the average annual rate of return for holding currency for 30 days is about 17.4%, reaching a maximum of 85.9%.

From the perspective of the transaction volume in the secondary market, the peak distribution of ETH transaction volume is very similar to that of BTC, both of which are significantly increased in the two periods of February to May and September to December, and entered a trough from June to August . The trading volume of the two mainstream assets is basically synchronized, which may mean that the synergy of the top assets in the current market is strengthening.

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Independent addresses increased by 55%, and on-chain settlements reached 243 million

The continuous expansion of the application layer of Ethereum has provided a solid support for the market performance of ETH. According to the statistics of Etherescan, the number of independent addresses on the Ethereum chain in 2020 increased from 8,413 at the beginning of the year to 13,094 at the end of the year, an annual increase of about 55.64%. If it is apportioned to each day, it is equivalent to an average daily increase of nearly 13 independent addresses. Although the daily increase is not significant, the sustainability is good.

Judging from the number of daily active addresses on the chain, the annual average daily active addresses of Ethereum is about 438,100. Among them, the fourth quarter has the most active users throughout the year. The quarterly average daily active addresses reached about 526,400, an increase of 63.73% from the first quarter’s average daily active addresses of about 321,500. The annual average daily active user scale has grown significantly. November, the month with the highest number of daily active addresses, reached an average of 554,600 per day. In addition, the average number of daily active addresses in July, August, October and December also exceeded 500,000. On the whole, there are more active users of Ethereum in the second half of the year than in the first half of the year, which is more consistent with the development time of DeFi applications, showing the positive role of DeFi in increasing the number of active users of Ethereum.

Looking at the changes in the average daily active addresses of Ethereum over the years, it can be seen that the daily active addresses in 2020 have surpassed 2018 during the last bull market, an increase of 82,700 compared with 2018, an increase of about 23.38%. But at the same time, ETH did not hit a record high in 2020, which means that in the past year, the market consensus on the value of ETH has lagged behind the improvement of the fundamentals of the Ethereum network, which provides the basis and space for future ETH value corrections.

As shown in the beginning of 2021, with the continuous development of DeFi, the actual user scale of Ethereum continues to expand. The average number of daily active addresses in January has reached about 586,100, surpassing the average of the past five years. level, which will form a positive interaction with ETH.

In addition to the user scale, Ethereum’s on-chain settlement data has also made considerable progress in the past year. According to statistics, the cumulative number of on-chain settlements in Ethereum for the whole year is about 345 million, which is about three times that of Bitcoin. The average monthly on-chain settlement for the whole year was 28.73 million, among which, the number of on-chain settlements reached 36.68 million in August, which was the most active time for on-chain transactions throughout the year.

From the perspective of quarterly performance, the second half of the year is an active period for transactions on the Ethereum chain. In the third quarter, the average monthly settlement volume of Ethereum was about 34.48 million, and in the fourth quarter it was about 34.34 million. This basically coincides with the time when the price of ETH rose, and it also basically coincides with the time when the DeFi ecosystem broke out. The three have formed a positive feedback loop that promotes each other.

This year, the cumulative settlement amount of Ethereum is about 1.141 billion ETH, with an average monthly settlement of 95 million ETH. Among them, the currency-based settlement amount was the highest in September, about 188 million ETH. If the change in the price of ETH is taken into account and converted according to the daily currency price, the accumulated settlement amount on the Ethereum chain this year is equivalent to 402.2 billion U.S. dollars, and the average monthly settlement is 33.52 billion U.S. dollars. Affected by changes in currency prices, the dollar-based on-chain settlement amount was the highest in December, at approximately US$82.44 billion.

Compared with Bitcoin, based on the US dollar standard, the total settlement amount on the Ethereum chain in 2020 is about 1/16 of that of Bitcoin. However, based on the currency standard, the amount of ETH settled on Ethereum in 2020 is equal to the BTC settled by Bitcoin. about 2 times the amount.

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Gas fee increased by 750%, and the total transaction fee exceeded 600 million US dollars

In 2020, the number of transactions on the Ethereum chain has increased by nearly 102 million times compared with 2019, an increase of about 41.98%. A "side effect" of this is that Ethereum has become more "crowded". According to statistics, in 2020, the average daily Gas price for transactions on the Ethereum chain rose from 11.7 Gwei at the beginning of the year to 99.5 Gwei at the end of the year, an increase of about 750.43%. In addition, the average daily average Gas price of on-chain transactions throughout the year reached 60.6 Gwei, 54 days when the average price exceeded 100 Gwei, and 14 days when the average price exceeded 200 Gwei.

Among them, the average Gas price on June 11 was the highest in the year, about 709.7 Gwei, and the average Gas price on June 10 also reached 581.9 Gwei. events” [1]. In addition, at the end of the third quarter, as more and more DeFi launched liquidity mining incentive schemes, DeFi officially entered the "farming era", the transactions on the chain increased rapidly, and the average daily Gas price also increased significantly. The average daily Gas price in the third quarter was about 123.1 Gwei, and the average Gas price on September 17 and September 12 was around 500 Gwei. The former was mainly affected by Uniswap’s UNI airdrop.

Gas prices have a significant upward trend throughout the year, which means that the transaction fees directly affected by it have also risen sharply. According to statistics, the average handling fee for each transaction in Ethereum rose from US$0.12 at the beginning of the year to US$5 at the end of the year. The overall increase for the year was about 4066.67%, which is equivalent to a 41-fold increase.

The average handling fee per transaction throughout the year is about US$1.55, and the average handling fee in September, August and December is much higher than that in other months, reaching US$5.1, US$3.19 and US$3.14 respectively. September 2 set a record for the highest single-day average transaction fee of Ethereum during the year, and the average transaction fee per transaction on this day was about $14.06. In addition, the average transaction fee per transaction exceeded $10 on 5 days and exceeded $5 on 19 days.

According to the average transaction fee per transaction per day and the number of daily transactions, the total daily transaction fee of Ethereum can be estimated. According to estimates, the annual transaction fees of Ethereum in 2020 will be about 631 million US dollars, of which the total fees in September, August and December will reach about 174 million US dollars, 117 million US dollars and 115 million US dollars respectively.

Compared with Bitcoin, the total transaction fee of Ethereum in 2020 is 232 million US dollars higher than that of Bitcoin, which is about 2.72 times the total transaction fee of Bitcoin. The difference in handling fees is related to the adaptability of the blockchain's transaction processing capabilities and transaction processing requirements. If the transaction processing capacity (TPS) of the blockchain is compatible with the transaction processing requirements, for example, the BTC transaction frequency that the Bitcoin network needs to process is low, and the demand is within the processing capacity of the blockchain, then the transaction fee will naturally be low. High, but if the two do not match, for example, the Ethereum network needs to process a lot of ETH transactions, and the demand exceeds the processing capacity, then the transaction fee will naturally become higher. In this case, the high handling fee is actually a reflexive manifestation of the game between transaction initiators.

In order to alleviate the transaction pressure of Ethereum, expansion has been put on the agenda. In 2020, Phase 0 of Ethereum 2.0 has been completed, and the beacon chain has been officially launched at 8:00 pm on December 1, Beijing time. From the perspective of pledge progress, after the announcement of the pledge contract on November 4, the total pledge progress within 15 days did not exceed 20%. Until November 20, the pledge progress accelerated at an average daily progress of 22.78%. On November 24, 2.0% The total amount of pledges has reached 648,000 ETH, exceeding the target total of 524,288, and the number of independent verifiers has also reached 16,798, exceeding the target requirement of 16,384.

After triggering the genesis block of the beacon chain, the pledge progress of Ethereum 2.0 has been significantly improved compared with before. As of December 31, the total pledge of the beacon chain has reached 2.167 million ETH, and the number of independent validators has reached 45,952.

secondary title

The new supply is 4.96 million ETH, and the block reward exceeds 2 billion US dollars

As of December 31, the total supply of ETH was about 114 million ETH, an increase of about 4.96 million ETH from 109 million ETH at the beginning of the year, an increase of about 4.55%. Similar to Bitcoin, the overall supply increment of ETH is growing slowly, and the growth rate has slowed down year by year. The increase in ETH supply in 2019 was about 4.75%, in 2018 it was about 7.66%, in 2017 it was about 10.51%.

The dollar market value of the daily new supply is the amount of the daily block reward. According to statistics, the block reward of Ethereum in 2020 is about 2.059 billion U.S. dollars. Among them, the total block rewards in December and September exceeded 300 million US dollars, and the highest in December reached 362 million US dollars. Second, the total blockchain rewards for August, November, and October also exceeded $200 million.

The sum of block rewards and handling fees is the output scale of the Ethereum mining industry. According to statistics, the annual output of the Ethereum mining industry in 2020 is expected to be about 2.69 billion US dollars. During the same period, the output scale of Bitcoin mining was about 5.012 billion US dollars, about 1.86 times that of Ethereum mining.

From the perspective of the proportion of handling fees in revenue, the average daily handling fee of Ethereum in 2020 will account for 16.06% of the total daily income, which is nearly 10 percentage points higher than the handling fee of Bitcoin in the same period.

With the rise in handling fees, the proportion of Ethereum handling fees also showed a clear upward trend, especially in the third quarter, when the average of this proportion reached 26.98%. The peak of the annual handling fee ratio is consistent with the peak handling fee peak, and the highest proportion is also 60.53% caused by the attack on June 11. In addition, there are 138 days in which the annual handling fee ratio exceeds 20%.

According to the general view of the market, 2021 will still be a year for DeFi to accumulate strength and development. If the expansion progress of Ethereum cannot be developed simultaneously, then it is foreseeable that the proportion of handling fees will continue to rise in the future.

other instructions:

[1] Refer to PAData's earlier analysis "The number of active users of Ethereum has increased by 137%, and the average transaction fee has increased by 16 times".