The ethereum blockchain has come to prominence over the past year, with its underpinning of the non-fungible token (NFT) craze and of the creation of decentralised finance projects (DeFi). So could ethereum be the future of the internet? asks Richard Waters.
It could become the platform of choice for what has become known as Web 3.0, where a series of decentralised apps could one day challenge Big Tech’s offerings. “Sixty to 70 per cent of the industry runs on ethereum. It’s very sticky,” says Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, one of a growing number of companies that operate on top of ethereum.
As a result, the price of ethereum’s currency, known as ether or eth, which is used to pay for the computing power needed to run the blockchain, has jumped ninefold. At around $350bn, the outstanding tokens on ethereum are now worth more than 40 per cent as much as all the bitcoin in issue, more than double the proportion of a year ago.