Ethereum’s genesis block turned 11 on July 30, marking a year of scaling milestones and leadership turbulence for the network behind the world’s largest altcoin. The network now processes roughly 95% of transactions via rollups and operates on a 60 million gas limit. While Morgan Stanley and BlackRock have launched new ether exchange-traded products (ETPs) that stake holdings, ETH’s price has fallen 49% over the past year to $1,920. The Ethereum Foundation has seen nearly 20% of its workforce depart, including two co-executive directors in five months, amid reported disagreements over sub-strategies.
Ethereum’s (ETH) genesis block turned 11 on July 30, closing quite a busy year. The network now runs on a 60 million gas limit, double where it sat two years ago, with rollups carrying roughly 95% of its transactions.
On the morning of the anniversary, blocks were landing about 229 transactions each, close to 21 per second on the base layer, and running 55% full. The base fee sat near 5.3 gwei, which works out to about $0.20 for a plain ETH transfer, $0.52 for an ERC-20 transfer, and $3.79 for a swap.
Morgan Stanley began trading the cheapest US ether ETP at a 0.14% expense ratio on Tuesday. BlackRock’s ETHB holds spot ETH and stakes a portion of it, the firm’s first crypto fund to do so.
ETH traded at $1,920 on July 30, down 49% over the 12 months to the anniversary. Its market capitalization stood at $231 billion across 120.7 million coins.
Around 54 colleagues had departed the Ethereum Foundation (EF), close to 20% of its workforce. Researcher Ryan Berckmans attributed the wider wave of exits to disagreements over sub-strategies, saying “confidence in the network itself was not the reason.”
Tomasz Stańczak stepped down as co-executive director on February 13, with Bastian Aue named interim co-executive director. Hsiao-Wei Wang resigned as co-executive director and board member in June. The board now includes Vitalik Buterin, Patrick Storchenegger and Aya Miyaguchi.
