By CCN: Year-to-date, ether (ETH), the native crypto asset of the Ethereum blockchain network, has increased by 112 percent against the U.S. dollar, recovering to $285 from $133 at the start of the year.
Jehan Chu, a co-founder and a managing partner at Kenetic Capital, believes the Ethereum blockchain network is here to stay and that in terms of utility, ETH is leading the pathway for the rest of the market.
Ethereum as the global supercomputer
Since its inception in 2014, the Ethereum blockchain network has been widely considered as a global supercomputer, a decentralized protocol on which developers can deploy and operate decentralized applications (DApps) in a peer-to-peer environment.
As a sign of healthy long-term sustainability and survivability, Chu cited the rate in which the open-source developer community of ETH is working improve the existing codebase of the blockchain network.
In October 2018, Octoverse, the annual survey conducted by Github among developers in the community, ranked Ethereum’s Go client as the fifth fastest-growing open-source project in the world.
ETH’s Go was ranked as the fifth fastest growing open source project in October 2018 (source: Octoverse)
Chu cited the rate of adoption as well as the network effect ETH has with its large developer audience as the main factors that would fuel the growth of the network over the long run.
He said:
From a utility standpoint, we’re seeing Ethereum as the lead. The rate of adoption and the rate of development that the Ethereum team is providing a decentralized global computer is just astounding. People keep saying Ethereum is going away but it’s not going away and its still one of the largest coins in the world with the largest developer audience.
Recently, Microsoft enabled developers to build applications using the Visual Studio Code Azure Blockchain extension, allowing existing developers to employ smart contracts in a wide range of applications.
Vitalik Buterin, a co-creator of Ethereum, stated that Microsoft has embraced the open community of blockchain developers by paving a way towards ETH integrations.
“Microsoft has embraced the open community of blockchain developers and has brought the best of their cloud development tooling to the developers building the next wave of decentralized applications. With Azure Blockchain Services and Ethereum integrations for tools like VS Code, Microsoft is demonstrating its commitment to open blockchain development,” Buterin reportedly said.
According to Chu, Buterin appearing at the Microsoft conference on stage with CEO Satya Nadella is a sign of traction from both companies and investors towards the future of blockchain development and ETH.
Chu said:
Vitalik Buterin, the 24-year-old founder of Ethereum being on stage with Satya Nadella at the recent Microsoft conference really shows not just how much traction there is on the ground but also with the major institutions who are determining the future of technology. So I think Ethereum is definitely a bullish call.
Patience required
While many investors, developers, and companies remain confident in the adoption and development of the Ethereum blockchain, the release of the so-called “Ethereum 2.0” make take several more years of development, according to SFOX researchers.
For the 2.0 version to materialize, the SFOX team emphasized that a proof-of-stake technology in Beakon Chain, scalability solution called Sharding, and a rebuilt Ethereum Virtual Machine known as eWASM would have to be implemented.
The team explained:
Rather than trying to build these upgrades directly onto the main net, Ethereum 2.0 will build out a new, separate platform from the main chain that will eventually replace it in the future.
The Ethereum wiki maps out seven distinct phases for Ethereum 2.0, which will likely take several years to implement. Most of these phases are still in the research stage, without clear technical specifications. Before developers can actually build on Ethereum 2.0, the first three phases will need to be completed.
Given the clear long-term roadmap of Ethereum development and the support of conglomerates in the likes of Microsoft, investors such as Chu at Kenetic see a sustainable future ahead for Ethereum.
Click here for a real-time Ethereum price chart.
