OKX Pays Tribute to ETH's 10th Anniversary: Seven Reasons We Keep Building

On July 30, 2025, the world celebrated the 10th anniversary of Ethereum. Ethereum, a community-driven, open-source blockchain platform, continues to lead technological evolution and application expansion. From the pioneer of smart contracts to the core foundation of the entire Web3 ecosystem, it has not only sparked systemic changes in financial innovation, asset programmability, and data sovereignty, but has also continuously achieved breakthroughs in scalability, privacy-preserving computing, and cross-chain interoperability, becoming a leading infrastructure. Currently, Ethereum hosts over 50% of the world's non-Bitcoin digital assets, including approximately 60% of all stablecoins in circulation, over 60% of decentralized finance (DeFi) locked capital, and up to 80% of on-chain mappings of real-world assets (RWAs), such as stocks, money market funds, and bonds. This achievement solidifies Ethereum's position as a pillar of the global digital economy and Web3 ecosystem. Over the past decade, we have been unwavering in building the Ethereum ecosystem. Here are seven reasons for our unwavering commitment. 1. A Leading Developer Ecosystem 1.1 A Rich Developer Ecosystem and Growth Trends ￮ When the Ethereum mainnet launched in 2015, there were approximately 1,085 active developers. By 2024, the global number of monthly active blockchain developers will be approximately 23,613, representing a ten-year compound annual growth rate of 39%. Ethereum maintains its position as the largest developer community. In 2024, approximately 16,700 new developers will contribute code to the Ethereum ecosystem, triple the number of Polygon and nearly four times the number of Solana. Despite the recent bear market, the number of monthly active developers across Web3 has declined slightly from its peak (down approximately 7% year-on-year), but the number of "veteran developers" with more than two years of experience has increased by 27%, steadily supporting innovation in the ecosystem. Senior developers (those who have contributed code for more than two years) account for over 70% of the total, forming the cornerstone of the Ethereum ecosystem's continued innovation.

1.2 EVM ecosystem continues to expand and network effects

￮ Currently, one-third of the world's crypto developers are multi-chain developers, and 34% are active on more than two public chains at the same time every month, a significant increase from 2015 (<10%). The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) ecosystem is experiencing a significant aggregation effect: 74% of multi-chain developers are actively contributing to EVM chains, and the number of EVM cross-chain deployers has quadrupled since 2021. EVM-compatible chains such as Base, Polygon, and Starknet are attracting a large number of developers, sharing toolchains and code bases, significantly lowering the barrier to innovation and strengthening the ecosystem's cohesion. Code innovation in the EVM ecosystem is migrating to Layer 2 and new chains: By 2024, the mainnet and Layer 2s combined will host 65% of innovative code, with Base accounting for 25% of EVM innovation logic at one point. By 2023, there will be 17 crypto ecosystems globally, attracting over 1,000 active developers per month, with EVM chains comprising the majority. 1.3 Ethereum (Solidity/EVM) Remains the Public Chain with the Most Developers and the Richest Ecosystem. Solana (Rust) boasts a rapidly growing developer base, surpassing Ethereum for the first time in 2024, but its total developer base is still smaller than Ethereum's. The Move ecosystem, represented by Aptos and Sui, still has a significantly smaller developer base than EVM and Rust chains, but is experiencing significant growth. Ethereum has set a benchmark for open standards and development tools in the blockchain industry, from code frameworks (such as Hardhat, Foundry, and OpenZeppelin) to infrastructure (such as Layer 2 Rollup and NFT protocols), effectively lowering the barrier to entry and learning costs for developers worldwide.

II. A Scaling Ecosystem with Continuous Growth and Innovation

2.1 Ecosystem Evolution and Innovation Leadership

￮ The 2015 launch of the Ethereum mainnet ushered in a new era of smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps). Over the past decade, Ethereum has driven multiple rounds of innovation, including DeFi, NFTs, and RWAs (real-world assets), becoming a global blockchain application infrastructure and innovation hub.

￮ Ethereum's Rollup expansion (such as Optimism, Arbitrum, and zkSync), sharding, and state pricing mechanism innovations (such as upgrades like Pectra) have significantly improved network throughput and user experience.

￮ Application scenarios have expanded from DeFi and NFTs to RWA, AI on-chain, social networking, and GameFi, greatly enriching the on-chain ecosystem and promoting cross-border innovation.

2.2 Overview of Ecosystem Innovation Data and On-Chain Indicators

￮ Changes in Total Value Locked (TVL)

▪ DeFi TVL reached approximately $62.59B in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 30%, accounting for over 53% of the global DeFi ecosystem. Leading protocols include Lido, Aave, EigenLayer, Etherfi, and Sky. The market expects Ethereum's TVL to exceed $100B by the end of 2025. ▪ The TVL of Layer 2 platforms like Rollup continues to rise, with the EVM ecosystem leading multi-chain collaboration. ￮ Transaction Volume and Activity ▪ Ethereum's average daily transaction volume (July 2025): 1,605,000, a 44.6% year-over-year increase, marking a new high in network activity. ▪ The number of active wallets reached 127 million in 2025, a 22% year-over-year increase. Multi-chain interoperability strengthens both the user base and the developer base.

2.3 ETH leads the development of the RWA ecosystem

￮ In July 2025, the total scale of RWA on the chain reached $24.8B, and more than 54.9% was issued on the Ethereum main chain.

￮ Assets and holders: A total of 341 RWA assets have been issued on Ethereum, and the number of asset holders is 81,388. Stablecoin Support: As critical infrastructure for RWAs, stablecoins on Ethereum have a market capitalization of approximately $141.01 billion, accounting for 54.7% of the total stablecoin market capitalization. The number of stablecoin holders on the Ethereum network exceeds 14.74 million. On Ethereum's Layer 2, ZKsync Era RWAs have a market capitalization of $2.334 billion, spread across 38 assets, accounting for 18.33% of the RWA market share. Asset types include US Treasuries, gold, money market funds, stocks, corporate bonds, and more. Leading projects include BlackRock BUIDL, Paxos Gold PAXG, and Tether Gold XAUT. BUIDL's single asset value exceeds $2.43 billion, and PAXG exceeds $940 million.

￮ Globally, there are 320,000 RWA asset holders and 255 institutions and service providers, with the rate of new RWA issuance growing rapidly year-on-year.

III. Continuously Improving Performance and Scalability

3.1 Review of Technology Upgrade Progress

￮ Since its launch in 2015, Ethereum has undergone multiple rounds of significant technological evolution in performance and scalability, bringing profound impacts to the blockchain industry.

▪ 2017 Byzantium Upgrade: Introduced multiple EVM optimizations, reduced mining rewards, and laid the foundation for subsequent on-chain smart contract iterations. ▪ Istanbul and Constantinople in 2019: Improve transaction fee efficiency, enhance Layer 2 support, and strengthen network resilience. ▪ Beacon Chain and The Merge in 2020–2021: Beacon Chain initiates the transition to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), laying the foundation for an efficient and secure consensus mechanism. ▪ The Merge in 2022 (Bellatrix/Paris/Shapella): The mainnet and Beacon Chain merge, completing the PoS transition and reducing energy consumption by over 99%. This will pave the way for future scalability upgrades. 2024–2025 Dencun/Pectra Upgrade: Technological advancements, exemplified by EIP-4844 (Proto-Danksharding), introduce sharding-related data structures for the first time, optimizing data transmission bandwidth and significantly reducing Layer 2 transaction costs. By 2025, these upgrades have significantly reduced energy consumption, further improved security, and shifted idle load from the mainnet to Layer 2, laying a solid foundation for subsequent large-scale scalability.

3.2 Layer 2 Technology Progress and Data Evolution

• The successful expansion of the Ethereum ecosystem is inseparable from the explosive development of the Layer 2 network:

￮ In July 2025, the peak TPS of the Ethereum Layer 2 network (including Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, zkSync Era, etc.) reached a new high, with the average daily combined TPS exceeding 50, processing millions of transactions per day, surpassing the main network.

￮ Mainstream L2 transaction fees are typically less than $0.10 per transaction, far lower than the main network average of $0.75 per transaction. • Leading Layer 2 Ecosystem and Protocol Progress Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, zkSync Era, StarkNet, Polygon zkEVM, and others have become major hubs for capital and users. By 2025, the Layer 2 value locked (TVL) will continue to grow, with Arbitrum and Optimism exceeding $10B in combined value. Base will emerge as a rising star, even leading in terms of TPS, accounting for 40% of the entire ecosystem's transaction processing capacity.

3.3 Technical Outlook

￮ L1-based Rollup Dual-Track Structure: In the future, the Ethereum ecosystem will evolve into two parallel Rollup models. One type is Based Rollup, which is deeply aligned with Ethereum. They use L1 for native sorting and verification, inheriting its top-level security and trusted neutrality, and mainly serve scenarios such as high-value DeFi, governance, and asset custody. The other category is high-performance Rollups, which optimize throughput and user experience for large-scale user scenarios like gaming and social networking. They typically employ centralized ordering or alternative data availability (DA) solutions. This differentiation will lead to market consolidation, and mid-layer Rollups lacking clear performance or security advantages will be marginalized. Layer 1 Technological Transition: Ethereum's Layer 1 is shifting from an "execution-heavy" approach to the "verification-light" zkEVM paradigm, improving performance and decentralization through comprehensive architectural upgrades. The execution layer introduces the RISC-V virtual machine to improve zero-knowledge proof efficiency and broaden the developer ecosystem. The settlement layer uses the EXECUTE precompilation feature to enable native verification of Rollups, transforming them into protocol-level execution shards. ▪ The consensus layer has been upgraded to Beam Chain, reducing finality to approximately 12 seconds and lowering the validator threshold to 1 ETH, significantly enhancing network neutrality. ▪ The data availability layer, leveraging Danksharding, has increased throughput to a level that supports the ecosystem achieving tens of millions of transactions per second. ￮ The restructured Layer 1 will become the undisputed global asset settlement layer. Its enhanced security and neutrality provide a solid foundation for Rollup-based protocols, attracting high-value applications and liquidity. The value generated by these Rollups, such as MEV and transaction fees, will flow back to the Ethereum mainnet, strengthening ETH's economic model and security budget. This predictable, highly secure underlying protocol is key to earning institutional trust and driving the adoption of real-world assets (RWAs) and large-scale financial applications.

￮ "Trustware": The trust engine of the global economy. Ethereum is evolving into "Trustware," an infrastructure that industrializes the production of trust. It algorithmically generates the validity and finality required for the digital world at extremely low marginal cost, replacing the expensive and inefficient legal, audit, and intermediary institutions of traditional finance. In this way, Ethereum provides a scalable foundation of trust for the digitization of global assets, capital, and financial transactions, and strives to become the global ledger that underpins the future digital economy.

Fourth, Decentralization and Security

4.1 Widespread Node Distribution

￮ Global Consensus and Network Effects

▪ Over the past 10 years, ETH has established a robust global consensus through a network of nodes spanning the globe. ETH has deployed 8,665 nodes in 86 countries. The number of ETH nodes continues to grow. Rising ETH prices and heightened market expectations have directly incentivized more users to participate in node operations. Over the past seven days, the number of nodes has increased by 8.06%, reflecting holders' firm confidence in ETH's future development. Bilateral recognition by China and the United States has led to a high degree of mainstream consensus. The United States and China dominate the ETH node network, with 3,986 nodes (45.73%) and 2,154 nodes (24.71%), respectively. Together, they account for over 70.44%, fully demonstrating the high level of recognition ETH has received in both Eastern and Western economies.

▪ The developed infrastructure, mature developer ecosystems, and high cryptocurrency adoption rates in the United States and China provide strong support for the stable operation of the ETH node network. The widespread deployment of ETH in both countries not only enhances network security but also lays a solid foundation for its further application in global finance and technology.

￮ Extensive Decentralization and Security

▪ ETH nodes are distributed across six continents: Europe has the second-largest number of nodes after North America, with nodes in countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. Despite strict cryptocurrency regulation in Asia, China, Japan, and South Korea still operate a large number of nodes. South America, Oceania, and Africa are growing rapidly, with countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Nigeria demonstrating ETH's strong potential in emerging markets. While the US and China hold a clear advantage, there are still over 10 countries with over 1% of nodes, including Germany, Japan, France, the UK, Canada, Singapore, and the Netherlands. Separately counting the execution and consensus layers reveals a more dispersed distribution of nodes. These nodes are the unbreakable foundation for ETH's recognition as the most decentralized and secure public blockchain. ETH's execution layer currently has six mainstream clients (excluding those with minimal market share), including Geth, Nethermind, Besu, Erigon, Reth, and EthereumJS, with a total of 15,018 clients currently running. Each of these clients has its own unique features, meeting the needs of different users and developers. Geth, the most widely used client, is directly maintained by the ETH Foundation; Nethermind and Besu focus more on enterprise-level applications, offering high performance and scalability; Erigon and Reth focus on optimizing data storage and synchronization efficiency, providing developers with more efficient tools. At the consensus layer, ETH also supports six mainstream clients (excluding those with minimal market share), including Lighthouse, Lodestar, Nimbus, Teku, Prysm, and Grandie, with a total of 8,850 clients currently running. These clients utilize different technologies, ensuring the diversity and security of the ETH consensus mechanism. For example, Lighthouse is known for its high performance and low resource consumption, making it suitable for individual node operators; Prysm, due to its ease of use and rich functionality, has become the preferred choice of many institutions. ￮Full Multi-Language and Multi-OS Support ▪ The ETH client excels in technical compatibility, fully supporting mainstream development languages, including Go, Java, and Rust. This not only reduces the learning curve for developers but also attracts developers from diverse technical backgrounds to participate in building the ETH ecosystem. Geth is suitable for developers familiar with Go; Nethermind, based on the .NET framework, provides convenience for C# developers; Reth and Lighthouse, using the Rust language, appeal to developers who prioritize performance and security. ▪ The ETH client is fully compatible with major operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and macOS, meeting the needs of developers with different technology stacks. This cross-platform compatibility not only enhances client usability but also expands ETH's user base. For example, individual developers can quickly set up a node in a Windows environment, while enterprise users can deploy the high-performance client on Linux servers.

▪ ETH's strong compatibility has earned it widespread community support. As the official client of the ETH Foundation, Geth boasts a vast developer community and extensive documentation resources. Nethermind and Besu, through deep collaboration with businesses, have driven the adoption of ETH in enterprise applications. Client diversity not only ensures technological innovation and iteration, but also accelerates the development of the ETH ecosystem.

4.3 Restaking Data

￮ Restaking scale is growing steadily, with diverse protocols

▪ As the source of the Restaking and Liquid Restaking narratives, ETH's ecosystem continues to expand as ETH prices continue to rise. ETH Restaking's TVL exceeded $19.96 billion, accounting for 76% of the total ecosystem's $26.41 billion and 4.9 times the second-ranked BTC ecosystem's $5.42 billion. This continued rise in TVL not only improves capital utilization but also strengthens the security of the ETH network. ETH LST's TVL exceeded $14.08 billion, accounting for 95% of the total ecosystem's $14.75 billion and 48.5 times the second-ranked Solana ecosystem's $290 million. By converting staked assets into liquid tokens, it provides users with greater financial flexibility and has attracted a large number of DeFi protocols, maintaining ETH's absolute dominance in this area. The ETH Restaking ecosystem is not only massive in scale but has also spawned numerous innovative protocols. EigenLayer and Symbiotic are the most representative, with TVLs of $18.1 billion and $1.54 billion, respectively. LST protocols are even more diverse, with seven protocols having TVLs exceeding $100 million and three exceeding $1 billion, namely ether.fi with $9.8 billion, Kelp with $1.56 billion, and Renzo with $1.14 billion. The number and diversity of protocols far exceed other ecosystems. 5. Continuously Iterating Official Governance Organizations 5.1 Continuous Upgrading of EF Management ￮EF Welcomes a New Management Team In March, EF announced its most significant leadership change in recent years: former Executive Director Aya Miyagotchi transitioned to the role of Foundation Chair, Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak were appointed Co-Executive Directors, and researcher Danny Ryan joined the new organization, Etherealize. Aya Miyagotchi has served as Executive Director of EF since 2018, leading ETH to numerous milestones. With her transition to Chair, she will be more responsible for promoting strategic collaboration and maintaining relationships, reducing her direct involvement in specific matters. After seven years, the management team restructuring sends a clear signal to the outside world that EF is undergoing self-renewal. The dual-executive director structure of Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz disperses decision-making responsibilities and reduces single points of failure. The two executive directors' respective technical and management backgrounds complement each other perfectly. This leadership renewal has been welcomed and congratulated by the community and industry organizations. The new management team brings clear direction and focus. Hsiao-Wei Wang emphasized that in the long term, the Foundation will be driven by "guiding principles" (core values) and "specific goals" (measurable impact and resilience). The four cornerstones of Ethereum—censorship resistance, open source innovation, privacy protection, and security—remain the foundation's foundation for all decisions and actions.

▪ For the next year, they will clearly focus on three key points: expanding the scalability of the ETH mainnet (L1), optimizing data blob processing, and improving the overall user experience (UX). They also mentioned specific implementation matters including an institutional-grade SDK (integrated custody interface, compliance review, and gas fee optimization modules), an enterprise wallet based on the Noir zero-knowledge compiler, entering the Asia-Pacific and European markets, and collaborating with Singapore Digital Port and Switzerland's Crypto Valley.

￮ Three new organizations

▪ EF established three important organizations this year, focusing on technology, governance, and institutional integration respectively. ▪ Etherealize, the most high-profile organization, is the institutional marketing and product arm of the Ethereum ecosystem. Its mission is to drive Ethereum adoption in traditional financial markets (e.g., Wall Street). While promoting ETH as a store of value and underlying technology platform to institutions, it also builds financial products, connects the Ethereum ecosystem with institutional capital, and enhances the mainnet's economic cycle. The establishment of Etherealize demonstrates EF's commitment to promoting institutional adoption and building open finance. ▪ The EF Silviculture Society, an advisory group of 15 non-Foundation members, ensures that the development of the Ethereum ecosystem adheres to core values such as open source, privacy, security, and censorship resistance. This demonstrates EF's respect for experienced developers and industry experts and its confidence in further optimizing community governance.

Ethereum Foundation Research is positioned as the research center of EF, consisting of five teams: Application Research Group (ARG), Consensus R&D, Cryptography, Protocol Security, and RIG. These teams cover the five most important links in the future development path of ETH and provide basic guarantees for technological evolution.

5.2 Advanced cluster community governance structure

￮ EF has always emphasized that it is a non-profit organization and does not adopt a top-down corporate structure. Instead, it is more like a community cluster. The foundation provides support to many semi-autonomous teams. These teams operate independently in their respective areas of expertise, while collaborating organically under the guidance of common values.

￮ EF's organizational structure can be divided into four major functional sections: Protocol Research and Development (PR&D), Ecosystem Development (EcoDev), Operations Assurance (Ops) and Privacy and Extension Exploration (PSE). EF serves as a bridge for cross-team collaboration, but does not micromanage each project. Instead, it encourages teams to "focus on themselves and fulfill their respective responsibilities." Such governance concepts and practices have always set an excellent benchmark for the entire industry.

5.3 The unchanging vision of “Infinite Garden”

￮ Guarding the “Infinite Garden”

▪ In April, Aya Miyaguchi and Vitalik Buterin jointly published an article entitled “The Vision of the ETH Foundation”, reiterating the mission, role, high-priority issues and core principles of EF. They pointed out that the power of ETH should not only be reflected in its decentralized technical architecture, but should also extend to extensive decentralization and autonomy at the organizational level. EF positions itself as the guardian of the "Infinite Garden" and is by no means a centralized power node. Instead, it will be committed to guiding the projects, communities, and infrastructure in the ecosystem and enhancing the overall energy of the ecosystem. It will not only "accomplish what only EF can do today" (such as autonomously diversifying clients and coordinating network upgrades), but also "help others do what only EF can do today in the future" (such as funding public goods and localized communities). EF's work priorities are also very clear: first, maximize the number of ETH users and ensure that users can truly benefit from ETH's anti-censorship, openness, and privacy protection; second, enhance the resilience of ETH's technical and social infrastructure to ensure that the ecosystem can operate independently and healthily even in extreme situations.

￮ The Future of Ecosystem Development

▪ On July 10, EF released its latest vision statement, "The Future of Ecosystem Development." This statement first clarified the need to maximize the number of people who directly or indirectly use ETH and benefit from its underlying values, and secondly, to maximize the resilience of ETH's technical and social infrastructure. The specific path is to introduce four strategic pillars (acceleration, amplification, support, and long-term dredging), establish a new governance framework, and reform its fund management strategy.

▪ In terms of ecosystem acceleration, EF has newly established support modules for specific areas, including: corporate relations, developer growth, application support, and founder support. Each module has a clear person in charge and a detailed plan.

▪ In terms of funding reform, EF will also reduce its future operating expenses from 15% to 5% by 2025, gradually approaching the standards of a donation-based institution, and will deploy on-chain assets to ensure a long-term financial buffer.

VI. Large-Scale Institutional Adoption

6.1 ETH ETF Becomes a Second-Stage Rocket for Institutional Funds

￮ ETH ETFFrom No Interest to Explosive Growth

▪ In July 2024, the SEC officially approved the ETH spot ETF. In the early stages of its approval, the total trading volume of the US ETH ETF exceeded US$1 billion, demonstrating strong market interest. However, as BTC was still languishing in price at the time, institutional funds preferred to invest in BTC ETFs, causing ETH ETF trading volume to quickly fall back to around $200 million, a level that persisted until mid-2025. With increasingly friendly regulatory frameworks and the integration of DeFi into traditional financial narratives, ETH's value-carrying capacity has once again bottomed out. Since May 2025, total ETH ETF trading volume has gradually rebounded to over $1 billion, with peak trading exceeding $3 billion. ETH ETF net inflows have also shown strong growth. Over the past two months, ETH ETFs have experienced nearly continuous net inflows (except for a few days of small net outflows), with the highest single-day net inflow exceeding $700 million. The ETH price, daily net inflows, and total net assets show a highly consistent upward trend. ▪ As of now, ETH spot ETFs in the US market have seen cumulative net inflows of $8.89 billion and a total net asset value of $20.48 billion. These represent 16.2% of the $54.73 billion in net inflows and 13.4% of the $153.16 billion in total net asset value of BTC spot ETFs in the US market, respectively. The gap between the two is gradually narrowing. ￮ Institutional holdings have improved the structure of ETH holdings. ▪ Similar to BTC ETFs, ETH ETF issuers include major global asset management institutions, including iShares, Grayscale, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, VanEck, and Invesco. Currently, there are nine ETH ETFs, bringing the number of issuers close to the 12 BTC ETFs. Active inflows into major ETFs have improved ETH's holdings. Institutional holdings will reach 27% in 2025, nearly 2.5 times the 12% in 2024. Exchange-traded shares will account for 18%, a significant decrease from 31% in 2024. This not only reflects institutional long-term optimism about ETH but also provides greater confidence for ordinary holders. Meanwhile, as ETH network usage recovers, transaction fees are continuing to increase, effectively offsetting some of ETH's inflation. Thanks to the Proof-of-Stake mechanism and the burn mechanism of EIP-1559, ETH's inflation rate has been significantly suppressed. As of July 2025, Ethereum's inflation rate remains low. 6.2 ETH Becomes a Significant US Treasury Asset ETH Treasury strategy receives rapid response from the US stock market ▪ With the BTC treasury strategy taking the lead in the US stock market, ETH, as a high-quality asset, has also quickly found its own treasury strategic flywheel. Currently, the ETH Treasury strategic reserve stands at 2.31 million, with a net value of $8.56 billion, which is close to 40% of ETF holdings and net value. ▪ Currently, 63 companies have officially established ETH ETF treasury strategies. Compared to the five companies in April 2025, this strategy has gained a high level of institutional consensus in just four months. SharpLink Gaming and Bitmine Immersion Tech, two of the most representative, hold 360,000 and 560,000 ETH, respectively, with market capitalizations of $1.34 billion and $2.1 billion, surpassing the ETH Foundation's 237,000 ETH. In addition, several other institutions, including Bit Digital, BTCs, GameSqaure, and Coinbase, hold tens of thousands of ETH. More institutional holders will continue to elevate ETH consensus. ▪ Institutions establishing ETH treasury strategies are also highly diverse, with significant players entering the market. Catherine Wood's ARK Invest boosted its ETH treasury by acquiring $182 million in BMNR common stock. SharpLink Gaming also secured participation from Consensys, ParaFi Capital, Electric Capital, Pantera Capital, and Galaxy Digital in its private fundraising round in May. Joseph Lubin, ETH co-founder and Consensys founder and CEO, serves as Chairman of SharpLink's Board of Directors. Thomas Lee, a renowned Wall Street strategist and co-founder of Fundstrat, is behind Bitmine's strategic ETH reserve. In addition to ETFs, US stock companies, and crypto companies, other types of institutions are also adopting ETH as a primary asset class. Since its inception in December 2024, the Trump family's WLFI has held a peak of 70,000 ETH and continues to purchase it. ▪ Joseph Lubin also stated in June that his company was exploring the possibility of building infrastructure in the ETH ecosystem with a sovereign wealth fund and a bank. With the entry of diverse institutional holders, ETH's consensus will become more multifaceted and widespread. ▪ Crypto projects and exchanges are also actively increasing their ETH holdings. In addition to the ETH Foundation, PulseChain holds 166,000 ETH, the Golem Foundation holds 101,000 ETH, Gnosis DAO holds 66,000 ETH, and Coinbase holds 137,000 ETH. ▪ Reflecting on BTC's growth path, we believe a new round of ETH's value formation is still underway. With large-scale institutional adoption, ETH's value attributes will further diverge from other altcoins and converge with BTC. At the same time, ETH's unique decentralization, security, and on-chain economic ecosystem will continue to integrate with traditional finance, further enhancing ETH's value capture capabilities. Therefore, we believe ETH's upward trend will continue to be strong.

VII. Good Partnership with OKX

7.1 OKX is a Determined Builder of the Ethereum Ecosystem

￮ OKX Wallet in ETH Ecosystem Data

▪ One of the earliest wallets to support the Ethereum network and its ecosystem, and quickly responds to every official upgrade.

▪ In 2024, the daily Ethereum API calls provided by OKX Wallet exceeded 900,000 times, covering core capabilities such as wallet management, smart contract interaction, and on-chain data query.

▪ In 2024, Justin Drake, a member of the Ethereum Foundation (hereinafter referred to as "EF"), had an in-depth dialogue with Owen, the head of OKX Web3 products, and had in-depth exchanges on many aspects of Ethereum 2.0, including technical improvements, consensus mechanisms, scalability, security, DeFi, user experience, ecosystem, environmental impact, and future development and strategy.

▪ OKX Wallet co-hosted three exclusive "Builder Experiences" events in July 2025, including the ETHCC Cannes 2025 Builder’s Club, inviting more than 150 core project teams and ecosystem developers to participate. From technology sharing and hackathons to closed-door seminars, the event promoted Web3 innovation and cooperation in all aspects.

▪ OKX launched the "ETH 50% Off Carnival" event. During the event, for every transaction of 1 ETH, users have the opportunity to win a 0.5 ETH reward. Each person can participate up to 10 times, and 10 0.5 ETH grand prizes will be released every day. New users with their first transaction of 100 USDT or more can receive an annualized 26.08% interest rate coupon. Publish event content and successfully invite 1 new user to trade and receive 100 USDT contract experience bonus. https://www.okx.com/zh-hans/campaigns/okx-eth-campaign?channelId=CNMEDIA

￮ OKX Ventures invests in many core Ethereum tracks

▪ Infrastructure and expansion, such as Arbitrum, ZKsync, Scroll, Taiko, StarkWare

▪ Decentralized staking and re-staking, such as SSV, ether.fi, Renzo

▪ AI and on-chain applications, such as Myshell, Altlayer

▪ Cross-chain and data availability, such as Avail

▪ In the future, OKX Ventures will continue to cultivate the Ethereum ecosystem, capturing opportunities presented by technological iterations and emerging use cases to fuel the industry's long-term development. Over the past decade, Ethereum has been more than just a public blockchain; it's a force. It has transformed wildly imaginative ideas into running code, placing financial and contractual scenarios that once required layers of intermediaries directly in the hands of developers and users. Every smart contract deployment and every decentralized financial transaction proves that decentralized collaboration and transparent governance can underpin an open and inclusive digital world. Over the past decade, Ethereum has embodied people's aspirations for autonomy and fairness, and witnessed the community's continuous struggle for shared ideals. Along this journey, OKX has never been a bystander. Through Wallet, we have created on-chain portals, transaction aggregators, and exploration platforms, allowing users to easily experience its infinite possibilities. Through investment and incubation, we have given innovative projects the opportunity to flourish. We are not just passing through, but builders along the way: at every critical moment of Ethereum, we are willing to contribute our technology, resources, and passion to accompany it as it grows and embraces a brighter future.

Because builders are Ethereum's most devout believers.

Disclaimer

This article is for reference only. It represents the author's views only. It is not intended to provide (i) investment advice or recommendations; (ii) an offer or solicitation to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such information. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins and NFTs) carries a high level of risk and may fluctuate significantly. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is appropriate for you based on your financial situation. Please consult your legal, tax, or investment professionals regarding your specific circumstances. You are solely responsible for understanding and complying with applicable local laws and regulations.