Proliferation (2 of 6)

After the DAO hard fork (see Ethstory Series 2), the following year saw rapidly proliferating token projects built on Ethereum. The DAO situation led to further codification of token standards, including template contracts that permitted rapid deployment of ERC-20 tokens and variants. As an open system with a now-massive developer community, Ethereum was by far the most common platform for building these projects. The facility with which these projects could be implemented led to a massive number of tokens. Many of these, perhaps most, were ill fated, ill planned or a scam of some sort. Despite such a complex beginning, it led to a rapidly evolving and highly innovative ecosystem of value. Several of these projects were very successful and are thriving today (zooming in one can see "Basic Attention Token" and "Chainlink" and "Synthetix" and "Decentraland" and more).

This original is a radial graph of over 1,000 early token projects across several platforms (Ethereum, TRON, EOS, etc.). This graph connects the spokes of the plot to the protocol on which they are based, and at the very edge one can zoom in and read the many intriguing project names. Ethereum housed the vast majority of these. The radial graph reveals this so strikingly it seems as if Ethereum is going to consume the entire token ecosystem in its entirety. In 2017, this proliferation quickly led to the "ICO craze," as many of these projects used a variant of Ethereum's ICO model itself to raise funds (see Series 1).

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Ethstory, Original 1 in Series 3: "0x06012 (Complexifying)"

Series 2 symbolized the several ways in which Ethereum rapidly branched into varied agendas and projects. Series 3 highlights the extreme degree to which this complexity unfolded after 2016. Three such themes are shown in this series: the initial coin offering (ICO) peak, decentralized finance (DeFi), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This series is the most colorful, indicating this complexification of form and content across the Ethereum platform. Ethereum's massive and highly innovative developer community led to a complex tapestry of projects. All 4 originals are based on actual data or documentation, structured and laid out in a manner that produces visuals that relay these major themes. Each original was generated using thousands of pieces of data drawn from original sources, including Ethereum documentation and on-chain activity.