Mania (3 of 7)

In crypto, price exploration can be wild. In 2017, the ICO craze intersected with the largest crypto mania yet seen by that time. This original plots 4 on-chain metrics across 11 major cryptocurrencies, revealing how they fluctuated by day across 2017-2018 (long vertical gray line cuts at Dec. 31st, 2017). Colors of these ribbons reflect major crypto projects; zooming in one can see the ticker and corresponding on-chain metrics at regular intervals. They are ordered from top-down by market capitalization in USD in late 2017 (BTC, XRP, ETH, etc.). The patterns of change in these metrics reflect Ethereum's established stature already, after barely 2 years on mainnet. It shows that Ethereum is subject to similar market dynamics that describe the entire ensemble of digital currencies.

This original also illustrates that metrics can, on occasion, depart from the pack. Two of these departures are marked for Ethereum. These two departures reflect a theme that has affected Ethereum since its inception and into 2021: Fees can fluctuate wildly under demand. The first of these dates is notched along the fee-per-transaction data in December 2017: The arrival of CryptoKitties caused network congestion and fees to spike. In summer 2018, a similar spike is seen, this time due to a marketing scheme by an exchange known as FCoin. Ethereum's on-chain cost for processing, "gas," also fluctuated wildly in 2020 and 2021 with DeFi and NFTs. This issue may be accommodated in part by implementation of Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559 slated for summer 2021. Of course, the advent of Eth2 will bring further change, as it will no longer face similar scaling issues (see Series 4).

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Ethstory, Original 2 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.