Ethereum has reached a milestone anniversary in 2025, marking ten years since its mainnet launch. Its path has been defined by spectacular highs and hard lessons from the explosive ICO era and the 2016 DAO hack to the emergence of DeFi, NFTs, and the game changing Merge upgrade. Throughout its evolution, Ethereum has endured volatility while shaping the standards for programmable finance.
In 2015, the platform entered the world with an ICO that raised $18.3 million. A year later, The DAO hack led to a contentious hard fork. By 2017, ICO investments surged, only to stall as speculative projects faded. The 2020 DeFi boom brought composability and lending platforms into mainstream view. In 2021–2022, the NFT wave captivated audiences, followed by the Merge transitioning Ethereum to proof of stake and dramatically reducing energy usage.
Analysts now see Ethereum as a resilient, antifragile protocol. Many legacy investors originally viewed it as ephemeral, yet it has emerged as the foundational layer of modern decentralized finance. Its complexity and evolving ethos invite complexity yet also opportunity. As mainstream finance integrates Ethereum based instruments and spot ETH ETFs draw billions, the network continues to expand its role from infrastructure to institutional asset base.
