With the five-year anniversary of the Ethereum blockchain less than two weeks away, the market cap performance of ERC-20 tokens has skyrocketed to almost achieve parity with that of Ether.
Ryan Selkis, CEO of crypto analytics firm Messari, said in a July 17 newsletter that over the past two months, the market cap of all ERC-20 tokens has shot up to roughly $25.6 billion, about 49% of the total assets on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, $52.6 billion.
“Ether now only accounts for 51% of the value secured on the Ethereum blockchain, which is the smallest amount on a percentage basis that it’s accounted for in its history. The other 49% of the value stored on Ethereum now incentivizes economic activity beyond the maintenance and execution of the Ethereum blockchain.”
Source: Messari
Rise in DeFi and stablecoins
According to Selkis, the growth of these tokens is primarily due to the Crypto.com token (CRO) and DeFi token Chainlink (LINK), but a surge of interest in stablecoins has also weakened Ethereum’s hold on its own blockchain.
Chainlink’s token has surged over 370% in 2020, gaining almost 80% this month to become the ninth-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap. CRO’s market cap has likewise improved, rising from $426 million in January to $2.6 billion today.
Cointelegraph reported on July 14 that the market cap of stablecoins has risen from $2.2 billion to $11 billion, while that of Bitcoin (BTC) has actually decreased 12%, from $195 billion to $171 billion. Thus the buying power of stablecoins like Tether (USDT) has markedly increased in 2020.