The birth of Ethereum in 2015 marked an important turning point in the history of blockchain technology, transitioning from Bitcoin's simple ledger model to a global decentralized computing platform. Defined as an open source network, Ethereum allows the deployment of smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps) without third-party intervention. After a decade of development, Ethereum has not only stopped being a type of cryptographic asset (Ether - ETH) but has become a "world computer" (World Computer) - an infrastructure that is safe, transparent and not controlled by any single entity.
Historical Evolution: Decade of Exploration and Growth (2015-2025)
The history of Ethereum is a journey full of changes dynamic, tested through technical crises, explosions of financial trends and continuous system upgrades.
Formation Phase and First Challenges (2013-2016)
The idea of Ethereum was first announced by Vitalik Buterin in a whitepaper in November 2013, proposing a more flexible blockchain platform than Bitcoin. After a successful ICO fundraising in 2014 of 18.3 million USD at a starting price of 0.311 USD per token, the network officially launched the "Frontier" version on July 30, 2015.
2016 saw the first major crisis: The DAO hack. A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) raised $150 million in ETH but had a smart contract vulnerability exploited, resulting in the loss of 3.6 million ETH. To repay investors, the community decided to carry out a Hard Fork, creating two parallel chains, Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC). This event has caused fierce debates about the immutability of blockchain but at the same time affirmed the community's ability to self-regulate.
The Era of ICO and DeFi Boom (2017-2021)
The period 2017-2018 was marked by an explosion of initial token offerings (ICO) based on the ERC-20 standard, causing ETH prices to reach a peak near 1,400 USD before entering the "crypto winter" of 2018. However, it was during this market downturn that decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms such as MakerDAO and Compound were built, laying the foundation for the "DeFi Summer" of 2020.
In 2021, Ethereum witnessed the explosion of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) and the implementation of upgrades London with proposal EIP-1559, introducing a transaction fee burning mechanism, fundamentally changing the economic model of ETH towards deflationary assets.
The Post-The Merge Revolution and the Domination of Layer 2 (2022-2025)
The most important event in Ethereum's technical history is "The Merge" which takes place in September 2022, when the network completely transitions from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS), reducing energy consumption by more than 99%.
Moving into 2024 and 2025, the development focus shifts to scalability with the rise of Layer 2 (L2) solutions. The Dencun upgrade (2024) and later Pectra and Fusaka (2025) turned Ethereum into a global settlement layer for large-scale financial transactions.
Below are typical historical milestones:
Year 2015: Launch of Frontier - Start of mainnet
Year 2016: The DAO hack - Chain split into ETH and ETC.
Year 2017: ICO boom - Popularizing capital raising on blockchain.
Year 2020: Launchpad Beacon Chain - First step to switch to mechanism Proof-of-Stake.
- - Optimize staking and upgrade comprehensive user experience.
Technical Architecture and Operational Mechanism
Ethereum is not only a database but also a decentralized operating system. Its structure includes many core components that closely interact with each other to maintain the state of the "world computer".
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) And Solidity Programming Language
EVM is the heart of Ethereum, a Turing complete virtual machine running on thousands of nodes globally. All calculations and transactions are performed through the EVM, ensuring uniformity of the network state regardless of the physical location of the node.
To interact with the EVM, developers use the Solidity programming language. This is an object-oriented language, specifically designed for writing smart contracts. Solidity allows the definition of complex logic such as payment automation, community governance, and digital asset management. However, Solidity's complexity also comes with security risks. Vulnerabilities such as re-entry attacks remain a top target for hackers in 2025, requiring strict Checks-Effects-Interactions (CEI) compliance and moderation processes.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Consensus Mechanism
Since The Merge, Ethereum uses PoS to secure the network. Instead of miners using electrical energy, validators must deposit at least 32 ETH to have the right to participate in validating transactions.
This mechanism is operated based on mathematical principles to ensure safety. The cost of attacking the network becomes extremely expensive because the attacker must own a large amount of ETH and face the risk of having their assets cut off if they violate the rules. By mid-2025, the network recorded more than 1.06 million active validators with more than 34 million ETH staked, or about 28% of total supply.
Account Structure and Gas Fees
Ethereum distinguishes between two main types of accounts:
Externally owned accounts (EOA): Controlled by the private keys of regular users through wallet applications such as MetaMask.
Contract Account:Contains executable code and is controlled by software logic.
Every activity on Ethereum requires a certain amount of "Gas" to pay for the network's computational resources. The transaction fee calculation formula is determined as follows:
Total Fee = Gas Units x (Base Fee + Priority Fee)
In which, Base Fee is automatically burned according to the EIP-1559 mechanism, reducing ETH inflation, while Priority Fee is paid to validators to prioritize transaction processing.
Ethereum Development Roadmap (The Roadmap)
Vitalik Buterin has outlined a long-term development roadmap consisting of six key stages, aiming to transform Ethereum into a platform that can handle hundreds of thousands of transactions per second while remaining decentralized.
The Merge And The Surge
The Merge:Completed in 2022, focusing on the transition to PoS. However, further upgrades in 2025 continue to optimize the PoS infrastructure, aiming to reduce the staking threshold to 1 ETH and implement Single Secret Leader Election to enhance validator privacy.
The Surge: The goal is to reach 100,000 transactions per second through Rollups and Sharding technology. Upgrading Fusaka by the end of 2025 is an important step in this period, introducing PeerDAS to expand the ability to store "blobs" data, helping Layer 2 reduce operating costs by 10 to 100 times.
The Scourge And The Verge
The Scourge: Addressing the risks of economic centralization, especially the issue MEV. Solutions such as Proposer-Builder Separation and Inclusion Lists are being researched to prevent clamping attacks and ensure transaction neutrality.
The Verge: Simplify block verification by switching from Merkle Trees to Verkle Trees. This allows “stateless” nodes to operate without storing hundreds of gigabytes of entire blockchain history, reducing the barrier to entry for mainstream users.
The Purge And The Splurge
The Purge: Reduce technical debt by purging old historical data that is no longer needed. Proposal EIP-4444 allows nodes to stop serving block data older than one year, helping node operators save hard drive space.
The Splurge:A final roll-up of improvements, including complete account abstraction and optimizations to the EVM virtual machine to ensure smooth system operation for future generations.
Upgrades Focus in 2025: Pectra and Fusaka
2025 is a historic year when the Ethereum Foundation carries out two major network upgrades simultaneously, accelerating the speed of implementing the roadmap compared to the previous plan of one upgrade per year.
Pectra Upgrade (May 2025)
Pectra is considered the most ambitious upgrade since The Merge. It introduces 11 proposed improvements focusing on both the execution layer and the consensus layer.
EIP-7251 (MaxEB): Change the maximum staking limit of a validator from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH. This helps reduce network bandwidth for large organizations.
EIP-7702: Allows regular wallets to temporarily act as smart contract wallets. Users can sign multiple transactions at the same time or log in with a passkey instead of a mnemonic phrase.
Blobs Efficiency: Pectra increases the maximum number of blobs per block from 6 to 9, helping to solve the data bottleneck.
Fusaka Upgrade (December 2025)
Activate on March 3 12 2025 Fusaka focuses on data availability and performance optimization.
PeerDAS (EIP-7594): Enables nodes to verify data availability through peer sampling. This is the core of blob capacity expansion.
Increased L1 Gas Limit: Fusaka increased the block gas limit by approximately 33%, allowing Layer 1 to process more transactions directly on the main chain.
User Experience: Deeper integration of biometric technologies such as FaceID and fingerprint, making Web3 usage "invisible" and familiar.
Layer 2 Ecosystem: Key Growth Driver
By 2025, the majority of Ethereum's economic activity has shifted to Layer 2 solutions. These are sub-blockchains that run in parallel, process transactions off the main chain, and only send proof of confirmation to Layer 1 for safety. As noted by Tan Phat Digital, the explosion of Layer 2 solutions is opening up great opportunities for Vietnamese businesses in the digital transformation roadmap and applying blockchain in practice.
The Domination of Base and Arbitrum
According to data from L2BEAT, the total value locked (TVL) in Layer 2s reached a record high of 49 billion USD in October 2019. 2025.
Mainnet: Captures 6% market share TVL - Focuses on public goods development and Superchain governance.zkSync Era: Captures about 3-4% market share TVL - Optimized for NFT transactions and user privacy.
Cost and Performance Revolution
Thanks to upgrades during the year By 2025, the average cost of a transaction on Layer 2 has dropped to almost zero. In fact, at the end of 2025, Ethereum's Layer 1 recorded a record 1.91 million transactions in a day with a fee of only 0.16 USD, proving that the network can handle high loads without eliminating common users.
Pillars of the Ethereum Ecosystem in 2025
The Ethereum ecosystem in 2025 has transformed from the experimental phase to the actual utility phase, with the participation Deepening participation of traditional financial institutions.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) And Staking
DeFi continues to be Ethereum's strongest pillar with a global TVL reaching 123.6 billion USD by mid-2025. The emergence of EigenLayer has opened up the "Restaking" era, allowing staking ETH to be reused to secure other services, creating an additional source of profit for investors.
Real World Asset (RWA) Tokenization
RWA is the biggest success story of 2025. Ethereum currently controls 66% of the global on-chain RWA market share.
Ondo Finance: Focused on institutional investors, compliant with KYC/AML and US regulations, TVL is estimated at 225 million USD.
Maple Finance: Focusing on organizations and businesses with the Deep Underwriting mechanism, TVL is estimated to reach 2.6 billion USD.
Centrifuge: Serving institutions through the Legal SPV Structures mechanism, TVL is estimated to reach 1.3 billion USD.
Securitize: Serving institutions and issuers as SEC-regulated Broker-dealer, TVL reached approximately 3 billion USD.
SocialFi And The Age Of Attention Economy
2025 sees the rise of SocialFi, where social network value is directly quantified. Platforms like Friend.tech on Base allow users to buy and sell access to influencers, turning social capital into tradable assets.
Ethereum In Vietnam Market: Legal And Community Landscape
Vietnam continues to maintain its position as one of the countries with the highest cryptocurrency adoption rate in the world. The year 2025 marks landmark changes in the legal framework and community activities, especially in Ho Chi Minh City.
Legal Framework and Pilot Resolutions
Although Vietnamese law does not yet have a complete regulatory framework, 2025 has witnessed important progress.
Pilot Resolution: Since September 9, 2025 2025, Vietnam will begin a 5-year pilot allowing cryptocurrency transactions such as Bitcoin and Ethereum on licensed exchanges.
Strategic orientation: Resolution 57-NQ/TW of the Politburo emphasizes promoting research and innovation in the field of blockchain.
Startup Community and Major Events in Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City has risen to become one of the leading blockchain "hubs" in Southeast Asia. Events such as Vietnam Build Week (ETHVietnam 2025) at the Independence Palace have gathered more than 6,000 participants. Community activities are also actively supported by units such as Tan Phat Digital in providing information and digital solutions for potential startups.
Application Ecosystem in Vietnam
Vietnamese users especially favor mobile wallet solutions that integrate many features.
Wallets: MetaMask and Trust Wallet are popular names. Coin98 continues to affirm its position as a Vietnamese product with strong multi-chain support.
Exchange: Binance dominates with P2P trading volume, followed by Bybit, OKX and domestic exchanges such as Remitano, Aliniex.
Token Economics and Future Forecast
The value of Ether in the year 2025 is dominated by cash flows from large investment funds. The approval of Spot Ethereum ETFs in the United States brought assets under management to $30 billion by September 2025.
In terms of price, analytical models predict ETH could reach $5,000 to $8,000 by the end of 2025. The long-term view is that by 2030, when tokenization becomes widespread, the value could reach $12,000 to 35,000 USD. The convergence of AI and Blockchain will also be a key driver, where Ethereum serves as a validation layer for AI training data and prevents fake news.
Ethereum by the end of 2025 has established itself as a strong foundation for a decentralized, transparent and secure financial future. In Vietnam, with the companionship of units such as Tan Phat Digital and the gradual openness of the legal framework, the Ethereum ecosystem promises to grow even stronger, becoming an important driving force for the national digital economy.
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