The History of Smart Contract Platforms

Note: Data in this section last updated August 26th, 2022

Bitcoin was the predecessor to smart contract platforms. Invented in 2009 by a person or persons identifying themselves as “Satoshi Nakamoto”, it introduced the world to the concept of “decentralization” by creating a currency that didn’t need the banking system to function.

Although Bitcoin revolutionized the concept of money, it had limited use outside of its core function as a peer-to-peer payment network.

Vitalik Buterin would build upon this foundation with his creation of Ethereum in 2015. Ethereum retained many of the benefits of Bitcoin, such as decentralization, but added the ability to run programs, making it the first true smart contract platform.

Developers quickly realized the potential of this “world computer”, and began to build decentralized applications, known as dapps, on Ethereum. 2017 and 2018, in particular, witnessed an explosion in development with the ecosystem growing almost 10-fold during that period (from 247 dapps in January of 2017 to 2,235 dapps in January of 2019).

Source: State of the Dapps

Notable dapps launched in 2017-2018 include:

• Uniswap, a cryptocurrency exchange

• Aave, a lending and borrowing protocol

• Nexus Mutual, a decentralized insurance broker

• Cryptokitties and Cryptopunks, early NFTs

• Axie Infinity, a blockchain-based game

As demand for these dapps grew, we began to see an explosion in new smart contract platforms. 2021, in particular, was a year of robust development as projects such as Binance Smart Chain, Solana, Terra and Avalanche began to gain traction, reducing Ethereum’s market share from over 95% to almost 60%.