The number of smart contracts deployed on the Ethereum network reached 1,971,632 in March, hitting a new all-time high and marking a 75% increase from the previous month.

Dune Analytics, an online analytics platform, recorded the number of contracts deployed on Ethereum over the last 12 months with the average only registering around 670,000 contracts per month.

Notably, this peak coincided with the cost to deploy on Ethereum being at one of the lowest points, with developers spending an average of $11,600 to do so. This suggests that the adoption of the Ethereum platform is on the rise, signaling strong support for the coming upgrade to Ethereum 2.0.

Although the number of smart contracts has increased in March, there has been no noticeable increase in the number of transactions as a result, suggesting many contracts are not being utilized or do not translate to an increase in end-user engagement.

Source: etherscan.io

Looking back

The previous all-time high occurred in November 2018, when the number of contracts deployed reached almost 1.5 million before dropping back to the 2019 average of 670,000.

Ethereum has often been seen as an old platform with little to offer compared with newer blockchains, such as EOS and Tron. In late 2019, Blockstream CSO Samson Mow described the blockchain as a “technological dead end”:

Ethereum is a technological dead end. The more it’s used, the faster it dies. Fortunately, USDt is also available on the #LiquidNetwork which is more scalable and later will allow Lightning Networks to be created for assets like Tether. 🌊⚡️ https://t.co/Fn5owRSRk0 — Samson Mow (@Excellion) August 27, 2019

Ethereum 2.0

In the Ethereum 2.0 roadmap laid out by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, the network is setting up to switch from a Proof-of-Work consensus protocol to a Proof-of-Stake. This switch could remove the scalability problem which currently discourages many developers from deploying on the network. The recent news around Ethereum 2.0 could be the driver that is breathing new life into the popular blockchain platform.