“SOL and Co. have no chance against Ethereum”

According to the co-founder of the BitMEX crypto exchange Arthur Hayes, there are currently many indications that Solana, Cardano and Co. will never replace Ethereum as the top dog in the smart contract space.

in one Interview with Crypto Banter Hayes, who has often made headlines in the crypto scene, spoke about the current situation on the market and explained why he is so convinced of Ethereum. Because in his opinion, Ethereum competitors have the potential to develop well in the coming years.

But in the long term, according to Hayes, it is unlikely that Ethereum will be replaced by other smart contract platforms.

Why is Arthur Hayes bullish on Ethereum?

One of the main reasons Hayes is so bullish on ETH is the massive developer community behind the smart contract platform. This is so huge compared to Cardano, Solana and other layer 1 blockchains that most of the innovation in the smart contract space will continue to take place in the Ethereum ecosystem for the foreseeable future, according to Hayes.

Characteristics such as transactions per second (TPS), i.e. the transaction throughput that a blockchain can handle, are significantly less important for the long-term success of a smart contract platform.

It’s not all based on transactions per second or […] the other stuff. It’s about the talent of the developers. Ethereum has a few thousand developers. The next blockchain might have a few hundred.

Arthur Hayes, ex-CEO of Bitmex

Furthermore, Hayes believes that while most Layer 1 blockchains would merely copy ETH applications, real innovation is scarce.

This would have worked in the past, but over time more and more investors would understand that this alone is not enough to establish themselves in the crypto market in the long term.

What does the data say?

As for the number of developers, Hayes is not wrong. A total of 1,900 developers are currently actively involved in the development of the Ethereum ecosystem on average every week. Polkadot has 886, Cosmos 497, Solana 401 and Bitcoin only 322.

The situation is different in the area of ​​DeFi and NFTs. ETH owns by far the largest DeFi ecosystem in crypto space at over $31.6 billion and is responsible for around 58.17 percent of all funds in DeFi.

However, over the years, Ethereum has lost market share in DeFi. In August 2020, the smart contract heavyweight was still responsible for around 95 percent of all capital in DeFi.

However, if you look at the trend since May 2022 and add up the TVL share of various Ethereum Layer 2 platforms, Ethereum has again been able to extend its lead in DeFi space in recent months.

However, the situation is different in the NFT sector. Ether is also responsible for 65 percent of the entire market here, but Solana in particular was able to significantly expand its market share in the last quarter – by 13 percent according to Binance.

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