Ethereum Network Surges Past 96 Million Addresses as Baseline Protocol Opens Enterprise Blockchain Door

While Bitcoin grabbed headlines in April 2020 for its price recovery from the COVID-19 crash, Ethereum was quietly building something far more significant beneath the surface. By mid-April, the Ethereum network had surpassed 96 million unique addresses, was processing nearly 900,000 daily transactions, and had become the backbone of a rapidly expanding DeFi ecosystem with over $820 million in total value locked. Meanwhile, the Baseline Protocol — a joint initiative from EY, Microsoft, and ConsenSys — was rewriting the rules for how enterprises could adopt public blockchain technology.

TL;DR

• Ethereum surpassed 96 million unique addresses with peak daily transactions reaching 899,459 in April 2020
• Over 1 million smart contracts were created on Ethereum during April alone
• The Baseline Protocol, unveiled by EY, Microsoft, and ConsenSys, offered enterprises a secure way to use public Ethereum
• DeFi total value locked exceeded $820 million, with 221,000+ ETH locked in MakerDAO
• Ethereum value transfer reached 1:1 parity with Bitcoin in late April
• 75% of enterprise executives surveyed said they were likely to use public blockchains in the future

Ethereums Network Growth by the Numbers

The scale of Ethereum activity in April 2020 was remarkable, especially given that the world was in the grips of a pandemic. The network maintained 7,181 live mainnet nodes globally, processing transactions and executing smart contracts around the clock. Peak daily transactions hit 899,459 during the month — a figure that demonstrated the networks resilience even as global economic activity ground to a halt.

The smart contract economy was particularly vibrant. In April alone, 1,083,318 new smart contracts were created on Ethereum, bringing the total number of decentralized applications on the platform to 2,828. These dapps attracted 32,280 daily active users and generated 79,410 transactions over a 24-hour period. The total successful smart contract calls for the month exceeded 39 million, underscoring how deeply embedded Ethereum had become in the blockchain ecosystem.

The Ethereum supply continued its steady growth, reaching over 110 million ETH. The average transaction fee on the network was $0.0926, up 11.84% from the previous week — a modest increase that suggested growing usage without the crippling congestion that would characterize later periods.

The Baseline Protocol: Enterprise Blockchains Public Turn

Perhaps the most consequential blockchain technology development of early 2020 was the unveiling of the Baseline Protocol in March, with its effects rippling through the enterprise sector throughout April. The project, a collaboration between EY, Microsoft, and ConsenSys, represented a fundamentally new approach to enterprise blockchain adoption.

Unlike previous enterprise blockchain initiatives that relied on private, permissioned networks, Baseline was designed to enable companies to use the public Ethereum mainnet for complex, confidential business processes — without storing sensitive data on-chain. John Wolpert, who led the initiative and had previously been part of the founding team of Hyperledger Fabric, was emphatic about what Baseline was not: This is not a platform. Its not a product. Its not a coin, a token. It is a way of using the main net (public Ethereum) that will be acceptable, we think, to very conservative corporate CSOs, CIOs, CTOs.

The timing was significant. While the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted traditional supply chains and business processes, the need for secure, decentralized coordination between enterprise systems became more apparent than ever. An EY survey found that 75% of enterprise executives exploring blockchain solutions were somewhat likely or very likely to use public blockchains in the future — a dramatic shift from the private-first mentality that had dominated enterprise blockchain strategy.

The Baseline Protocol leveraged zero-knowledge proofs and other privacy-preserving techniques to keep specific business data and process rules consistent across multiple enterprise systems — ERP, CRM, and other corporate infrastructure — while using the public Ethereum blockchain as a common coordination layer. This approach avoided the scalability and trust issues inherent in consortium chains while maintaining the confidentiality that enterprises required.

Ethereum 2.0: The Roadmap Takes Shape

April 2020 also saw significant progress on Ethereum 2.0, the networks long-anticipated transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. Fully-configured Eth2 testnets had gone live, clients were successfully syncing, and the ecosystem was producing educational resources to help validators prepare for staking.

The specifications were becoming concrete: validators would need to stake 32 ETH each, and the Beacon Chain would require 16,384 validators to launch — representing 524,288 ETH in total staked. The network promised a conservative estimate of 64x throughput improvement compared to Eth1, with rewards and penalties distributed every epoch, approximately every 6.5 minutes. Validators would need to serve the network for 2,048 epochs before being eligible to exit.

The Ethereum community was buzzing with preparation. Staking calculators, educational content, and client documentation proliferated, building confidence that Phase 0 of Eth2 would launch in 2020 — a milestone that would fundamentally reshape the networks technology and economics.

DeFi Infrastructure Matures

April 2020 represented a pivotal moment for decentralized finance on Ethereum. The total value locked in DeFi protocols exceeded $820 million, with MakerDAO alone holding 221,000+ ETH in its smart contracts. Uniswap was processing over $6 million in daily volume, while Kyber Network handled more than $4.3 million daily. The Compound protocol had completed five public security audits and maintained an 88% liquidity index for Dai according to DeFi Score.

These numbers, while modest compared to the DeFi explosion that would follow in the summer of 2020, demonstrated that the foundational infrastructure was solid and growing. The combination of reliable smart contract platforms, audited protocols, and increasing user adoption created the conditions for the DeFi summer that would transform Ethereum into the settlement layer for a new financial system.

Bitcoin Network Health

For context, Bitcoin also showed strong network health metrics in April 2020. The average hashrate reached 116.3 EH/s, up 7.09% from the previous week, while mining difficulty increased by 5.75% to 14.71T — both signs of a healthy and competitive mining ecosystem. The total number of Bitcoin addresses reached 47,536,373, growing by 259,823 (0.55%) in a single week. Average transaction fees on Bitcoin were $0.380, down 14.80% from the prior week. Average block size was 784.8KB, with 1,559 transactions per block.

Why This Matters

April 2020 was the month when blockchain technology proved its resilience under real-world stress. While traditional financial systems struggled with pandemic disruptions, Ethereum continued processing transactions, executing smart contracts, and serving as the foundation for a growing DeFi ecosystem. The Baseline Protocols introduction of public blockchain to conservative enterprise users was a paradigm shift, and the progress on Ethereum 2.0 gave the community confidence that the networks technical roadmap was achievable. These developments, happening simultaneously with Bitcoins pre-halving price recovery, set the stage for the explosive growth that would define the rest of 2020.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always conduct your own research before making investment decisions.