The number of daily active users in the Ethereum ecosystem has surged nearly ninefold over the past four years, and analysts from VanEck predict that this growing demand could propel Ether (ETH) to new heights, reaching $22,000 by 2030.

Data from crypto ETF issuer Bitwise indicates that in the first quarter of 2020, there were over 250,000 daily active users across Ethereum and its scaling solutions, such as Arbitrum and Polygon, with the majority being on the Ethereum layer-1 mainnet. Fast forward to Q1 2024, and this figure has ballooned to around 2.25 million daily active users, a near ninefold increase. This growth now also includes layer-2 networks like Optimism, Base, and zkSync, which were launched after 2020.

On June 4, Ethereum’s mainnet recorded 378,000 active users, while Polygon had 1.3 million, and the other four layer-2 solutions combined posted approximately 1.5 million active users. Despite the smaller proportion of users directly on the Ethereum mainnet, this shift aligns with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s vision of utilizing L2s for scaling. Buterin has likened L2s to the sharding concept from the old Eth 2 plan and believes they will foster growth in various subcultures within the Ethereum ecosystem.

Meanwhile, VanEck, a prominent crypto ETF issuer, has significantly raised its price target for Ethereum, projecting that Ether could reach $22,000 by 2030. This is a substantial increase from their previous estimate of $11,800 last year. In a June 5 blog post, VanEck’s head of digital assets research, Matthew Sigel, along with two colleagues, attributed this optimistic outlook to Ethereum's high revenue per user, which surpasses most Web2 businesses. They also highlighted its growing popularity among traditional financial market participants and Big Tech.

“We anticipate that spot Ether ETFs are nearing approval to trade on U.S. stock exchanges. This development would allow financial advisors and institutional investors to hold this unique asset and benefit from the pricing and liquidity advantages characteristic of ETFs,” stated the analysts. They further projected ETH’s 2030 valuation based on a forecast of $66 billion in free cash flows generated by Ethereum and accruing to the ETH token.

Despite Ethereum’s smaller user base compared to layer-2 networks, Bankless co-founder Ryan Sean Adams emphasized that Ethereum still generates three times more in fees than the top layer-2 networks and Solana combined, calling it a “modern miracle.” Layer-2 solutions pay fees to Ethereum to settle transactions on the main chain, benefiting from its robust security.

Currently, Ether is priced at $3,862, showing a 1.3% increase over the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Many in the market expect that the approval of spot Ether ETFs could push ETH to new all-time highs, though some caution that the inflows into these new crypto ETFs may be significantly lower compared to Bitcoin ETFs.