Ethereum (ETH) cryptocurrency exchange rate
Ethereum was founded by Vitalik Buterin 2013, but the cryptocurrency appeared only in 2015. The Ethereum blockchain became a real sensation, as it was the first network to realize the concept of smart contracts, proposed by cryptographer Niko Szabo back in 1994. By the way, the unit of Ether cryptocurrency — Szabo, which is equal to 0.000001 ETH — was even named in his honor.
Ethereum introduced a then-innovative standard for token creation known as ERC-20. Smart contract technology coupled with the ERC-20 standard allowed for the creation of an unlimited number of tokens used in the blockchain alongside the native Ethereum cryptocurrency. In addition, Ethereum developers introduced their programming language, Solidity, which allows the creation of smart contracts and decentralized applications (Dapps) based on their blockchain, which was also an innovation for the crypto market.
Ethereum (ETH) exchange rate in the early period (2014 - 2016)
The ETH cryptocurrency was initially distributed in an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) held between July 22 and September 2, 2014. During the ICO, the Ethereum team raised a then-record $18 million, with the value of the ETH cryptocurrency equal to $0.3.
It is noteworthy that the ETH cryptocurrency was sold even before the blockchain was launched, which took place only in July 2015. In other words, investors simply gave their funds in exchange for promises that were still fulfilled. The first listing of the ETH cryptocurrency took place in August of the same year, and at that time, the price of the ETH cryptocurrency was already $2.79 — about 9 times more compared to the price at the ICO. Less than a year later, the price of ETH reached a new high of $18.3, which was already 60 times the asset's value at the time of the initial sale.
Another significant but adverse event for Ethereum was the hack of The DAO in June 2016. The DAO platform raised $150 million on a crowd sale to fund the project. Still, an unknown hacker discovered an exploit in the protocol's smart contract and used it to withdraw about $50 million worth of DAO native tokens. This incident was the largest after the hack of the infamous Mt. Gox exchange in 2014. After The DAO hack, the value of ETH plummeted to $10.6 and $7.2 by the end of 2016 before resuming growth and later reaching new all-time highs (ATH).
As a result of the incident, the crypto community split into two camps: the first demanded to accept the attack's results and keep the blockchain protocol in its original form. In contrast, the second demanded to roll back the network and restore the lost funds. This case was unique for the crypto market, as the developers eventually conducted a controversial hard fork of the network, as a result of which the two blockchains continued to exist in parallel to each other:
- under the name Ethereum, a new blockchain began to function, which retained the state it had before The DAO hack;
- on the other hand, the original blockchain continued to operate under the name Ethereum Classic.
How the 2017-2022 crypto boom and crypto winter affected the Ethereum exchange rate
2017 was a pivotal year for the crypto industry. During this period, cryptocurrencies became world-famous, and they were regularly mentioned in major media outlets. During the same period, quotes of many cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, began to increase and reached new, unprecedented highs: first, the price of ETH rose to $370 in July 2017, and then in January 2018, it already reached a then-record $1397 according to CoinMarketCap.
One of the catalysts for the second major wave of growth was the notorious CryptoKitties game, which popularized non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — another standard (ERC-721) that allowed unique digital content, such as images and videos, to be tokenized on the blockchain. CryptoKitties became so popular that it even led to the suspension of Ethereum due to an excessive number of transactions. The developers of this blockchain game had to create their blockchain called Flow to solve the bandwidth issues of the current network.
After a period of rapid growth that lasted until January 2018, the cryptocurrency market began to plummet, and this lasted until March 2020. First, the ETH rate dropped to $380 in April, then to a yearly low at $84 as early as December - ~16 times relative to the last ATH. In February 2020, the ETH price rose to $284 but then collapsed to $114 amid news of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
New rally (2020 - 2021)
After the global crash of the stock and cryptocurrency markets in March 2020, cryptocurrency quotes began to recover quickly. Already in May 2021, the ETH exchange rate renewed its ATH at $4075 and in November at $4891, which is the current all-time high as of September 2024.
The last cycle (2022 - 2024)
After reaching a new high, the crypto market began a new phase of global correction, which lasted until the end of 2022, after which the ETH cryptocurrency started to recover again. Even the launch of the largest Ethereum upgrade to date (The Merge) in September 2022, which completely switched the blockchain from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, did not fix the situation. Following the release of The Merge, the price of the ETH cryptocurrency dropped from $1635 to $1276.
The last major update for Ethereum was Dencun, which reduced the cost of commissions in Layer 2 solutions (L2 networks) such as:
The Dencun update was released in March 2024. At that time, the price of the ETH cryptocurrency reached a local peak at $3881, maximally approaching its ATH. After that, it began to decline again amid the general decline of the crypto market. As of September 2024, ETH is trading at $2437 — that's almost half the historical peak.